Hidden Heart (24 page)

“
Well, you know he
threatened her and even tried to hit her. I told her something bad
might happen. But she didn’t want to leave her
apartment.”

“
I’ll do some investigating
of my own,” Victor said. “I know some people, I have connections.”
He came and sat in the opposite chair. “Did she tell you anything
about the farmers?”

Alessandro lifted his eyes
from his cup and looked at Victor. He sat up straight in his
chair.

“
No, she
didn’t.”

“
She came to my house on
Sunday after she met with two of the farmers. One of them brought
his contract. We compared the contract she had from the notary’s
assistant with the farmer’s contract. There was a discrepancy
between them.”

“
I don’t understand,”
Alessandro said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“
Well…” Victor sighed then
stood and went to his desk. He retrieved the two contracts and gave
them to Alessandro. He couldn’t understand them, but Victor pointed
at the amounts and the name. “This is the same person, but one
contract has one sum, the other a different one, lower. We figured
after each farmer signed their contract and received the money from
Tessa’s hand, they needed the notary’s stamp and signature to make
the contract valid. According to Tessa, the signing of the contract
happened in a different room, so she had no idea what was happening
there.”

“
I don’t understand. If
that’s the case, why are both contracts signed by
Tessa?”

“
She received a call from
the notary the day before the contracts were to be signed. The
notary told her about some weird flooding happening in her office
that damaged the contracts and she needed to come urgently to the
office and sign a second set of them. Because of the time
constraint, Tessa just signed them without reading the contracts,
nor did she verify that the amounts coincided.”

“
Okay…suppose this is
true…how did the notary convince the farmers to give up some of
their money?”

“
It turns out the notary is
a very influential person in their community, the mayor’s daughter.
She told them that the exchange rate changed from the date they
negotiated to the day they signed the contracts; therefore they
needed to hand over some of their money. Now, you have to
understand that the farmers are uneducated people some of them with
barely four classes and terms such as exchange rate, bank accounts
and trades are foreign to them. So, it was easy for her to
manipulate them.”

Alessandro stood and paced
the room. “This is absolute madness! What world are you people
living in?”

Victor came and placed a
hand on his shoulder. “A very corrupt and sad world, my friend. And
this is not all; the notary has been missing for a week now. Some
speculated she fled the country with all the money. Her office
closed down and police are investigating, but her father is trying
to keep everything away from the media. It’s election year, if you
know what I mean.”

***

Later that day Alessandro
ordered fresh flowers to be delivered to the hospital. When he
arrived, flower arrangements filled Tessa’s room. There was no
change in her condition.

He split his time between
the office and hospital. He also went to the police station, where
Victor, a lawyer, a translator and two police officers discussed
the incident. They made very little progress and Alessandro thought
he might go crazy with frustration.

He wanted the bastard who
had done this to Tessa to be caught as soon as possible. At first,
he was reluctant to point his finger towards Daniel in front of the
police. Other than those appalling encounters he had with him,
nothing else had happened and accusing someone without proof in a
foreign country seemed dangerous. But he realized the police needed
more information, so he told them about Daniel. He also told them
Tessa’s car disappeared; maybe that would point them in the right
direction; maybe the same person who stole the car was responsible
for what happened to her. The officers cleared Alessandro from
their suspect’s list and promised they’d find Daniel and talk to
him.

Alessandro went to Tessa’s
apartment days later, after the police removed all the yellow “Do
Not Cross” tape, and cleaned the house. He scrubbed the kitchen
where he imagined her ordeal happened and brought it back to
normal. He also called both her sisters, who were terrified upon
hearing the bad news. Alessandro promised to call as soon as there
were changes to her condition. In shared grief, an invisible bond
began between them, although they never met in person, and they
felt at ease talking to each other. Octavia and Chiara would come
to Bucharest as soon as they could.

Two weeks after the attack,
Victor invited Alessandro to his office. His demeanor somber, he
started without introduction, “The police found the car.” He lit a
cigar and puffed several times then continued, “It was impounded.
It has been wrecked; it looks so bad I barely recognized it. It
appears Daniel got into an accident in it the same night Tessa was
beaten up.

“
He died at the hospital
the following day. The police are still investigating, but most
likely he’s the criminal. They found her wallet in his pocket...he
somehow got in to her house, did those horrible things to her,
stole her keys and fled the scene. The level of his alcohol was
three times over the legal limit,” Victor concluded.

Alessandro couldn’t say a
word; he felt overwhelmed and furious that Daniel wouldn’t be made
to pay for what he’d done to Tessa. He’d had a feeling Daniel was
behind this nightmare, now the police had proof. On the other hand,
he didn’t want Daniel to die, but to face his sentence. Alessandro
felt cheated; he was enraged. How dare Daniel weasel out without
paying for what he’d done to Tessa? He’d expected—hoped—that the
police would prove Daniel’s guilt, and that they could watch the
maggot squirm under a judge’s eye as he was tried, found guilty,
and sent away for what he’d done. He felt fury well up in him at
the unfairness of it all, weak, with nowhere to unleash his
hostility.

That night, Alessandro went
to see Tessa as usual. He paid for flowers to be refreshed in her
room, as often as needed, so when she woke up, they’d surround her.
He talked to her every day, but never got any movement or
acknowledgment from her. She seemed asleep, but he kept expecting
her to just wake up. Her bruises changed colors slowly and the
swelling in her face began to disappear.

He took her hand and told
her softly, “They caught him,
amore
mio
. It’s over. We know who did this to
you; he’ll never touch you again. Promise.”

He felt a weak squeeze. He
held his breath. This was the first sign that she heard him since
that first night he came into her room. Like then, he didn’t know
if this was real or if he imagined it.

“
Oh,
cara mia
…can you hear me? If you hear
me, please squeeze my hand…Please?” Nothing happened. Just his
imagination then.

***

One day, a month after the
attack, he came in to see her breathing on her own—a big
improvement. Alessandro hoped and expected every day that she’d
wake up. The bruises were almost gone, several of the bandages
removed and her face calm and relaxed. He was concerned the doctors
weren’t telling him everything; why didn’t she wake up?

A few days later, a
psychiatrist came into the room and introduced himself.

“
I am afraid your fiancée
refuses to wake up. What happened to her was so traumatic, her
brain refuses to acknowledge the trauma. By sleeping, she is in a
self-imposed comatose state that allows her to not feel any
pain.”

“
Does she hear me? What has
to happen for her to wake up?” Alessandro said.

“
She has to find the will
to wake up. She prefers this condition to anything else. This way
she doesn’t have to acknowledge the attack; nothing can hurt her,
nothing can touch her. It’s mostly self-induced,” the doctor
answered.

Alessandro went home. He
got behind closed doors, where nobody could hear or see him, and
fell apart. He poured a glass of tequila and in one single swallow
he emptied it. The golden liquid burned its way down his throat,
into his stomach. His gaze fell on the last photo of him and Tessa
in Greece, resting on his desk. He could almost hear her laughter;
God did he miss it! She looked so beautiful and happy. He looked
happy. Where was all of that now?

He threw the glass at his
image in the mirror across the room. It shattered and glass
littered the floor. Then with a roar, he turned and in a single
vicious motion, he brushed everything off the desk; his laptop flew
across the room breaking a nightstand lamp; pens, notebooks and
papers scattered everywhere. The room looked like a tornado had
been through it, but he didn’t care.

Without flinching, without
even glancing at the mess he made, Alessandro went to take a
shower. Drops of water ran down his face, mixing with the tears of
all the grief and fury he held inside. His fists kicked the walls,
until his knuckles bled, then defeated he slid against the wall and
wailed until his tears were all spent. He stepped out of the tub
and cleaned the foggy mirror. No traces of pain on his face, his
jaw relaxed and no tremor in his hands. His moment of weakness
over, he’d need all the strength he could muster for the days, or
months to come. Tessa needed him and he was determined to do
whatever it took to help her.

He tried anything to occupy
his time with the hope each day that the doctors would call him
with the news that she had woken up.

Victor told him there was
land for sale in his neighborhood. Knowing how much Tessa would
love to have a house in that area he met with a realtor. He found
the right terrain and purchased it. He planned to have a house
built, in anticipation that Tessa would accept to move into it with
him. He met with architects and contractors and after making a
couple of changes, he decided on a floor plan.

He called Chiara and asked
if she or Octavia would come to Bucharest; he feared Tessa might
have some brain damage that the doctors weren’t sharing with
him.

“
Actually I was planning on
calling you tonight. My colleague is willing to take over my
classes for a while; I’ll be there in two days,” Chiara
said.

Alessandro waited for her
at the airport. He knew how she looked from the many photos
scattered all over Tessa’s apartment. They both seemed nervous to
finally meet, but by the time they arrived at the hospital they
felt at ease with each other. He asked for the doctor to come to
Tessa’s room and meet her sister.

Dr. Ivan showed up later
and told her everything he told Alessandro before.

“
I’m as surprised as you
are to see that she doesn’t wake up, but as the psychiatrist told
Mr. Santinelli, most likely she refuses to wake up. The trauma she
went through could mark her for the rest of her life, even cause a
loss of memory. Only time will tell; in the meantime, we need to
just be patient and wait; she’ll wake up when she’s
ready.”

That evening Alessandro and
Chiara had dinner together at her parents’ house. He’d gone there
several times with Tessa, helping her sort boxes; it hurt to be
there without her.

“
It drives me insane to not
be able to talk to her. I just want to know she is okay. And no
matter what the doctors tell me, I still want
her
to be the one telling me how she
feels.”

Chiara placed a hand on his
arm. “I know how you feel, Alessandro. And I want to thank you for
being by her side all this time. Both Octavia and I are so grateful
she has you in her life to be there for her when she needs help the
most.”

“
I am not sure I am of any
use. I wasn’t there to really help her when she needed me; that
bastard almost killed her and I wasn’t around to protect her!” His
jaw clenched and his knuckles turned white on the wine
glass.

“
You cannot put this on
your shoulders. Don’t feel guilty for something you had no control
over,” Chiara said soothingly. She stood and removed their plates,
then turned and sat across from him.

“
You really care for her,
don’t you?”

“
The night I returned from
Italy…I brought an engagement ring for her. I wanted to ask her to
marry me. I should’ve asked her to come with me to Italy, to pick
out the ring together. It would still be a surprise and all of this
would’ve been avoided.”

Until then, Alessandro had
never voiced out loud his feelings for Tessa. He knew she was the
best thing that happened to him since his wife passed away, and he
believed they had a future together. After they first met, he tried
to find her, thought often of her, dreamt of her, wondered how was
she doing. He was a strong believer that everything happened for a
reason and he had hoped, someday they’d meet again, and he could
make things right between them.

When they met again in
Victor’s office, almost a year after their first encounter, it
seemed fate had given him a second chance. He’d thought it was
going well; he loved her and she seemed to love him back. Now, he
felt that he’d taken the chance given him, and completely botched
it—at the expense of Tessa.