The Don's Doctor

Can You Forgive Me?

Chiara's POV

I must have dozed off, because when I woke up I saw my father sitting next to me on a vanity stool. We are in total contrast. My neck is a sunset of purple and navy blue, whereas my father’s face is as grey as flaky ash. Alarmed, I assumed that his heart was the cause of his discomfort, and I struggled to sit up, and take his pulse.

“Are you feeling well, papa?” Concern laces my question, while I am simultaneously working out how I will get him to hospital, when Don Vincent has literally pulled him from his bed.

“I’m better for seeing you, dearest. It’s time I was honest with you. I need to explain to you how I became involved with the family, and what really happened to your mother. I hope you can forgive all my years of deceit. Please just listen to what I need to tell you, let me get to the end of it before you speak or ask me questions.” He kisses my head, as if it is the last time he will be able to, and a wave of nausea sweeps over me as he begins.

A few hours later, when I reflect on the memory he shared with me, and having had the time to process all the information, certain details seem more significant. Over decades, some stories aren’t remembered very clearly when time has chiseled away the edges, smoothed them into a softer version of the event, knowing your mind would be cut too deeply by the jagged truths, but the details of the day my mother died were as clear as ever in my papa’s mind. Unfortunately, I wish I’d have stopped him mid-confession, and clung onto the smoother version, because after my dad had told me the truth, the only way to bear it was to disconnect. My body was already too badly injured to bear a s***h so fatal to the mind as well.

It was the year that my father had qualified as a GP. He had decided to take my mama on the honeymoon that they should have had when they were first married, but didn’t have the funds to make a reality. My mother was an incredible wife, and had used to support his studies by taking on two jobs, and all the hard work he had infused into his career was their joint effort. They both deserved luxury. I had been three months short of my first birthday, so I was being looked after by my nonna, my mama’s mother. My parents flew to Sicily, and my father had hired a little villa for them to stay in. At the last minute, the travel agent had been very apologetic, but had told my father that there had been a double booking and the accommodation was no longer available. Instead, they offered a yacht that would be fully staffed, insisting that all expenses would be paid off by the company as a gesture of goodwill. With luxury on offer, and very few other choices, my papa accepted the switch with good grace. After all, it was a once in a lifetime upgrade.

On the first night, the weather was gentle, the food sublime, and the mood enchanting. The staff were discrete, and that night my parents enjoyed the stillness of the world, stargazing while wrapped in each other’s arms. They agreed that this mistake had been good luck on their side of the deal. The following day, they explored a hidden beach, swam and laughed until the day cooled, and they returned to the boat. They only had a light supper, still full from their afternoon feast. Other yachts were nearby, someone was playing music, and once again the atmosphere was idyllic. Meanwhile, the young couple were deciding what to do the next day, wondering what their daughter would be up to, hoping a phone would be available to call her from a nearby town. They were discussing all this from the bow of the yacht, looking out at the other ships and boats on the sea.

My father explained how he felt his wife’s body thud into his own long before he heard the explosion of the bullet crack through the evening. Shattering their future with one lone explosion. There were other sounds, and their boat had returned fire, and the casing was bouncing off the deck. With deep breaths and a shaky voice, my papa explained how they had both tumbled to the ground when the first shot soared. Cecilia, my mother, was thrown backwards by the force of the impact. My father wouldn’t let go of her. Watching a red dot appear on his wife’s chest, it bloomed, petal after petal emerging. Red. Ruby. Crimson. Fatally flourishing over her dress, the pale blue fabric sodden with blood that was sticky on his palms, he was pressing his hands against the bullet wound to stem the flow. It was futile. She had gone. No final words. No last messages of love. Her heart stopped beating, and he only knew he hadn’t died as well, because the pain in his own heart was too exquisite to be anything other than the emotional anguish of loss. Music had been replaced by screams, and the songs had their endings cut short. Calling over the waves that hadn’t stopped even though his world was ending, while my papa held his tattered soul in his arms, one lone voice called out.

“Death to Benedetti!”

My father’s scream of hopelessness made the waves retreat.

After they had returned to shore, and the police had prised my mama from my papa’s arms, a numb, undirected anger filled the gap where his adoration for his wife had been. Determined to find satisfaction to sooth his sorrow, he walked to the villa that he and his wife should have been staying in. Realising who he had switched with too late to be of use, he needed vengeance. At the door were two men, suited, with shoes shiny enough to see his reflection in.

“My wife has died in place of somebody in this house. I need… I need…to speak to someone.” He told them, unafraid of the consequences.

Opening the door, he followed the bodyguards into a living room, where one lone man paced across a roaring fire. He seemed to be a similar age to my papa, my father told me as an afterthought, it was a slight similarity that he noticed, between two men whose morality was so contrasting.

“He has arrived.” The guard announced, and my father realised they had been waiting for him.

The man stared at him, looking at his bloody shirt.

“I’m sorry for the murder of your wife. Have you come here for revenge? Have you come to take my life?” He asked, opening his arms as if to invite the desperate doctor to take his pound of flesh.

“I don’t know… I came for answers… Why is she dead?”

My papa explained how Vincent’s father had gestured for the men to leave, then he took hold of his elbow and led him to the nearby chair. Removing his gun, Don Benedetti Senior placed it on the table between them, and sat in the seat opposite to the mourning husband. Unconcerned that the gun was within my father’s reach, he crossed one leg over the other and poised his fingertips together.

“My family wanted to holiday with me, but I had to conduct business while I was here. To balance the time-out fairly, I decided to host a conference. My yacht was too small so I persuaded the travel agent to give me this villa and offered you my boat. The assassination attempt was meant for me, conducted by American ruffians, who think I am after their turf. They have no honour. You don’t have to believe me, but I would never have ordered the swap if I thought there was any danger.”

My father believed him, but still he wasn’t satisfied.

“Don Benedetti, I must ask for a favour from you. I want my wife’s killers to pay for what they have done.”

Saying nothing, he stood up, and directed my father to a cellar. Strapped to the wall were two bloodied, exhausted and terrified men. They were dangling like carcasses in a butcher’s shop. He could feel Don Benedetti assessing him, watching as he processed the gory, grotesque and godless scene.

“You don’t flinch when you see blood?” The Don observed, inquisitively.

“I’m a doctor.” My father answered, automatically.

“These are the men responsible for your wife’s death. What do you want me to do with them?”

“Kill them!” My father answered, dispassionately.

He was too grieved to think of the implications of his words, and the impact that they would have on his future and the future of his child. How his one desire that was expressed aloud would change the course of his life.

“If I did such a big favour, I would need more from you in return.” The Don proposed.

“You can have whatever you like, but they can’t be breathing when my wife is in the morgue.” He affirmed his original instruction.

Luca stepped out of the shadows and dispatched them all. My father said he felt nothing, but knew that whatever price was asked of him, it was a fair deal. He has worked as their doctor ever since. Saving men that other families wanted dead.

When my father looked up at me, I saw the conviction of his choices was ingrained into his expression. All my life I had thought of him as a hero, but he wasn’t as perfect as I had believed.

“It’s my fault that Barone hurt you. He knows I am the doctor of this family. He saw your name, and exacted his revenge. Can you forgive me?” My father asked, but I had no words.

I laid back down and turned away from him.