Daring Delfina's Heart

In The Garage

Ruggero was in his grandfather’s study and his parents were sitting there, all of them staring at the ugly portrait which had been on the wall but now leaned against it. They’d been trying to unlock the safe for the better part of an hour.

“Didn’t Delfina say there were hidden compartments in his desk?”

“Did she mean this one or the one in the garage?”

“I’ve been in the garage. I couldn’t find a desk or an office.”

His siblings going back and forth were causing his head to throb. “He was a crafty bastard. If there are hidden compartments in this desk, he’s making it impossible to find. Let’s go to the garage find some hammers and start taking this thing apart.”

The group started to the door when Olympia’s whimper as she paused at the portrait made them all pause.

“She lied, Mom,” Perla tried to console her mom. “She is hiding a pregnancy, maybe to try to get money and the best way to do it is to sow seeds of discord.”

Ruggero watched however as his mother kept shooting glances at her husband and he knew she was contemplating Delfina’s words. She echoed Perla’s thoughts. “Mom, she lied.”

“Did she?” She looked at her husband of nearly forty years. “You and I were in the same school for a long time, and you never once looked in my direction.”

He watched as his father rubbed his chin, a spattering of stubble forming across his jaw. It was coming in quite grey now and his father over the last several months was showing he was getting older. Not old. Just older. Tonight though, he appeared to have aged years. “Dad?”

“It was the truth. My mother instructed me to win Olympia over and make her my wife because Dad needed the in with Ercole.” He looked to his wife who seemed shattered at his words, “but within a few weeks of dating you, I was all in. You, Olympia, are my world. You have been. Do you remember the day we went to the park, and you wanted to do the paddle boats. Do you remember how hard we laughed that day? It was that day I fell head over heels in love with you. While my initial intent was at my mother’s behest, the rest, baby was all you and I love you. Regardless of what your father held onto, my intentions the day I proposed to you were all love.”

She stepped into his open arms and sobbed against his chest.

“You know what,” Ruggero looked at his sisters, “let’s leave them to chat this out. Let’s go find tools to dismantle this thing.”

They made their way into the oversized garage which housed six different vehicles, all of them worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He considered his grandfather might have been a massive dickhead, but he had great taste in cars. Cars and women, he amended as he thought of the gorgeous brunette from the diner who’d thrown them all for a loop. Hearing her say she enjoyed having s*x with his nasty-assed old grandfather nearly made his dinner come back up and in the same breath he was strangely curious and more than a bit desperate to prove he was the better lover. Surely, he could give her better than the old man. He knew he was a far sight better looking.

Shaking the nasty thought away, he noted the workbench on the far side of the garage and headed to it and then

“Do you really think Grandfather told Delfina all that stuff during pillow-talk?” Ernestina questioned as she pushed around a car to come stand beside him.

He lifted a hammer and passed it to her and then started looking for something a bit weightier. “I will never understand the attraction.”

“What if he blackmailed her and she was forced to put out? I know we said blackmail before but what if it wasn’t her blackmailing him but him extorting her.”

“It’s possible.”

“She said he was good at s*x,” Perla jumped and spun on a short stool near him. “I mean, I saw him once when he was getting out of the swimming pool out back a few years ago and he was stacked. His physique would make you look fat, Rugg, but his face was ugly.”

“So was his heart and soul. He was a mean son of a b***h. He didn’t even go to his first wife’s funeral saying there was a business deal to tend to.” Ruggero shook his head, “and while we don’t like her very much, he likely put Delfina through hell the last three years and he left her nothing. Not a thing. He could have given her something.”

“Do you think she’s really pregnant?”

“If she is, we’ll insist on paternity tests and we’ll fight her every step of the way if she wants to take what isn’t hers to take.” He frowned as he noted a black button on the side of the workbench. “What does this do?”

“Don’t push it. Knowing him it will release nerve gas or something in the event someone tries to steal his cars.”

He laughed as he pushed it carelessly, “nah. He would do such things from a secret lair, not right here while he’s standing next to it.” His eyebrows drew upright as the entire wall of the bench slid sideways. “Well color me surprised.” There was a flight of stairs behind the workbench descending into a bunker of some kind. He noted the panel of lights and turned them on, and it lit only the stairs. “Perla, go get Mom and Dad. They can kiss and make up later. God only knows what is down here.”

He descended the stairs and the first thing he noted was the scent. Ernestina coughed and then pulled her blouse up over her face. At the bottom of the stairs another panel and he turned it on and immediately the sound of an air exchanger kicking on filled the air.

“It smells like blood,” Ernestina muttered behind her shirt.

He noted on the far wall of the bunker-type room there was a door and right beside it was a desk. In front of the desk was a chair. As he flicked more lights on, he looked around and felt his stomach roll. “Jesus, it smells like blood because I’m pretty sure it is blood.” He pointed to the floor under the chair opposite the desk. “Did he beat someone up down here?”

“I feel like he did more than beat someone.”

Slowly with the air exchange running the scent which sat stale and stagnant for eight weeks was dissipating but the lingering coppery smell rested on their palates. He walked to the desk and sat in the oversized leather chair, and he shot his sister a smirk, “why did he need a chair this big? He must have looked like a little boy sitting in this.” His smirk fell off as he opened one of the side drawers expecting to find files and instead found himself gagging at the sight and slamming it shut so his sisters didn’t see it. He grabbed the wastepaper bin and threw up, sweat dotting his forehead. Delfina hadn’t been kidding. Fingers. The drawer was full of fingers in various forms of decomposition.

“What’s in the drawer, Ruggero?” Ernestino rubbed his shoulder.

“Body parts.”

“No.”

“I saw fingers. I don’t know what else is in there, but I don’t want to look again.”

“Should we call the police?”

“What’s going on?” their father’s voice called as he stepped into the space. “Is that blood on the floor?”

“Probably goes with the drawer full of f*****g fingers,” Ruggero motioned to the drawer. “I’m afraid to open the other drawers.”

His father took a breath, “why the hell was he collecting fingers?”

Ernestina pulled a black book sitting atop the desk towards her. “He was a bookie or a loan shark or whatever the proper term is. Look at this. He was meticulous with his records.”

“How far back does it go?” Perla poked over her shoulder, “Ruggero, you’re really pale.”

“What part of a drawer full of smelly, rotting fingers did you miss?” his stomach was rolling.

“I need to see.”

“No, you don’t.”

He stared at his sister like she was insane and yet the woman paid him no mind, pulling the drawer open with gusto. She picked up one of the several plastic sandwich bags and she shook it, “the ring is still on it. Do we call this in?”

“I think we should.” He nodded as his throat closed off unable to look at her.

“No.” His father shook his head. “If he was running an illegal organization, it’s done now. We’ll get rid of the evidence down here but for the love of god, let sleeping dogs lie. Let’s forget this ever happened. Grab the book. Is there anything else in the drawers?”

Ruggero opened up the other drawers and pulled out a lock box and several files. He also pulled out a handgun, a knife, a pair of tin snippers and a handsaw and set the on the desktop motioning to his father. “What the hell was he involved in?”

“We need to talk to Delfina, again.” Eusebio said quietly. “Without jumping down her throat, throwing wild accusations or calling her names. We need to know what the hell was happening?”

“Um, Dad?” Ernestino held up the book. “There’s a line in here from three years ago with the name Nek Poletti, for two million dollars. It says collateral business, and then in the repayment line, it simply says paid in full and the initials DP and EM.”

They all exchanged glances and then looked to the baggy with the fingers in it.

“Holy s**t, my father took her as a payment.” Olympia’s legs gave out as she crumpled to the blood-stained floor.

Ruggero wondered what the hell he and his family stumbled upon and more importantly how the woman from the diner survived the fuckery of it all. Suddenly giving her money for having a baby seemed the least of his worries. What the hell had she gone through? He studied the handsaw with the blood on the teeth and shuddered.

He was going to find out. One way or another, he was going to find out what his grandfather did to the woman he called his wife.