“Their schoolmates have already explained it,” Donatella shrieked. “My children came home crying because everybody at school is calling them bastards!”
“Cora, I—”
“My landlord and the neighbors treated us like we were lepers. We can’t hold up our heads anymore. I have to get them out of here.”
Ivo stared at her, shocked. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m leaving Rome, and I’m taking my sons with me.”
“They’re mine too,” he shouted. “You can’t do it.”
“Try to stop me and I’ll kill you!”
It was a nightmare. Ivo stood there, watching his three sons and his beloved mistress in hysterics, and he thought, This can’t be happening to me.
But Donatella was not finished with him. “Before we go,” she announced, “I want one million dollars. In cash.”
It was so ridiculous that Ivo started to laugh. “A million—”
“Either that, or I telephone your wife.”
That had happened six months earlier. Donatella had not carried out her threat—not yet—but Ivo knew she would. Each week she had increased the pressure. She would telephone him at his office and say, “I don’t care how you get the money. Do it!”
There was only one way that Ivo could possibly obtain such a huge sum. He had to be able to sell the stock in Roffe and Sons. It was Sam Roffe who was blocking the sale, Sam who was jeopardizing Ivo’s marriage, his future. He had to be stopped. If one knew the right people, anything could be done.
What hurt Ivo more than anything was that Donatella—his darling, passionate mistress—would not let him touch her. Ivo was permitted to visit the children every day, but the bedroom was off limits.
“After you give me the money,” Donatella promised, “then I will let you make love to me.”
It was out of desperation that Ivo telephoned Donatella one afternoon and said, “I’m coming right over. The money is arranged.”
He would make love to her first and placate her later. It had not worked out that way. He had managed to undress her, and when they were both naked, he had told her the truth. “I don’t have the money yet, cara, but one day soon—”
It was then that she had attacked him like a wild animal.
Ivo was thinking of these things now, as he drove away from Donatella’s apartment (as he now thought of it) and turned north onto the crowded Via Cassia, toward his home at Olgiata. He glanced at his face in the rearview mirror. The bleeding had lessened, but the scratches were raw-looking and discolored. He looked down at his shirt, stained with blood. How was he going to explain to Simonetta the scratches on his face and his back? For one reckless moment Ivo actually considered telling her the truth, but dismissed the thought as quickly as it came into his head. He might—he just might—have been able to confess to Simonetta that in a moment of mental aberration he had gone to bed with a girl and gotten her pregnant, and he might—he just might—have gotten away with a whole skin. But three children? Over a period of three years? His life would not be worth a five-lire piece. There was no way he could avoid going home now, for they were expecting guests for dinner, and Simonetta would be waiting for him. Ivo was trapped. His marriage was finished. Only San Gennaro, the patron saint of miracles, could help him. Ivo’s eye was caught by a sign at the side of the Via Cassia. He suddenly slammed on the brakes, turned off the highway and brought the car to a stop.
Thirty minutes later, Ivo drove through the gates of Olgiata. Ignoring the stares of the guards as they saw his torn-up face and bloodstained shirt, Ivo drove along the winding roads, came to the turn that led to his driveway, and pulled up in front of his house. He parked the car, opened the front door of the house and walked into the living room. Simonetta and Isabella, their eldest daughter, were in the room. A look of shock came over Simonetta’s face as she saw her husband.