Deadly Embrace

somewhere, she never says exactly where.’
‘I’ve told you many times,’ he said. ‘If you want me to, I can hire people who’ll find her and bring her home.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Sofia will come back when she’s ready.’
‘Then you’ve got to stop worrying.’
God! He sounded like Michael!
‘I have an early meeting,’ she said, placing her napkin on the table and pushing back her chair.
‘Does this mean dinner is over?’ he asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Would it matter if I did?’ he said, thinking that this woman drove him insane–she always had. The problem was that he couldn’t stop being crazy about her. Two marriages to other women along the way had done nothing to extinguish the flame.
‘Of course it would,’ she lied, trying to figure out why she kept Dean in the wings.
‘Well…’ he said hesitantly ‘…I can postpone leaving and stay another day.’
It won’t do you any good, she wanted to say, but she didn’t. Dean lived to please her, and she lived to please Michael, whom she hadn’t heard from in months. She wondered where he was and what he was doing.
She refused to call him. She had her pride.
Thirty-six years ago, at the age of seventeen, she’d given birth to his only son, and then eighteen years later, a daughter. He’d never married her, and yet there was no way she could ever stop loving him.
Yes, it’s true, she thought ruefully. Rejection does make the heart grow fonder.
Tuesday, 10 July 2001, New York
I’m running, Michael Castelli thought. I’m running like a rat being chased through the sewers, and I hate myself for doing this.
But I have no choice.
I have no fucking choice.
His past had finally caught up with him, and it was either run and discover the truth, or rot in some lousy jail.
Michael knew that if he was ever incarcerated again, he would not survive.
And in Michael’s world, survival was the name of the game.

Chapter Two
Michael: 1945
Anna Maria was a pretty girl. Dark-haired, with a heart-shaped face, she spoke only a small amount of English. Her husband, Vinny Castellino, had tried to teach her with not much success. He didn’t mind: as far as he was concerned, Anna Maria could do no wrong. So what if she couldn’t speak the language? He was there to look after her and the baby she was carrying.
Vinny was the proudest man on the block. He couldn’t take his eyes off his wife. Such a little girl. Such a big belly.
He’d run into Anna Maria at the end of the war outside Naples. She was frightened and lonely–most of her family had perished and she was by herself. Vinny had befriended her, gifted her with chocolates and nylons, slept with her, and promised to keep in touch.
Then he’d returned to his steady girlfriend in America, and tried to forget about the young Italian girl with the big soulful eyes and voluptuous body. His girlfriend, Mamie, a flashy blonde hairdresser who lived near him in Queens, was immediately suspicious. ‘You do anything you shouldn’t while you was overseas?’ she demanded, while treating him to a vigorous blow-job in the back of her cousin’s beat-up old Pontiac.
‘Course not,’ he answered guiltily.
‘You sure?’ Mamie persisted.
‘I’m sure,’ he lied.
‘You’d better not have,’ she threatened, ‘or I’ll have your balls for earrings!’
Mamie had a colourful way of putting things.
Vinny was used to it.
‘Oh, yeah–YEAH!’ he yelled, reaching a satisfying climax.
The truth was, he couldn’t get Anna Maria out of his head. She lingered in his thoughts, and as the weeks passed he knew he had to see her again in spite of Mamie’s threats of bodily harm if he so much as looked at another woman. Mamie was marriage-minded. If he wasn’t careful she’d have him marching down the aisle before he knew it.
A few months later, he still couldn’t forget Anna Maria, so he informed Lani, his mother, a big-boned woman of Sicilian descent, that he was returning to Italy.
‘Why you wanna do that?’ Lani asked, her large, workworn hands on her ample hips. ‘Europe ain’t safe yet. The war’s only just over with.’
‘I havta go, Ma,’ he explained. ‘There’s someone I gotta see again. It’s kinda fate.’
‘Fate my big fat ass,’ Lani exclaimed, rolling her eyes. ‘You got a girl there, aintcha?’
‘No, Ma,’ he protested.
‘Ha! Liar!’ Lani snorted, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘How ya gonna pay for a ticket to Italy?’
‘You’ll lend me the money,’ he said confidently.
And Lani did, because Vincenzio was an only child, and since his dad had passed away several years ago, she had given him more or less anything he wanted. Besides, she longed to see the back of Mamie–a feeling she’d had ever since she’d first set eyes on the blowsy blonde with the loud mouth who was certainly not good enough for her precious son. Maybe this was a convenient way of breaking them up.
So Vinny flew to Italy with his mother’s blessing, and immediately reconnected with Anna Maria, who was thrilled to see him again.
Several weeks later, much to Lani’s surprise, he returned home with a pregnant wife–a seventeen-year-old Italian girl who spoke barely a word of English.
At first Lani was deeply disappointed that her son had got married without her being there, but the fact that he’d found himself a girl from the old country did a lot to help her get over her initial disappointment–although it struck her that it would have been nice if Anna Maria could have waited to get herself knocked up.
Still…they were married, Mamie was definitely out of the picture, and Lani decided to make the best of it.
She soon fell in love with Anna Maria–everyone did. The girl had a sweetness and a vulnerability about her that were quite irresistible.
When Vinny’s dad had passed on (Lani called it a heart attack–the truth was that he’d had too many beers, fallen into a drunken