by Lux Miller
I swallow and shake my head quickly, a look of horrified disgust on my face. She chuckles softly and pulls me into a hug. My entire body tenses up as she wraps her arms around me and tugs me tightly against her body. “First of all, Emily… you know men are idiots. I don’t believe for a second that you are two-timing Luca with Dante. Second, you wouldn’t have the time. I know I pretend to be oblivious to what goes on in this house, but I’m far from it.
“Luca barely lets you out of his sight and even then, he keeps you under guard. The fact that his men think you’re also sleeping with Dante is pitiful, but not unexpected given their past indiscretions. They’re men with money, after all. I suspect his men are hopeful that you’d dare to step out on Luca, because they still believe he’s playing the fame game and that he’s going to toss you to the wolves when he’s finished. I can assure you, Emily, if you haven’t already figured it out, he isn’t. My son is smitten with you.”
I nod nervously and she releases her vise grip on me. “What you’ve done for my sons is remind them of their humanity. It’s always been there, but both of them have tried to shut it off. It’s a necessary quality to be able to be who they need to be. But they also need to be human sometimes. To feel, to hurt…” She tilts my chin up until our eyes meet. “...to love. You’ve given that to both of them.”
I open my mouth to argue, but she shakes her head at me and places her index finger against my lips. “Hear me out. I loved my husband. After thirty years of marriage, it would be impossible not to, but I never looked at him the way that Luca looks at you. And yes, Emily… Dante loves you too. You don’t have to be in love with someone to love them.
“Matteo and I were a perfect example of this. We had a deep respect for one another, and Matteo would have laid down his life to protect mine, but in the end, we held each other’s hands, not each other’s hearts. It is much the same for Dante and you. You give Dante something that he’s never had - a friend who accepts him, despite his destiny not because of it.”
I shut my mouth and nod, understanding what she’s saying. I have felt the gravitational pull to Dante. There’s something that cosmically links us, but it’s different than what I feel for Luca. I’ve never felt compelled to be with Dante, but being with him has a calming effect on me when my world is upside-down and chaotic. Especially his hugs. There’s something about Dante hugging me that makes every tightly-wound nerve in my body relax, if only for a moment.
I narrow my eyes at Bianca as she smirks at me knowingly. She jerks her head towards the stairs and levels her gaze at me. “Do you have another miracle you can pull out of a hat?”
When I continue to stare at her blankly, she elaborates. “Noemi is being positively impossible.”
I reanimate my face and raise one eyebrow. “Is that what the two of you were screaming about when Dante and I came in?”
Bianca tilts her head to the side. “You mean when you snuck in, hoping nobody would notice that the two of you were gone for six hours while everything here went to hell in a handbasket?”
Blushing slightly, I nod helplessly. No sense in denying the truth. Bianca gives me a careful nod and glances up the stairs. I can hear footsteps stomping back and forth across the hallway. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. “So are we talking full on World War Three?”
Bianca just stares at me knowingly. “She’s upset because most of her things are still at the old house. A house to which Luca has forbade us to go. She’s positively freaking out over the fact that she has nothing to wear. She’s seventeen. Her personal appearance is everything to her and with first Matteo and now Luca taking everything away from her that made her feel normal, she’s lashing out in the worst way.”
I nod slowly as I listen to Bianca speak. I clear my throat and swallow the lump in my throat. I know the horrifying feeling of having everything ripped out from under you all too well. I was a bit younger than Noemi was when my world crashed down around me, but no amount of maturity prepares you for living life in a cage.
“Can you talk to her? I don’t know your full story, but from what I understand, you went through something similar? She’s so angry right now that she isn’t allowing herself to grieve. I know that Matteo had his faults. He was a terrible father to Luca and Dante. He always treated them like associates and it did some irreversible damage to them, but he wasn’t that way with Noemi.
“Noemi was everything the boys couldn’t be for him - a child he could let his guard down around. There was no chance that she’d ever be eligible to take his place in la famiglia, so he was able to love her in a way that he never allowed himself to love Luca or Dante. He gave Noemi the world, but when that same world came after her, he locked her away like a priceless jewel.
“She resented Matteo for that, but now that he’s gone, she’s turned her resentment into hatred for Luca and Dante. She knows one of them was responsible for his death, and Luca has allowed her to believe that it was him. She cannot truly grieve her father until she forgives her brothers. Please speak with her.”
I hold both hands up in a helpless gesture of defeat. “She’s not exactly my biggest fan, either. I’m fairly sure she wouldn’t care if I disappeared for good.”
Bianca sighs and nods. “Okay, I’ll figure something else out—”
I shake my head and grab hold of both of Bianca’s hands. “No, I’ll talk to her. I can’t make any promises, though.”
Bianca exhales slowly, squeezing my hands with a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. She looks relieved as I walk past her and slowly trudge up the stairs. The arguing downstairs has mostly faded, but it’s been replaced by the frustrating screams of a teenage girl and slamming doors.
I approach the bedroom door slowly. It takes me three tries before I manage to actually knock on her door. The screeching stops, but nobody answers the door. “Come on Noemi, you have to come out eventually.”
My half-hearted plea is met with a loud thud as something crashes into the door. Nodding silently to myself, I realize that this is going to take a lot more effort than I even I expected. I knock again, trying to maintain my composure.
Several moments of complete silence follow my knock, then Noemi’s voice shatters that silence with a hellish scream. “Go away, homewrecker! This room has always been mine, and I won’t give it back!”
I turn my back to the door and lean back against it, choosing to ignore her outburst. Her words are mean, but from the sounds of it, she’s in the middle of a temper tantrum, and she isn’t doing a very good job of controlling her emotions. I understand her. I didn’t take it too well when my father died either, but I didn’t have to deal with feeling abandoned by my brothers. The only people who’d ever loved me weren’t dead to me… they were dead.
There’s more rustling inside the room, but when I don’t respond to her, Noemi’s taunts get vicious, “Leave me alone! You know my brother is only with you because you’re easy! He just wanted to get laid!”
I close my eyes and inhale a slow, deep breath. I know that reacting will only validate her behavior. Right now, my best course of action is ignoring her outburst. The storm will pass eventually. I just hope it does before Mass tonight, because Bianca is adamant in having her children attend for their ashes.
With the sudden silence in the hallway, I can hear the arguing downstairs faintly. Dante and Luca’s voices are both strained as they heatedly discuss something. I close my eyes and yawn softly as my hand wanders to the place on my hip that’s now sore with the addition of my own ink. I lower the waistband of my leggings just enough to see the edge of the gauze bandage peeking out over the top of my panties. Luca is going to freak out when he sees it.
I don’t know if he’s going to love it or hate it, but he’s definitely going to notice it. There’s no way I’ll be able to hide it from him. As I sit there and lament the predicament I’m in, I remember one of the few possessions I brought with me when Luca forcibly removed me from Piacere and Andre’s care.
I pu
sh off the door and walk to mine and Luca’s shared room. I slip inside and walk over to the bedside table where I stowed the trinket that I’m thinking of. I push and slide various papers around inside the drawer until my eyes land on the tiny gilded birdcage pendant. I snatch it up into my hands and run my fingers over it gently. It’s nothing fancy. It’s probably not even real, but it was one of the few things that was ever truly mine.
Closing my fist around it, I dash back into the hallway and approach Noemi’s door apprehensively. I raise my hand to knock on the door, but stop myself just before my fist connects with the painted wood. Instead, I turn my back to the door and slowly slide down it into a seated position on the floor.
Sighing, I let my head fall back against the door. The thudding sound it makes as it connects with the wood is soft, but it echoes around me in the silence. I hear an answering sound that’s almost exactly the same and I realize that my moment has come. There is a calm in the storm and if I don’t seize this opportunity, I may not get another one.
“Noemi, I’m not trying to take your brother away from you. Either of them. I’m not trying to do anything other than survive in a world that isn’t fair. I know you miss your father. And I know you always will. It’s been ten years since mine died, and I still haven’t forgiven him for leaving me.”
I pause, inhaling and exhaling deeply as I wait to hear a response. When I hear none, I continue, “I didn’t have brothers who cared about me when my world fell apart. They may not be good at showing it, but Luca and Dante love you. They protect you because of that love. They don’t want to see you get hurt or destroyed the way they have seen countless other be eaten alive by the city that sins.”
I rub my fingers one last time over the dented and warped birdcage pendant and silently push it underneath the small crack between the bottom of the door and the floor. I push it just far enough under the door that the pendant disappears inside the room, but the chain remains on my side.
“It isn’t much, but it reminded me that no matter how oppressive the world may seem and no matter how small the cage may feel, that you can find beauty. They may clip your wings, but they can’t silence you.”
I hold my breath as I make my final plea to the little girl on the cusp of womanhood who is hurting on the other side of the door. Several dreadful moments of silence pass, then the chain disappears under the door. A couple of heartbeats later, I hear the lock on the door disengage.
Scrambling to my feet, I quickly turn the knob on the door and push it open. Standing just out of reach is Noemi, her eyes puffy and red and her cheeks streaked with tears. The chain hangs from her closed hand, but neither of us mentions the necklace. Instead she shoves the contents of her hand into the pocket of her jeans.
It’s disarming how much she looks like her mother, except her eyes. The painfully bright blue of her eyes is one-hundred percent her father eyes. She’s stunning, even as she swipes the back of her hand across her face and pretends that she wasn’t icing me out minutes ago.
I give her a small smile as an offering of peace. “I know you don’t have much here, but we’re similar to the same size. You’re welcome to anything in my closet.”
Noemi’s eyes light up for a moment. “Wait… do you have Royce creations in there?”
I chuckle and nod. “Quite a few of them actually. Most of them have only been worn once. The offer still stands. What’s mine is yours. For that matter, that should include Royce himself. He’s a total sweetheart. I bet he’d love to make something for you.”
Noemi shakes her head. “He’s too expensive for my budget.”
I raise one eyebrow at her and motion for her to follow me. She quietly follows behind me, her demeanor suddenly meek and nothing like the spewing hellcat she was just moments ago behind closed doors. I walk over to the bedside table and smile when I see that Luca has left his personal phone in the drawer. I pull it out and unlock it quickly.
Noemi’s eyes widen slightly as she watches me with Luca’s phone. I send a quick text and smirk when the phone almost immediately pings back with a response. “He has an opening tomorrow. But that won’t help us for tonight. Name a color and let me dazzle you.”
Noemi raises one eyebrow. “Turquoise.”
Nodding, I wave at her to follow me as I set the phone on the top of the bedside table and walk over to the closet I now share with Luca. I step into the closet and emerge several moments later with a pair of dresses.
One is a Maxi dress style that’s modest up top and has delicate florals embroidered into the crepe fabric. Around the waist is a gold belt that matches the iridescent stitched flowers that catch the light as the dress moves. The other looks like it was pulled straight out of a silent movie with its cut and style. Delicate cream-colored polka dots cascade over the soft fabric that hits just below my knees.
Noemi’s eyes are wide as she admires the two dresses. “I… these are gorgeous.”
Nodding, I laugh as I hand her the polka dot one. “Wear this one. It skews your eyes to an almost green color that’s enchanting. I have shoes to match. What size are you?”
Noemi shrugs as she looks down at her bare feet. “About a seven, I guess.”
I nod and slip back into the closet, producing a pair of cream-colored heels with a modest two inch heel and thin straps that crisscross over the ankle. I hand them to her along with the dress, and usher her out of the room and back toward hers. “These are a seven and a half, but I think they’ll work. I’ll wear the other dress and we can be a vision in turquoise together.”
Noemi can’t stifle the soft, but excited giggle that bubbles out of her mouth. She quickly recovers and her face returns to the same stoic expression that she wore before. But the damage is done. The smallest chink in her armor has shown itself to me, and I’m now determined to find a way to disarm her defenses...
EIGHTEEN
I duck just in time as a magazine sails over my head, its pages flapping like a bird taking flight. It narrowly misses whacking me as it lands with a thud on the floor beside me. I crane my head around on my neck and look at Noemi incredulously. She has the audacity to whistle softly and pretend to look at the ceiling.
“Really?”
She shrugs as she picks up another magazine and drops it into a box marked ‘Noemi.’ Yeah, like that isn’t completely obvious. I point at the offending former projectile and muse, “So that one can go in the garbage then?” Noemi shrugs, her eyes focused on something behind me. With a cough, I fling my hand behind me and scold, “Don’t you dare, Dante. I know where you sleep…”
A large shadow looms over me, stopping suddenly. I glance over my shoulder and smirk at Dante as I catch him red-handed about to smack me with a rolled-up magazine. “I’m not a puppy that peed on the carpet. There will be no smacking me with anything. Luca gave us six hours to get everything of importance out of here, and the two of you are wasting time playing games.”
Dante narrows his eyes at me, but I can see a soft tint of red creeping along his cheeks. He nods and drops the magazine back onto a pile of discarded mail and holds both of his hands up. “Fair enough. It’s not like anybody is really going to benefit from these trashy magazines.”
Noemi scoffs. “They’re not trashy!”
Dante chuckles as he kicks one across the room to her. The headlines emblazoned across the front are all about sex, and how to better pleasure your man. He points at it with a smirk and accuses, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were preparing for a lot more than a party on your birthday.”
It’s Noemi’s turn to blush, and she snatches the magazine off the floor and drops it into the box. “Ugh, you are such an—
Dante nods and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah… I’m an asshole. I know.”
“Dante Lorenzo Barresi! Language!”
Dante heaves a heavy sigh and responds to the disembodied voice that floats up the hallway from the back bedrooms, “Yeah, yeah Momma… I know. You’re gonna get after me with the soap and wash out
my dirty mouth. That’s a losing battle…”
Bianca pokes her head out of one of the rooms and stares Dante down with an icy glare. “Don’t tempt me. There’s a brand new bottle of liquid soap in the bathroom.”
Even I shudder at Bianca’s threat. Having your mouth washed out with soap is an old-fashioned method of punishment, but liquid soap? Dang, that’s harsh! The scary part is, I don’t doubt that she’d do it, either. She may be diminutive, but no man crosses Bianca Barresi when she lays down the law.
Dante rolls his eyes, but his body shudders enough that he can’t hide it. He holds a hand up in Bianca’s direction. “Just tell me what you need to pack from the kitchen. I can’t imagine it’d be much since Luca has a state of the art kitchen at your disposal.”
Bianca grumbles as she walks up the hallway, wiping her hands on a pair of faded, dirty jeans. It’s the most dressed-down I think I’ve ever seen her and, strangely, it suits her. She seems calmer and less stressed without all of the finery. The basic black tee and kerchief tied around her hair make her look disarmingly peaceful.
