The Don's Doctor

The Manhattan Manoeuvre

Vincent's POV

Making my way towards the office, I was cursing myself for forgetting about the mirror. Of course, it had been originally installed to elevate the experiences I had with the women I would bring home, but lately, it has acted more as a confessional. I would look at my reflection and not recognise the man I had become. My sins would play out, casting shadows on my face, and all I could do was watch them, before I could bear it no longer and turned away.

My desire to turn back and gaze in the mirror as I held Chiara in my arms, was like a physical magnet pulling me to her. I wonder if that is her secret power, to let me get lost in her reflection and never emerge. It seems like a good way to fade from this world, but not until the loose ends of this life are tied up.

Waiting in my office were Renzo, Luca, and a very ashamed-looking Federico. As exposed as I had felt under Chiara’s gaze, I had set my expression back into its unreasonable state. Renzo and I had long wondered how my father had found this unassuming, humble doctor. We had known him since we had been children, and he had always taken care of all our health needs from chicken pox to stomach flu, so we had never asked how he had appeared in our lives, he had always just been there. My father probably would have told me when he decided to make me Don in his place, but these were the snippets of information that his untimely death had robbed from us. Luca, undoubtedly, would know more about it, but I had never thought to ask him about the old doctor who came when he called. Evidently, Barone had been motivated by anger and sorrow when he had turned on Chiara, he hadn’t even heard me enter the room. Given his final words to me, it was clear he had a vendetta against Federico, and his price was his daughter. Next time, we could expect him to be more calculative, but such hatred was harboured and nurtured over time, and only Federico would know what had motivated his actions.

As consigliere, Luca’s word was accepted without doubt, it was a privilege of his position. When we considered that Federico might have supplied information about my parents' whereabouts to our enemies on the night that they died, it was wavered away in passing that the doctor felt a great deal of loyalty towards my father, who had helped him many years ago, and therefore it would be unlikely that he would besmirch his promises to my family. Luca had been dubious about the Doctor’s virtues, and it was one of our first disagreements. Looking at Federico now, he seemed smaller than I had ever noticed before. Hunched over, he seemed old and exhausted and the rational side of my brain tried to remind me that he had had heart surgery only days ago. The irrational side of my mind could only see the secrets and lies pressing down on the doctor’s shoulders. I wondered if the loyalty he had assured me was certain, was actually an assumption of the past. Had Luca been right to doubt him?

“Why did Barone attack Chiara when he read her last name?” I ask, shocking my second by personally leading the interrogation.

The doctor shuffles his feet, his eyes are fixed on my father’s rug where a replica of the Sistine Chapel had been woven into the design.

“You know how my wife died, and what your father did for me?” Luca nods, but I keep my face impassive. “Eight years later, the Manhattan Manoeuvre happened, where your father overpowered the last of the contending families. It was the night that built the empire that you rule over now. Luca had stationed me in a butcher’s shop on the street behind where the battle was taking place. I was helping our soldiers as best as I could, patching them up and sending them back out, or operating on them and trying to save them.” He stopped talking, transfixed by his own memories.

Despite the fact that I was stood in front of him, he turned to Luca, who was my father’s second at the time.

“Do you remember how bad it was that night? The streets were soaked in blood.” Luca moves his hand in a circular motion, ushering him to continue, reluctant to recall the details of the night.

“Someone brought in a woman, she’d been shot in the stomach. They thought she was a civilian. I knew exactly who she was, Barone senior’s wife, the mother of Niccolo. I could hear her husband screaming for her on the street. I could have helped her, I could have given her a little more time so that she had a chance to reach the hospital, but I shook my head and lied. I said I couldn’t do anything for her. Why should he have his wife, when he had ripped mine from this world? Later, I heard she had died on the way to the hospital. Barone came to visit me the following month. He had heard what I had done. He told me that he wouldn’t kill me, because my pain needed to be deeper and more profound. When I had someone that I would die for a thousand times over, he would rip them from my world, like I had done to his wife. I never saw him again. That night, I enrolled my daughter in a boarding school, so no one would know about her. When she returned, I told her to use my wife’s maiden name, but she refused. She wanted people to know she was a doctor, just like her father. The stress of it all has nearly killed me.”

Both Renzo and Luca’s mouths are hanging open in shock. My jaw ticks in fury. She had been a target for much longer than she had realised. All that he had done to create distance between himself and Chiara was futile. They know about her now. She had boasted about her father, because she loved the man she thought saved people. Instead, he was the man who sent a woman to her death to satisfy his own rage.

“We do not harm women and children in this family, we do not exploit those who have no-one to defend them. Your actions have tarnished our family name, and you must have known this because you have kept it a secret for all these years.” I hear the undertone in my voice shaking as I try to control the fury I feel. “Nobody in this room will tell her about what you have done. Let her hate us, rather than ruin this illusion she has of you by letting her know that you are a killer, just like we are killers. Tell her that it happened because they know you work for us, she has come to that conclusion herself anyway.” I direct my last order to Federico.

He pushes himself off the chair, looking more weighted with grief than he was before. I wonder if this was what knowing us had made him become. He wasn’t born to this world, and his natural inclination was to help people. Despite this, he had somehow managed to do something so cruel that three hardened criminals felt our souls run cold.

Luca waits until the door clicks shut, then lowers his head into his palms.

“I had no idea. After his wife’s death he always seemed devastated, but not deranged. When Barone senior’s wife died in a cross-fire, we acknowledged the tragedy of it, wondered why she had been there in the first place, but accepted that it was part of our life. Barone never mentioned Federico, because, by the code, we would have had to hand him over to them. Clearly, his son is intent on retribution.”

“Do you think the father told his son before he died?” Renzo asks Luca.

“He wouldn’t have had to, he was there. He had run into the fight looking for his dad, and that was the only reason that his mother ran into it too. She was trying to reach her son.”

Years of worry and concern had chiseled across Luca’s face, since he had heard the confession. He seemed frail with the new information, but that was understandable. The way he had remembered an event had been completely repainted, and no doubt little details were suddenly making sense amid the chaos.

“We can’t predict the actions of others, we can only react to their choices. It must be contained now. I will not have Chiara at risk.” I reply.

Renzo stares out of the window, arms folded in his usual manner, muscles stretching the fabric of his jacket.

“Say it!” I command, knowing he wouldn’t speak without permission.

“You can’t be with her, Vincent. This life will ruin her. Two wives killed for loving men like us, Barone’s mother and yours. We have to be the generation that breaks the cycle. You can’t love her, Vincent. It would kill her.” Renzo turns to see how his words have landed, but fixes me with a stare so that I know he is serious.

I take a deep breath, allowing the misery to be absorbed into my body.

“I know I can’t be with her, old friend. She is an angel, lost in hell. As for loving her, that’s too late. The moment I saw her, she healed the pain in my soul, she is the balm to my torment. She’ll never know how I feel, and that will be what I deserve, to never have what I want most in the world. We will protect her at any cost. She will be an angel watched over by demons, and by not having her I will obliterate that cycle.”

A smile of solidarity evened out Renzo’s glib expression. He didn’t need to tell me, I knew he would support me. He is my brother first before my second, so I knew he would protect the woman I love.

“Luca, what did happen to Chiara’s mother?”

Lifting his head, he raised his arms in a hopeless expression.

“It was a tragic accident,” he began.