Page 13 of Amadeo (Dark Legends #4)

Amadeo

I decided that I was tired of being kept in the dark about this.

“If I don’t know what is really happening, then maybe you should tell me.

” I stepped closer to Gia and put my arm around her shoulder as I stared at my father.

“Whatever you plan to do, you need to rethink it. If you fire Gia, then I walk.”

My father stared back at me and asked, “Walk?”

I nodded. “Right out of this house and I will not return.”

His eyes narrowed at me. “You would do that for this woman?”

I nodded. “Unless you can tell me why you think she helped her patient escape and...” I glanced at Gia to see her real fear now. “...You also need to tell me why she suddenly looks so afraid of you.” I looked back over at him.

“We do not have time for this!” my father yelled. “Deacon is free. Do you hear me?”

I shook my head. “He cannot get off the property. He also cannot do harm to anyone right now. The men will find him. Although, I’m not sure who could have carried him—”

“Has anyone seen him?” Valencia asked as she came rushing in.

We looked over at her.

“Did you help with this?” my father asked her.

Halting, she stared at him. “If I had, I wouldn't be standing here, would I?”

“We haven’t gotten any news,” I told her.

“Tito is out looking,” Valencia said. “Along with his brother and a few of the men.” She stared at Gia. “Could this harm his health? I mean his condition?”

“I’m not sure, but if he overdoes it, yes,” Gia replied. “He could possibly be harmed.”

Valencia wrung her hands together. “How could this have happened?”

My father scoffed. “Someone planned it well,” he said as he looked over at Gia and me.

“Ok, Father.” I glared at him. “How could Gia have planned this? Deacon just woke up and who does she know here that she could get to come in and haul him off?”

Gia nodded. “In addition, he is my patient and now I cannot tend to him as I had planned. He needed therapy and some tests run. This escape may cause him harm and I do no harm.”

“But not your whole family feels that way, do they?” Stephano asked.

Blinking at him in anger, she replied. “They are not doctors, Mr. Descalia. They haven’t taken an oath.

But if YOUR family wouldn't have hurt my—” She halted as if she realized she was revealing too much.

She bit at her lip then went on in a softer tone, “I deny this accusation of complicity in his escape as it would harm my patient. Also, my family had nothing to do with his escape. They are not here on the estate.”

Looking thoroughly confused, Valencia looked back and forth at them. “What are you two talking about? What does your family have to do with this?”

“Yes, I want an answer to that as well,” I spoke up.

“Your nurse did seem to be in on it,” my father accused.

Shaking her head, Gia sighed. “I have no idea why. I mean she—”

“She probably knew Mr. Descalia planned on killing him,” Valencia simply came out and said it.

My father looked over at her to ask in a seething tone, “Do you know what he did?”

Valencia nodded. “Yes, I have been shown the list of my brother’s crimes. But you cannot mean to shoot down an unarmed, ill man.”

“Listen to me, mia cara,” my father told her. “He is very dangerous, armed or not. He has attempted to murder my family members. I am sorry that he is your brother, but I cannot allow someone that has harmed my family to simply GO FREE!” He raised his voice.

I noted that as he said this, Gia’s body went rigid and tense as she ducked away from underneath my arm. I looked over at her.

She glanced away.

I shook my head. “Someone needs to tell me the truth here,” I said as I raised my gaze to look at my father.

Valencia started to cry.

“Crap,” I said. “Tito is going to kick our asses.” I stepped over and took Valencia’s arm.

“Something happened that we are unaware of, Valen. But whoever did this wasn’t out to harm your brother.

Plus, he took the nurse with them. So, she knows what to do to help him.

” I raised my gaze to my father’s angry stare.

“That is probably why the nurse went along with them. She knew he needed care.”

“That makes more sense than her being in on it,” Gia agreed. “Nurse Jocelyn has great credentials. Meaning, her record is impeccable. She would do that very thing for a patient.”

My father sighed as he shook his head. “Your credentials are also impeccable, Dr. Ribisi. However, we know that it would serve you best for Deacon to be free, would it not?”

Gia raised her chin up at him. “And because of those very credentials I would NEVER mess with a patient’s safety like this. He’d just barely woken up from a coma.”

I again looked back and forth. How on earth would Deacon being free benefit her?

It was more than obvious that my father knew things I did not.

Then again, I wanted Gia to tell me herself.

Just now however, I needed to help Valencia.

She was full out crying now. Tito was out on the search and he couldn’t be present.

I had never let my cousins down and I did not plan to start now.

I turned to Gia and asked, “Can you come with us? I’m going to take Valen to the kitchen where Zia can get her some tea. ”

Gia paused and looked over at me. “Yes, I can go with you.”

“I needed to have a discussion with Dr. Ribisi,” my father spoke up as he had shuttered his expression to that typical blank he used to take care of business.

I turned my head to glare at him. “Not alone, you won’t.

I can see there are things here I am unaware of.

But I can also see that whatever it is, you Father, are a danger to Gia.

If that is so, I should be present when you speak to her.

” I grabbed her hand as I took a crying Valencia’s elbow and went out the door, down the hall.

All the while, I could feel my fathers angry gaze scoring a hole through my back.

“He’s going to be furious,” Gia murmured quietly.

“I don’t care,” I replied as we made our way quietly to the lower floor.

I intended to talk to her about whatever this was the first chance I got.

I wouldn’t allow my father to bully the woman I—my thoughts slowed down.

Loved? I pushed that away as I couldn’t even get the woman to tell me the truth yet.

But I suppose I was falling in love with her.

Falling for a woman who basically hated me.

Not smart but as I said before only fools fall in love.

When we entered the kitchen, Zia looked up at us. “Deo, why are you…” She spotted Valencia’s tears. “Oh, dios mio. Deacon?” She looked worried.

“He’s okay, we think?” Gia told her.

Zia’s concerned gaze swung over to Gia. “You think? Cosa intendi? You are his doctor and you do not know?”

I sat Valencia down in a chair and told my aunt, “He escaped.”

Zia was setting the teapot onto the table. Upon hearing this, silverware clattered to the table from her other hand. “He is in a coma, figlio. He could not escape.”

I nodded as I pulled out a chair for Gia as I tried to explain it all, “He woke up earlier. Then someone came in and grabbed him up, he also took the nurse.”

Zia’s eyes widened. “Oh, my…”

Gia sat down and she looked worried. “Nurse Jocelyn knows what to do but if he needs oxygen or…” She shook her head.

Valencia was wiping her cheeks with a tissue Zia gave her. “You think he…” She swallowed heavily as if she couldn’t finish the thought.

I sat down and tried to comfort Valencia as I patted her hand. “Whoever took him surely wouldn't want to harm him.” I paused and it hit me that the suspects who could have done this had to be very few. “Who could have managed this though? And why?”

Zia was setting our tea cups in front of us as she said, “The property is locked up tight, Deo. We did have the carpet layers in though. They were working in the second living room.”

“I’m sure that they have total clearance,” I replied. “Knowing Rocky, they would have to be squeaky clean to even get through the front doors here.” I pushed the sugar bowl over to Gia.

She stared at it, then up at me. “How did you know?”

I chuckled. “About the sugar, you mean?”

Nodding, she lifted the top off of the small china bowl and grabbed her spoon.

“Well, it seems there are many things I have yet to find out,” I told her. “But I did note what you liked in your tea at lunch the other day.”

Zia smiled at me as she sat down with us and reached over to pat Valencia’s hand. “Deo is right, whoever took him doesn’t mean him any harm, tesoro.”

“I know but he wasn’t well, Zia,” she replied as she raised her cup with a shaky hand and blew on it.

“The nurse is with him,” I again tried to comfort her.

Nodding, she took a sip of her tea. “I just never saw this coming.”

“The escape?” I asked.

Valencia shrugged and said, “All of it. Him in a coma, coming here. Then him being threatened by…” She raised her head and paused to stare at my aunt. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry, tesoro?” Zia asked her.

“Becuase it is your brother that wishes to harm him,” Valencia replied. “And I know Deacon isn’t entirely a good man, but he is still my brother.”

Zia smirked as she raised her cup to her lips and said, “I could say the same.”

I looked over at her and actually chuckled.

That was clever but true. Her brother Stephano Descalia was a family man and he was good to the people he trusted.

But cross him and any goodness he possessed slipped away.

I happened to know he did plan on ending Deacon Walker.

Hell, we all knew that. But I again wondered if this could cause a huge uncrossable rift in our family.

Valencia wouldn’t stay here if my father made good on that killing.

And that meant Tito would leave. I could see how in love he was with Valencia and I had no doubt he would side with her. I would if it were me.

“We would do a lot for our siblings,” Gia said and took another sip of her tea. “Even make deals with the devil.” As she said it her hand trembled and she had to set her teacup down on the saucer.

I looked over at her and paused. Siblings? “Holy shit…” It dawned on me suddenly as I turned to stare at Gia. “Ribisi. Ella Ribisi!”

She dropped her tea cup with a crash to the floor as her hands shook badly now. Slowly looking up at me, she hissed, “So now you remember her!”

I stared at her. “Yes, but I only knew her briefly.”

“Yes, that is true,” she replied in an angry tone. “Brief enough to fool her to get what you wanted. Then you walked away!”

We all stared at her in utter confusion.

Puzzled, I sat back in my chair and said, “I met her once. Just once.”

Gia shook her head. “You were involved with her.”

“I was not,” I instantly denied this. “Claudio introduced her to me and I shook her hand. I was with her for three damn minutes.”

“No, she said you and her were in love and after just ten days, you two got engaged. She showed me the ring.”

Shocked at this total fantasy, I shook my head. “I was in Italy for three days. Someone had to have …” I took a deep breath and halted. “This is about the crime you think I committed? The horrible thing I supposedly did?”

Nodding, tears shimmered in her eyes.

Reaching for her hand, I told her, “I can prove that I wasn’t there beyond three days if I have to. But you need to look into my eyes and hear me.”

Gia swiped at her tears and looked up at me.

I gazed right into her tear filled eyes and told her, “I never dated your sister. I never touched her except to shake her hand politely in a nightclub. I left soon after and I flew home the next day.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “B-but she told me your name. All your plans and the ring. Then before we were due to leave, she couldn’t find you anywhere. She searched the hotel where you took her as you said you were just visiting from another province there.”

“Gia, that wasn’t me. It was never me.” I growled under my breath. “It was Claudio Cadanza.”

Zia had been silent as she was sweeping up the tea cup shards. Her head snapped up as she exclaimed in panic, “No, tell me that isn’t true!”

I shrugged and concluded, “It has to be. He used my name and pretended to be me. He was that type to run around, dating women at the drop of a hat.” I looked from Gia to my aunt.

“He is a distant cousin on my father’s side.

I barely knew him or any of the family there actually.

But even I knew the stories about him and women. ”

“Oh no, nooo.” Zia looked upset as her eyes filled with tears while she stared at Gia. “That was your sister?”

I studied my aunt's shocked face then I looked back over at Gia.

“Y-yes,” Gia replied to her question.

Zia looked a bit ashen as she slowly shook her head and made the sign of the cross over herself. “Santa Madre di Maria.!” Holy Mother of Mary . “I am so sorry, Gia… so sorry.”

My stomach tightened as I got the feeling that this was about to get bad. Really bad.