Chapter 3: Meeting at the Nightclub
*Bella Ragazza nightclub—10:18 PM*
The music was loud, the vibrations were shaking everyone and the place like a gong. Still, the sight of one of the most influential people in the world’s biggest city made Daisy clearly hear every bump of her agitated heart. Marco was still there, looking at her. He had a penetrating look, he wanted something. The mafia man got nearer to Daisy.
Nervous, Daisy reached for her phone, secretly, and called and hung up a contact named “SOS Chief!!!!” Daisy froze up on a deadpan face.
“Hey, hun’,” he said, with a soothing voice. “You always come here?”
Daisy was nervous, but not sweating. She was completely frozen. Naturally, Daisy did what she did best: keep playing.
“No, first time here,” she said with a heavy Slavic accent.
Marco hummed in satisfaction.
“That sounds familiar… Can you say that again, please?” Marco enquired, still seductive.
“Say what?” Daisy spoke, gulping hard.
“This…”
It was a short pause but, for Daisy, it was an eternity. “This” what?!
“This accent of yours,” Marco completed. “So exotic…”
Phew…
“Oh, um, thanks, I guess,” Daisy kept going.
“So, the lady’s new here, might I welcome you to my piece of Heaven with a drink?”
“Hey, Marco!” Some ladies passed by, greeting the host with teasing voices.
“How you doin’?” Marco responded, greeting them with a heart-melting smile.
Then, Marco remembered he was just talking to a lady. He really couldn’t lose a single one!
So he went back to Daisy:
“Sorry, sweety, you were saying?”
“Forgive me ignorance,” Daisy remarked, still feeding that lie. “Just came to America, still learning English.”
“Oh, that’s very nice. I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ to my question. Waiter, hey, hit me with two plumpy Maries!”
The waiter got two bottles of cognac. While pouring it into the glasses, he looked at Marco. Marco saw that Daisy was looking away, and made a sucking shape with his mouth to the waiter while glancing at Daisy from the corner of his eyes. The waiter giggled while nodding his head negatively.
The waiter finished pouring the drinks. Marco noticed Daisy’s apprehension.
“Hey, sweety, anything wrong?” He asked.
Daisy just wanted to leave, that place was not good at all for someone like her to be, of free will, in a place with a lot of options like New York City. I mean, she could have gone to Times Square, Central Park, Manhattan Beach, a sewer, etc.
But, now that she met one of the most powerful and awfully gorgeous-looking people in the city, she couldn’t just leave. Actually no, she could! But this encounter could result in a lot of things.
“So, how do you like your drink?” Marco asked.
“Heavy, cognac is like strawberry juice for me,” Daisy said, still with an accent.
“Wow, you are a brave little fella, might I get something ‘heavier’?”
“No!” Daisy yelled.
A few people looked at them. Daisy’s face was wide open, and her eyes seemed huge, like an anime character. Marco was confused. That smooth-talking lady suddenly bursting quite scared him. But he knew loud Slavic fellows, like the Obnizov twins.
“Wow, what was that?” Marco laughed.
Daisy tried to hide her blushing face by coughing. She was in a new place with new faces, she certainly wouldn’t want to create a bad impression.
“Sorry,” she said, with the most soothing voice and the most stereotypical Slavic accent she could produce. “I’m on a diet.”
“Okay then, I guess,” Marco replied, in a lifeless “whatever” tone, looking at Daisy’s stomach, which wasn’t either fit, neither it was plump.
“I can do some soda,” Daisy said, after thinking better about what this encounter could mean for her, sort of an “in your face” for her Chief.
“You know, babe,” Marco remarked, with penetrating eyes and a sassy smile. “Soda is probably unhealthier than most alcohol.”
“Oh don’t say it…” Daisy laughed. She knew soda was a hell of a drug, an underrated one like coffee or chocolate. Damn, she really was a druggie.
“Yeah, sugar is a demon,” Marco explained, more serious than Daisy ever saw (even though she met him just five minutes ago). “It’s luring and when it catches you, it suddenly becomes more tempting and inviting.”
While saying that, Marco got closer and closer to Daisy, with his hypnotizing eyes directly staring at hers. Daisy was as impressed as she was scared. Multiple thoughts came to her mind all at once: why is he staring at me like this? Why is he licking his lips? Will he poison me with soda? Is soda really that hell of a drug or am I overreacting? Am I overthinking stuff? Why is the word “short” longer than the word “long”?
“Hey, miss, you’re okay?” Marco asked, looking genuinely worried. “You need a glass of water?”
Daisy mumbled something, still with a deadpan facial expression. Then she started closing her eyes and shook her face. Thankfully people weren’t watching her anymore, so she slightly huffed in relief. Marco was still looking at her, confused.
“Are, are you okay, madam?” He asked.
“Eh…” Daisy stuttered, after cleaning her throat. “Yes, I am fine. I just got something stuck in my throat.”
“An entire potato?” Marco asked.
Daisy let a laugh out of her throat. Not even one second after that escaped, Daisy shut herself, shaping her mouth like a chicken’s beak. Marco’s eyes were wide open. He started humming something, then started giggling. Daisy thought “Say, that was kinda funny,” so she started giggling as well. Marco’s giggling evolved into laughing. Daisy got caught up in this and started laughing as well. Until Marco snored like a pig.
The two were silent again. Until Daisy’s frozen lips started trembling until she burst out laughing. Marco’s lips also trembled until he burst out laughing. The waiter, who was passing by, giggled with them.
Daisy forgot she was talking to a powerful mafia lord, what she saw instead was that one nice date who you spend a movie night with. Yes, Daisy was letting herself out really well with Marco. Maybe, under the right circumstances, she would invite him over to marathon some Adam Sandler movies.
After they were done laughing, they started looking at each other, with smiles, but something was hidden behind them.
Daisy thought of so many things at once. Namely, “Wait, do I like him?” Maybe she did. What is happening with her? She is seeing a different man. Was he really that declared woman’s man, or was that only a superficial image that he happened to embrace? Daisy was so confused.
Marco was also confused: this lady felt different from the others. Was it because she really was different, or was Marco simply looking over the surface of a woman, and embracing her insides? It was all summed up in his mind, in the shape of a simple four-word question: am I liking her?
Marco was almost putting his thoughts into spoken words when he heard people chatting and even panicking. Marco was curious, but still focused on Daisy.
“Please, wait here,” he said.
Marco went to the gorilla security man.
“Hey Timmy, what happened?” Marco asked, peeking outside through the peephole.
“Police’s here,” Timmy, aka the gorilla security man, answered, assertively.
“Police? Oh, okay, no problem,” Marco sighed. “Why is it a problem?”
“These ain’t normal police cars, these are the black vans, it means sh*t’s got serious,” Timmy replied, not expressing any emotion.
“The black vans?!” Marco shouted, panicked. “Ah, Dio…”
Marco started waddling around and found the fire alarm. He pressed it, causing a deafening siren to start blowing. Everyone started panicking and leaving through multiple exits. But Marco was focused only on one of them:
“Miss Giggle, Miss Giggle! Where are you?” He shouted. “Please answer me!”
But Daisy wasn’t there anymore. She had rushed through the front door, ending up in an abandoned store that was used to disguise the Bella Ragazza nightclub. Daisy saw the multiple black vans with police sirens on them. She then remembered: she had called them while trying to avoid Marco.
“No, no, no, no, no…!” Daisy thought.
Daisy then called “SOS Chief!!!!” As Marco lost his hopes in finding his Cinderella. A soda-loving and overthinking Cinderella. So he left running by the back door.
After a while, Daisy explained the entire situation to the charging officers. She was nervous upon meeting someone so important in such a drastic way. After a lot of thinking and a little thrashing given by Chief Davis, Daisy was forgiven and told to go home.
However, Daisy just wouldn’t get Marco out of her head. And Marco wouldn’t forget the Slavic Cinderella so soon, even after the hard time his father and the Ricci mafia family leader, Giorgio, would give him.