The eerie tension between the two rides the air circulating inside the room. Even the sound of the IV drip injected into the woman soundly sleeping on the bed is far louder than the silence overwhelming them.
A pair of green eyes engulfed with madness and a pair of gray eyes enveloped in fury enter into a staring contest. It lasts for who-knows-who until the dark-haired lady in her late fifties riled up the situation.
"Lucien, hijo! This is utter madness. You can't just kidnap someone from the monastery, let alone a nun," she called her son out after recognizing the lady resting on the bed.
But he answered her with a snicker and shrugging off his shoulders, "Isn't going and donating to the monastery your idea, Mamita? I just did what you told me to."
She buried her face in her right palm, "To donate, yes! But to kidnap Sistery Cammy, ¿no tienes miedo de Dios?" (Aren't you afraid of God?)
"There is no God, Mamita. If there was, He wouldn't have taken my Cecilia away, would He? Cecilia would still be alive, here with me, by my side," the snicker quickly disappeared from his lips as he curled them down and bit the lower one because of anger.
The lady couldn't stop looking at his son who is still grieving because of his wife's death almost a year ago. She knew it was a wrong idea to lead the conversation on that matter so she no longer persuaded him though her mind was in total retaliation.
"And besides, I am doing it for my son, Gadielle, my angelito. I won't let him grow up without a mother," he clenched his fists turning his back on his mom while looking outside the window.
Her mom shook his head upon hearing it, "Many would die for that spot, hijo, but not like this. You can't force her to be your wife, nor Gadielle's mother."
Despite his mom's pleading, the reflection of his face in the mirror showed s disturbing expression, "Oh, yes I can, Mamita. And she soon will, that's for sure."
The statement he just announced is oozing with confidence for an unknown reason, and that's when his mom got nervous, "But–"
"–I'm sick and tired of this conversation, either you are with me, or you can leave this mansion," he imposed his authority on his mom, just as he does with his henchmen and servants.
A mafia is always a mafia, family or not.
In the end, his mom surrenders, "Whatever it is you want, Lucien, I'll get your son for you," she said as she left the room and her mind thought, You are, indeed, your father's son.
After the old lady went out, Lucien shut off the IV drip and gently removed the needle from her vein. The drip is mixed with a customized depressant designed to keep the patient in a sleeping state. But once the drip has been withdrawn, and the medicine has been reversed, the patient will wake up with a bit of grogginess.
He sat down on the cozy single couch beside the bed waiting for her to regain consciousness, "It's time for you to wake up, Sister Cammy."
He stared a closer look at the woman on his bed covered with an expensive sheet he bought in Europe. He took out his phone and called someone from his mafia gang. Now that he's back in the States, the mafia deal is back to business, "Hello, Lenux, arrange the boys tomorrow for a meeting at the quarter," said he to the person on the other side of the call.
Just as he finished having a conversation on the phone, he noticed a pair of hazel brown eyes staring at him, confused and not fully functional. She was sitting on the bed while her back rested on the headboard. Her fingers wouldn't stop trembling while squeezing the blanket.
Her lips opened and she began to produce words, "W-who are you, mister?" trying to cope with the situation.
Lucien, put down his phone on the bedside table and focused on her, and leaned towards the bed while his elbows and lap connect, "That didn't take long," he murmured.
As he motioned standing from his position, the woman's body automatically reacted and moved away to the edge of the bed covering herself in a defensive mode.
So the man understood her current state and raised his arm upwards, "I mean you no harm, woman."
But she just couldn't believe someone she doesn't know, could she? A word of a stranger can't be trusted, she thought, so she repeated her query, "I–I said w-who are you?"
But the man just laughed at her all of a sudden as if she said something stupid, "Who am I? Then, could you tell me who you are? Do you even remember who you are, woman?" a mockery is discerned in his voice while his eyes remained fixated on her, intimidating her.
However, the man's question seemed to have woken her up more. A sense of emptiness, a void sensation filled up her mind, only to realize that she asked the same question herself. She tried to remember her name, she tried to recall something about herself, yet, to no avail.
She got nothing.
She squeezed the blanket tighter and looked down, "I am…" and then she paused, "I–I am," then she took a deep sigh and admitted, "I don't know who I am, mister. D–Do you?"
A grin is instantly drawn on Lucien's face, but his next action is even more unpredictable. He climbed to bed and reached one of her arms, and then forcibly pulled her in his arms and hugged her, tight enough that she couldn't even resist it.
A deep cold voice followed, "Then, allow me to remind you who you were, and who I was to you, my beloved wife," he lifted her chin so that he could look directly into her eyes.
As their eyes met, the woman was enchanted with those green eyes as he was with those hazel brown eyes of hers. Nobody dared to move as they were both into it.
Hearing the word 'wife' gave an explosion not only to her heart but to her mind, "A wife? Me, a wife?" as if she couldn't imagine herself being like that. "Me and him, this dangerous–looking guy, w-what on earth?" she said.
But her body said otherwise, it seemed it remember his touch and his presence all along, so she somehow accepted what he said might be true. She finally found her words and before she utter them, she removed herself from the man's touch and shyly looked away, "Y-you mean, w-we are married? Like officially? W-where's the proof?"
So he sat down and laughed beside her, "Well, I could show it to you tomorrow, but for now, I want you to meet some–"
And a lady holding a cute baby appeared at the door out of nowhere while dancing with the baby, "Who's a handsome baby? It's you, angelito. Abuela loves you so much," and then took a step inside the room without knowing they were being watched by the two people on the bed.
"I think he got everything from you except the eyes, right, hijo?"she excitedly said. But as she looked in their direction, her heart almost stopped and she almost drop the baby because of what she saw,
"¡Por Dios santo! Lucien, Sister Cammy!" (For God's sake.)
Lucien looked at her with wide eyes, so did she, "Sister Cammy? Who's that?" the woman asked. The slip of the tongue made the three of them even more awkward.
"Yeah, Mamita, who the hell is Sister?" he said with a threatening voice.
So the grandma swallowed for a while to think of an excuse, "Oh, no! Cammy! That's just my expression in Spanish. Anyway, I am Lucien's mom. And the abuela of this little boy, Gadielle."
"So h-his name is Lucien, and I'm C-Cammy? Is that right?" she asked again.
Now his mom finally realized what Lucien meant earlier and why he was so confident about bringing her here. That's because her memory was wiped out because of that accident.
Despite the initiative of going against the idea, for the first time in almost a year, she finally saw hope in the cold mafia's eyes and couldn't even stop thinking of a thought, "It's because she exactly looks just like her."
Then the boy suddenly cried and the woman's attention locked on the baby, "And he–is he?"
Lucien got off the bed and took the baby from his mom, and then he walked in front of her, "That's right. That is Mamita Victoria, and this is our angelito, Gadielle De Lucca, our firstborn, your son."
As soon as she heard him coo, her arms moved faster than her thoughts, she carried the baby boy with her own arms and warmly hugged him. And tears endlessly run down her eyes, a genuine feeling, a sincere affection towards the baby, and then she muttered,
"My baby. Did you miss me? I am your mom, Cammy," and for the first time, she let the smile that captivated the mafia's heart.
"Camilla Suarez, that's your name. But you go by Cammy. And I am Lucien De Lucca, the leader of a mafia gang here in the US. That makes you the wife of a cold mafia boss, and I hope you are up for it, just like you did the first time."