Into the Darkness: a mafia love story

Arianna POV: 

I turned the letter over and ran my finger over the ink of her writing. My name was spelled out there waiting for me, it echoed her voice in my ear. I didn't think twice, desperate to have another conversation with her. To know why she did what she did, what she had to say, get a shred of advice from her. 

Arianna, 

Oh, my darling, I cannot explain with words the great hope I have that you never read this. Perhaps my luck lasts long enough, and you are old and gray with a life well lived, having found this amongst my things. Perhaps it turns out how I fear every day it might. 

I should have told you when you turned 18, explained it all. Prepared you for the man we ran from. Your father is the greatest regret of my life, the one saving grace is he brought me my daughters, but even so, I realize the good it would have been to turn him in all those years ago. I should have gone to the federal police shown them what I knew, but I was too scared they would take you away from me. I had already used up my courage when we left. I didn't have it in me to battle some more. 

The truth of the matter is your father is a mafioso, a monster. In every sense of the word, he's killed, tortured, extorted, harassed, and drugged. When I discovered his newfound success came from back alley deals, cheating, and threats, I told him I would leave if he didn't stop. He told me the only way out was with a bullet. The cold way he said it wiped away all of the nights I had spent in his arms. Every moment where I had seen good in him, loved him to be the great man who protected and provided, it was like he had pulled back the curtain in one swift move and revealed his identity. 

I got a PI and hired him to tail your father, he found some evidence of murder and connected it back to your father. I held this over him so that when we left, he left us alone. I tried to take Guilia and tried to fight for her, but your father threatened to come for you in the middle of the light, so I stopped. I was scared I had angered him, so again, I reached out to the Private Investigator I asked him to look into anything he could find anything to keep us safe. What he found kept us away from your father for however long we've had. 

I don't know if it's enough some days, I watch the news and hear ramblings about fires, explosions, and shootings. I wonder how much of it he has a hand in. 

I pray you read this in time and stay away from your father. Don't let him in, or he'll never leave, it took a miracle for us to get away the first time. I don't think another one will come around. 

Go anywhere else that you can, find someone good who tells you the truth. Who keeps you safe and does the right thing. If you do find out that I've hidden this all from you, understand I did what I did to keep you safe, not just your body but your mind and your soul. I didn't want my daughter to grow up in fear, I wanted you to be sure of yourself and independent, and my god, you are. You're magnificent, Arianna. 

The strength you have is one that fills me with pride. You move so surely, and you don't take the good for granted. You're too wise for such a young person, sometimes, I think you know more than me. I love you, my darling, I hope you forgive my falsities and remember the life we had, please stay safe. 

 Mama 

That was all she had left me. I held the pages to my chest and breathed in and out. She did have more on him, but it wasn't in here. I felt as if she had risen from the grave and hugged me like she had tucked me in one last time. 

I chastised myself for the fury I had for her when I first discovered the truth. She had done the right thing and let me be a child, if I had grown up knowing, I would have been an entirely different person, and I wouldn't have found Giovanni. In fact, I may not have made it this far at all. 

"What does it say?" He brushed a tear from my eye, his hand warm on my leg. 

"She does have more information on him, but it doesn't say what or where she hid it, and it wasn't in the folder I had found," I told him. 

"But it is somewhere, and I don't think they found it," Luca interjected from behind us. 

I turned to face him. "What do you mean?" 

He gestured to the mess covering the room. "The whole house is torn apart, every single room. If they had found it, they would have stopped, but they didn't," 

My body felt lighter under that assumption. If my father did have that information, he wouldn't be watching this house either, I tucked the letter into my purse and took off her earrings, hiding them. We went back to the car, leaving the house the mess it was. 

I looked over my shoulder one last time at its perfect outside. I sent a prayer up to my mother to send her luck back down to me and give me one more miracle. 

"Is there anywhere else she would have hidden it, anywhere you could think of?" Giovanni asked. 

"No, the only places my mother ever went were work and home. She didn't have any friends and didn't go anywhere special, the house was our sanctuary," I told him. 

He nodded, his mind turning elsewhere, trying to figure out a way forward. I watched him as we drove back his determination as his eyes flitted here and there as he worked the problem over in his head. 

A man who tells you the truth. 

The collection of moments with him played again and again in my head as we drove back not once did he hide from me, always striving to share with me. He got me out of the battle for a while and protected me when he did not need to. I knew if she had met him, though she'd have found his job unsavory, my mother would have loved Giovanni. 

We got back to the house, and Gio went to his office I sat on the other side of his desk as he typed on his computer, pulling out the letter and going over it, trying to find anything I could have missed. Luca sat beside me, and I shared it with him, he looked over the pages as if my mother hid something in invisible ink. I did my best not to make a sarcastic comment and held my giggle inside. 

"What, I'm wondering," Giovanni finally spoke up. "Is who the PI was. She wasn't the only one with the information. He had to know it too," 

The only issue was she never gave me the name of the PI or their business. We had no clue who she chose or where they were.