A Friend’s REVENGE

By Pierpaolo Maiorano

A ghost from the past - Julien, Mario's old companion - suddenly reappears and brings with him a wonderful and unexpected surprise... Jr.! But also trouble for Mario, who is forced to ask his “loathed past” for help to save him.
A stranger saves Roberto from a group of illegal immigrants who wanted to rob him. They become friends right away and he will be crucial for Mario and Roberto, helping them on several occasions, despite his problems... and none of them imagine that thirty-one years before...
Mario helps all the members of his second family to find happiness, he is happy. Two wonderful years... then hell. Suddenly Mario loses everything. What he had fought for. What he believed in.
Roberto, who had sworn eternal love to him, falls in love with a woman... he realizes he has lost everything he had fought for. What he believed in.
He decides to go back to his “old life” spontaneously, to who he considered more than a “friend”, without knowing that... this time he is the “predestined victim”. He is at the center of a plot, of a revenge harbored for years.
And when the truth comes out, there is only one solution:
TO FINALLY SETTLE THE SCORE, WITHOUT FEAR... WITHOUT REMORSE!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pierpaolo Maiorano
• Release date: Dec 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9791222490601

Book preview

Chapter 1

«Good morning and Happy New Year... thank you for existing.»

It feels nice to begin the year by waking up like this!

Only when you experience certain feelings you can understand. Since I had set free my feelings, I saw life from a different perspective. An inner serenity had taken over me, nothing caused me resentment anymore, no setback made me lose my calm to overcome it, the same heartbeats had a different rhythm than usual.

I was happy! And at that moment I never thought I could be happier.

In the past I had chosen not to let go, not to get overwhelmed by feelings. I had put up a wall to protect myself, who knows, perhaps because I did not believe in true love, perhaps because I was afraid of it... or simply because I had not yet experienced it.

The only time I had been in a similar situation - I got my famous shiver - had been fifteen years before.

I quickly chased that memory away, returning to the moment I was living.

Still with the hangover from the champagne - strictly Italian - with which we had toasted only a few hours before, I thought about what it meant to have him beside me, of how my life had improved.

By now I had no more doubts about our relationship, the wall had fallen, and as long as it lasted, I would make the most of every moment, with the knowledge that even if it ended, I would carry with me forever the joy and serenity I had felt since I had met him.

He asked me to promise him that I would never again get into dangerous situations.

«Roby, relax. It is now certain.»

I smiled and reassured him: «They don’t want me neither up there nor down there! I lost count of how many times I almost died. I started when I was fourteen!»

We spent part of the morning lounging in bed, then he dedicated himself to his children while I quickly stopped at my house... our.

On January 2, I received an email from the T&T account. As new customers, we had been chosen for a ski trip to Wengen, Switzerland, in the Bern region. At first I thought it was the typical spam message or scam attempt, although once I checked by phone, I willingly accepted.

When I showed it to Roby, he became sad. He thought back to how many years it had been since he had last gone skiing with his family, practically since Nick was born. How close they once were and how serene and happy their lives were, with holidays on the snow, trips with the little yacht, frequent trips to European capitals and beyond. Before that sudden black-out due to that bad experience with his partner, he made them happy, he gave them everything. And he couldn’t let go. He could not and would not forget!

Chasing away the melancholy that had inevitably took over him, he recalled promising Nick that he would treat him to a skiing holiday with Guido. Obvious was his deduction: «Great. The four of us can go!»

«Sure, let’s leave your wife and daughters and let’s go have fun. Why don’t you, Pam and your children go instead, and I’ll take the opportunity to relax and recharge.»

«Yeah, sure! I left you alone once and you know what happened! I get it. We all have to go! But I’m happy about it.»

When we told the others, they were surprised and happy.

We left within a week. Only Giorgio was not sure if he would be able to join us.

On January 9, at nine pm, after an exhausting journey between planes, connections, trains, buses... strikes... - everything that could go wrong happened that day - we arrived in Wengen. And it wasn’t over, because we had to walk uphill, with our luggage, to the hotel that was at the end of the village, where cars were not allowed. No one had told us that by letting them know, they would come and pick us up in electric cars.

We barely managed to unpack, without even having dinner, we collapsed.

In the morning they woke us up at 8:30 even though none of us had the strength to get up. Me in particular, I felt totally exhausted; the last weeks had been crazy, the last months unimaginable. Not even in my American adventure had I ever kept such a pace.

Opening the wooden doors of the balcony, everything immediately vanished.

A simply fantastic sight appeared before my eyes! The magnificence of the Jungfrau, the endless white expanses, the snow-covered forests, a couple of deer in the distance digging through the fresh snow looking for food, the biting air, gave me new strength.

After a rich breakfast, while they went to get familiar with the slopes, I decided to go see the village. Fantastic! A pedestrian area in the middle of the mountains. Wooden houses in Belle Époque style, helpful and friendly people wearing old-fashioned clothes, their extreme calm in doing anything. It felt like going back at least a century.

I spent the morning exploring the surroundings, something urged me to do so but I did not understand what.

In the afternoon Nick and Guido returned devastated from the slopes. The two, first time on the snow, managed to flip their sled on a flat surface!

After spending the afternoon at the hotel, the next morning I found the excuse of the boys to give Roby, Pam and the daughters a chance to go back in time to the last time the family had spent the typical skiing holiday together. Nick had not yet been born, and Roberto was still a loving and caring father.

As an experienced skier, he and Pam gave the girls lessons and it was a way to make them feel more involved, since almost all the attention in recent months had been on Nick!

By mid-morning, since the boys had decided to stay in bed, I went exploring again, walking among the slopes of the Jungfrau, in the most  absolute and uncontaminated nature.

The midday sun could not defeat the biting air, especially as I began to make my way deeper into the forest. Suddenly I found myself at a fork in the path I was on, and, as was my nature, between the two I chose the less traveled one.

I kept going, and as even simple walking became difficult because of the high, fresh snow, suddenly my famous shiver, I heard someone moaning. It was more and more clear as I moved forward. Not more than a meter from the path, in the cliff, on the ground leaning against a tree, I saw a black kid. He must have been around 12 years old.

When he saw me he asked for help in perfect Italian. His leg hurt, he believed it was broken, he could not get up and was shaking all over, afraid and cold. With difficulty, I managed to bring him back to the village, and since he was able to lean on it without feeling excessive pain, I reassured him leaving him in the care of the local doctor on call.

He asked who I was, his father would surely want to thank me, I reassured him again and said goodbye.

I passed the station just as the skiers were returning from the slopes, they wanted to know where I had been, and once I told them, they began to tease me.

From that moment for them I became... the Good Samaritan of Wengen.

In the afternoon they forced me to follow them on the slopes. I had never skied before, and the worst at first was keeping my balance while standing. A hundred or so meters barely moving, and then parallel skies and downhill making wide turns, like a star pupil. When he saw me, Roberto joined me.

«Didn’t you say you never skied?»

«Never. This is the very first time.»

«Think of the third, you’ll make me hang up my skis!»

Caught up in the moment I began to make tighter turns increasing my speed... result, a crack in my right knee which I instinctively lifted, falling down on the ground.

«Well done, you got me!»

My first ski ended there. The doctor reassured me, recommending a couple of days of rest. I sat at the top of the slope and watched them for the rest of the afternoon. I took the doctor’s advice literally and spent the next day in bed. Roby wanted to stay with me, I kicked him out! He had to go to his children. Of course, after the afternoon session was over, he rushed to see me.

It’s nice to have a personal nurse who takes care of you and... if they had not come to call us for dinner, we would have made love until morning. Roberto was sleeping with his wife, so we had to take advantage of every moment to be together.

On the fourth day Giorgio arrived and immediately offered to be my caregiver; he did not like to ski either!

At lunch, in the hotel room I arrived limping because of the bandage on my knee, and Roberto took the opportunity to tease me, calling me a slacker.

As we ate and with Roby we continued our verbal quarrel with a smile on our faces - he was trying to make me get angry, but he would never succeed - suddenly I felt my blood run cold! A voice from the past echoed behind me:

«Little Mario, do you see the gentleman who helped you?»

The glass fell breaking in a thousand pieces on the plate, I began to tremble, my eyes filled with tears. I turned around, stood up abruptly and backing away exclaimed: «Julien?»

«Mario?! Is it really you?»

I breathed, tried to calm down, my heart began racing like crazy, my head was spinning. Pushing Julien in a wheelchair with a brace on his leg, the kid I had rescued the morning before, confirmed.

«You look good! You haven’t changed at all.»

«W... what’s wrong with you?»

«I got hurt while skiing.»

He noticed that I had a bandaged knee as well.

«What about you?»

«N... nothing s... serious.»

The others didn’t understand. They had never seen me in that state except when Roby suggested to go on a cruise.

I kept shaking and stuttering, I couldn’t stop, I thought: Why now, when I have found balance and serenity? What happens now? How do I behave?

«Mario say something. We haven’t seen each other in more than ten years...»

«Thirteen, two months and seventeen days!» I blurted out. I don’t know why it had occurred to me to say that sentence. As if there had been a time counter in the deepest part of my mind, which began counting on that April day at Renato Palazzi’s party, when I saw him again for the first time since the press conference following our rescue, which was waiting for that encounter to hold it against him.

«Sorry, I’m not feeling well, I’d better go to the room»

«Mario please. Can we talk?»

«Don’t you think it’s a little late?»

«I wanted to thank you for saving my son Mario.»

«Your... son? Mario?»

«Yes! That’s right.»

Then speaking to the others:

«Would it bother you if Mario Junior stayed with you for a while as we exchange a few words in private?»

«Of course, talk to him, you obviously have something to discuss.» Roberto suggested, as he stood up to help Julien move to the relax corner of the huge hall. He looked at me and with a nod hinted that this was something to be dealt with.

«Just five minutes, I don’t think there is much to say.»

I sat down in an armchair and he moved to be in front of me. Roberto walked away, returning to the table.

«Can you ever forgive me?»

«And for what? You make choices in life. You made yours, and I had to accept it.»

«Do you know how much I regretted hurting you so much?» His eyes were filled with tears «I tried that night at the party, remember, to talk to you, to ask for forgiveness. You sent me to hell. It was incredibly painful to see you with another.» I stood up.

«And what did you expect! Okay, you said all we had to say, goodbye!»

And I turned to leave. He grabbed my arm.

«I still care about you! I suffer every day. Do you know why I called my son Mario? So I could say your name, every day.»

«It’s your problem. I have moved on. And now that I’m happy again, I have no intention whatsoever of digging up bad memories.» I went back to the table. He came too.

«Mario please…»

«No, enough! I gave you all of me, and you only thought about yourself, your career, people, your damn money. Try to stay as far away from me as possible and don’t let your son grow up like you!»

The kid came up to me.

«Mario, may I call you by your name? I feel like I’ve known you forever. Dad tells me about you very often. He told me everything. He keeps saying that he made a mistake. Why don’t you try to give him another chance? I see him suffering every day, he doesn’t forgive himself for what he did to you!»

«Kid, how old are you?»

«Fifteen.»

«Gee, you seem much more mature than your age. What do you mean that he told you everything?»

«Everything. About the shipwreck, how you rescued him and cared for him, that you managed to make him love you and that you were together. That he then, however, behaved terribly and you didn’t forgive him.» He sought a contact with me, taking my hand. Again the shiver!

«He taught me that even two men or two women can love each other without having to be ashamed of it. You should know that when he returned to the island where I was born, he wanted to sleep in the same cave where you stayed in.» Again the shiver!

«You are from the island? Wait a minute! Fifteen years old, are you Kala’s son?»

«Yes! Do you recognize me now? You delivered me! Dad always tells me that if it wasn’t for you I would never have been born.»

Everyone at the table looked at each other dumbfounded! Delivering babies was also added to the very long list.

I began to cry.

«My goodness... I remember like it was yesterday, laughing like crazy when you stuck your little finger in my eye or nose and I made funny faces at you. You were beautiful when you were born, but even now that you are a young man you are a handsome kid. Let me give you a hug! Why are you with him?»

«Mom is no longer here! She died when I was four years old.»

I felt faint and the tears of joy became crying. Instinctively I held him tightly.

Julien intervened.

«Do you understand why I wanted to talk to you? I have so much to tell you.»

Roberto was more and more convinced that we needed to talk.

On our own.

«Little Mario, do you want to come skiing with us?»

«Would you really take him with you? The boy only managed to ski for one day because of me.»

He was hesitant, but we convinced him. Instead, we continued the talk on the couch.

«Julien, please just don’t…»

«Yeah okay. Just being able to talk to you is fine with me.»

«How come he’s with you? What about Kai?»

«It was a tragedy. I basically watched them die! You know, after the last time I contacted you, when I found out that a group of ruthless  people wanted to turn the island into a big touristic area, I anticipated them and bought it. I could not allow speculation of any kind on that place. Our place. Also to allow the natives to live as they did before we arrived. They had their lives already radically disrupted by our arrival. I used to go to the island regularly not to forget. They, on the other hand, because of a tsunami that had destroyed their village, had moved to our caves on the other side of the island. I warned them that that place could be dangerous and to be very careful. In fact, a couple of years later, a terrible earthquake shook the island and some of them were swept away by a landslide. Among them were Kala and Kai who, in an extreme attempt to save their son, acted as his shield. They rescued him after two days from the mound of earth that had buried them. It was a miracle to find him still alive. The grandparents did not want to take care of the little one and I took him with me. I tried to raise him in the memory of his parents, but I also tried to teach him everything about life.»

«That’s very nice, especially deciding to raise the boy. Too bad you didn’t change sooner.»

«But we could make up for lost time.»

«Get it out of your head! I am in love with Roberto now, and he reciprocates.»

«What, isn’t he married?»

«Yes, Pam and the children know everything, I practically live in their house and we sleep together. In the beginning he was like you, but he was able to change. He!»

«If I had the opportunity, I would have shown you.»

«So it would be my fault? Listen to me, I thought I was in love with you, and being who I am I would have loved you with all my being, and today I got confirmation that a piece of my heart is still yours. But even if I had been alone, I would never, ever have agreed to share anything else with you, not for anything in the world after the way you treated me. I often relive that day in my nightmares. In a matter of minutes I lost everything! All I would have needed was a hug, a handshake, a look of understanding after learning of my parents’ death. Instead you turned your back on me! And it took me years to recover. Now excuse me, but I have a terrible headache.»

«It doesn’t hold up as an excuse.»

«And you think I need an excuse? Here, look at this!» and I showed him the scar on my head!

«What happened to you?»

«I was shot when I saved Roberto from a person who wanted to harm him.»

«Did you undergo surgery?» he caressed the back of my neck, just as he always did when we were on the island. I shuddered, I removed his hand, withdrawing.

«You promised...»

«Sorry, I can’t. Kiss me!»

«Sure, in front of everyone!»

He brought his lips close to mine, I was literally attracted and kissed him, just when the others returned. Roberto was petrified. I noticed, but continued, I needed to check the hold he still had on me!

I broke away from him and as Roby approached walking in disbelief, like a zombie, I said:

«As I imagined. Now I’m sure you don’t affect me anymore.»

I went to Roberto and hugged him. He reciprocated with a sweet look, as if a weight had been lifted! Mario Junior approached us. He was sad, he understood. I looked at him carefully, he had his mother’s eyes, big, deep and expressive, but deep blue... my same eyes.

«Then is there no hope? Will we never see each other again?»

«If your dad gives you permission, you can come to see me whenever you want to.»

«Dad?»

«Of course, but I will accompany you. Don’t worry. I will be happy to observe from a distance.»

I pretended not to hear, and to make the message clearer: «Roby, shall we spend some time together after dinner? It’s time for me to tell you a little bit about my past.»

They had dinner with us, and at the end, as we were saying goodbye Pam, speaking to her husband, told him to spend the night with me!

As we were heading upstairs, Junior ran after me.

«Can we spend some time together tomorrow?»

«Let’s see tomorrow, sleep well.»

«Then I’ll come at nine o’clock! Good night.»

«Good night Mario, good night to everyone.» Julien said.

After brushing my teeth, I kissed Roby!

We sat down on the bed.

«I’m sorry you saw me, but I had to do it. I had to understand how much I was still attracted to him. Once I thought I was madly in love with him, so much that when he left me, I thought life was no longer worth living.»

«Yes, little Mario told us, he didn’t go into details but in broad terms, I guessed.»

«Remember when you invited me to go on a cruise? My reaction? It all started with that tragedy. It was my desire to go, and when, after my years in the United States due to a series of circumstances I was offered the opportunity, I jumped at it. I met him on the ship and was literally fascinated. I invited him to sleep with me, but he reacted very badly. We argued, he even had me arrested by the captain. Then there was the shipwreck, during which he was drowning, and I jumped into the water and saved him. On the island I cured him of a bad bronchopneumonia and a foot infection, which forced me to amputate one of his toes. Slowly, after a few months, thinking we would have to spend our whole lives there... we became a couple, falling in love - at least that was how I felt -. Everyone liked us, although at first he was arrogant and everyone hated him, little by little I changed him. He became very helpful toward others, he helped everyone.»

«As you usually do. I wonder why it reminds me so much of another story... but go on.»

«So they rescued us, and when at the press conference – once they learned about the two of us - they asked him if we were going to move in together, he freaked out. He said he wasn’t a fag, all hell broke loose. I, despite all the other castaways urged me not to let him treat me that way I disappeared from his life. Just think, in a few minutes Giuseppe told me about my parents’ death and he made that comment. The world came crashing down around me. After a few months I ran into him at a party and, realizing that he missed me, he asked me to try again. I did not give him a second chance. I suffered for years! You can’t even imagine.»

«That’s why you had that reaction when you heard his voice.»

«Yeah, worse than a bullet to the head. A stab to the heart! But now I am sure of what I feel for him!» He looked at me as if to say: what does this sentence mean?

I looked into his eyes, ran my hand through his hair: «I’m totally indifferent! Now I am sure that my heart belongs to only one person! A very cute tall man who can make such