“Go,” he utters, pulling me in for a quick, heated kiss. He doesn’t linger near me, allowing the kiss to end sooner than either of us wants. “The sooner you go, the sooner you can come home.”
As the horn sounds again, I sigh. Kissing him with my admission, I allow him to have fun with his secret.
***
I never thought ghosts could cloak a building.
I look across its dank brickwork, look upon all the lifeless windowpanes, and remember how bright and vibrant this place used to be. The life that used to thrive upon every inch of its grounds no longer resonates anywhere.
The old Abbiati life has well and truly disintegrated.
“Let’s get this over with,” Enzo announces, stalking up the stairs that lead into the house. “The faster we find him, the faster we get to leave him behind.”
“Like ripping a Band-Aid off,” I offer my agreement as we trail into the house.
“He has to be here somewhere,” Carlo mutters as we enter the main foyer.
The last time we were here, we left our father beaten down to his knees.
I silently travel off, ignoring where Carlo or Enzo lead and head through toward the back of the house. However, in doing so, I find myself heading toward a room that harbors more memories than the whole house combined.
I cautiously approach the room Manuel died in, but I never stop to tell myself not to enter. It’s been almost a year; this is just a room now. I long ago stopped allowing anyone to have a suffocating effect on my life. Coming in here is closure. It’s a part of preparing to really dissolve all my emotional ties. I can no longer dream about a house that has more horror stories than it does sentimental memories.
I had years of family love and good, healthy memories, but the moment my mother died, the eclipse set in and it never ended. This home became a place of eternal darkness. Leaving was the only way to lift the curse.
Not wanting to dwell on the horrors I was lucky enough to survive, I walk from the room and know my father will be in only one place, if he’s still in the house.
I walk down the corridor that leads to my father’s office, retracing many of my own steps. The dankness of this house is overwhelming, the mess on the floor, the paperwork strewn everywhere, the dust – ironically – settling. I notice the door is ajar; the doorway smothered in yet more paperwork, as if someone has ransacked this entire house. I push the door open, and there sits my father, slumped at his desk. His hand wrapped around a half-empty tumbler; he’s staring absentmindedly at nothing.
So much so, he doesn’t even notice someone standing before him.
He mutters something and finally lifts the glass to his lips. His haphazard motion tells me he’s been drinking since well before sunrise. The crumpled suit he’s wearing tells me even more than ever, and I begin to frown. I should feel for this man, should want to help him, but all I feel is pity.
The downfall of Salvatore Abbiati has happened, and it’s liberating.
“What an absolute cliché you’ve become.” As I begin to clap a round of sarcastic cheers, his head shoots up, and I fall casually against the doorframe. “You’ve really outdone yourself here, Sal.”
“Amelia,” he whispers, an incredulous tone. He sits up straighter, but never releases the crystal glass. “Amelia,” he murmurs once more.
“The one and only,” I mutter, pushing myself away from the doorframe to walk into the office. I kick pieces of paper and ornaments that once lined his desk out of the way, objects I remember Gio pushing out of the way so he could lie me down on the desk that fateful day. “You’ve been working hard I see,” I mock.
He stifles a laugh, and it reverberates in the glass as he downs it all. As if he’s finding his Dutch courage in the bottom of the tumbler. He slams the glass down, setting his sights on me.
“Did you like my gift?” he asks, his eyes narrowing upon me.
“No,” I admonish, watching his face fall. “But it is why I’m here.” As I persevere into the shithole of an office, I slip on the mess and find it enrages me. “Really, Sal? You really are a pathetic excuse for a man.”
“What’s it matter?” he asks, standing – albeit wobbling – to start moving out from behind his desk. He stumbles to the cabinets beside his desk, pulls the bottle of Jack Daniels from the top, and undoes the bottle lid to get a gulp of the liquor. Apparently, his tastes have lowered because if I remember rightly, he used to think Jack Daniels was a poor man’s substitute for the good stuff. “I lost all of my children; why would I need an empire? Everything I was working for was gone. I had no need to continue, so I didn’t.” He looks at me, no life in his eyes, and offers a mirthless smile. “I absolved as many platonic ties as I could, canceled business meetings, started to lay people off until it was just me and the four walls. Had someone told me my ultimate result would be this, I’d have killed them in one easy hit for underestimating what life I was building for my children.”
“You could’ve made the Dio Lavoro what it always should’ve been.” I pause, waiting to see if he gathers where I’m coming from. “A family business.”
“For what family?” he asks, reiterating his argument from before.
“The one you should’ve fought to keep!” I yell, apparently unable to remain calm over unfinished business. “You should’ve saved us from drowning, but instead, you just kept making it harder to tread water.”
“Oh, you make it sound like it was all on my shoulders,” he sneers, shaking his head in disgust. “You were ruining our family just as much as I was.”
I laugh – mockingly, I’ll admit. “I was ruining that family? That’s rich coming from you, Sal. You cared more about keeping up appearances instead of enabling us to have a life we wanted. You expected us to love the life you laid at our feet, and if we even so much as disapproved, you punished us. The life of a father doesn’t work like that.”
“I only ever loved you all,” he slurs, stumbling back to his seat. “What I gave you, Amelia, was the chance to be strong. You weren’t just gifted with beauty; you were gifted with instinct and ability to be a fighter. You could stare down the barrel of the gun and not even so much as flinch.”
“But you never looked close enough to see that it was all a lie,” I reply, watching my words cause him to sober up. “I never wanted to be what you made me. I did it out of fear of retribution. There was never love to what you did to me, and it took me a long time to realize my loyalties. But you need to realize that I know rule number one of being in a mafia family, Sal, and that’s being loyal. I did everything I could to remain by your side, but that last job nearly killed me, and then in the end, this family nearly wiped out half of us.”
He remains deadpan. My father wears no expression anymore. He’s a ghost of the powerful soul he used to be, and I have a feeling he’ll never assume the role he had before in this world. However much I want to pity him, I need him to know how life has continued to move on.
“I’m now loyal to my brothers,” I say, feeling my eyes water a little at this admittance. “My real family.”
“And you’ll forget all about what I gave you in the twenty-four years before that?” he asks me, snickering with his malice-filled words. “I gave you all money and opportunities to be powerful figures. I gave you all purpose; I gave you a life men would beg for!”
“And you gave us a brother who killed one of our own! You enabled that!” I shout, enraged, to say the least. “You made us into what we were. Everything we became was because of every action you made!” I can feel myself heave, my lungs burn with my anger, but I’m far from done. “I’m more than happy to be away from here, away from you, away from the birth right you thrust upon us all. I am more than happy to live remembering that we made you lose it all, Sal. I would give anything to make you suffer like we all did! Because what I had to endure while in your family is enough to haunt me for life, but don’t doubt I will fight with every fiber of my being to stay away from men like you, Sal!”
“A
h, so pleased you haven’t lost that aggressive streak of yours, bambina.” He claps his hand together in mock joy. It’s almost as if he’s absorbed nothing I’ve said. “Has it driven that Maverick bastard away?”
I laugh hard at that. “No, you bastardo.” I watch my father jump at my downright disrespect. “More fool you, you pathetic man, but he’s actually waiting for me to say yes to his marriage proposal.” I walk across the room, going over to the cabinet to see what other alcohol he has stashed away. “You see, unlike for you, the world didn’t stop spinning the moment we cut our loss and ran. If anything, the world finally started spinning correctly.”
“You have nothing anymore, Amelia. You’re poor,” my father states the obvious.
“So what?” I ask, rhetorically. “We’re free, and we’re happy.”
He leans forward, leering at me from his perch on his seat. “And I can only assume it’s all darkened by Manuel’s passing.”
“That was a given,” I reply, dryly. “We are all a little less without him in our lives, but that doesn’t mean we stop living because of it. We’re rebuilding. We might not have your dirty cash, or have the connections you offered us, but at least, we still have one another.”
“I know you work in a bar,” he comments, falling back into his chair. “You were never made to wait on others.”
“It’s a job,” I sneer, plucking a bottle out of the drawer and taking a swig. “A job I chose, no less. We might not have the riches anymore, but we have the makings of a good life.”
He nods, seemingly not believing me. “How are your brothers dealing with the new living arrangements?”
“What about us?” Enzo asks, walking into the room.
“Ah, Enzo,” our father greets, a wide grin. He takes note of Carlo too and nods his head. “Carlo.”
“You’ve really surpassed yourself at keeping up appearances, Sal,” Carlo announces, mocking our father. “It’s good to see we come from a strong willed bunch.”
“We do,” I admonish, glaring at him. “We managed to carry on. He should’ve been man enough to do the same.”
“I’ve told you already, bambina, I have no cause, no purpose, and no reason.” Our father raises his bottle before chugging back more. As he swallows the final gulp, he points the bottle at Enzo. “Although I’m sure I’m a few begs away from getting Enzo back.”
I look at Enzo; I don’t even dare to breathe as I take in his guilty posture. This has to be some sort of a lie.
“Sal has tried to get us all back, but I’ve not let him get past me.” Enzo doesn’t offer eye contact; instead, he stares at our father. “He’s tried, but I refused to let him disrupt what progress you’ve all made.”
“Is that why you deposited money into our bank accounts?” I ask, turning back to our inebriated father. “Trying to bribe your way back into the family?”
“Did it work?” he asks me, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“No, you dimwit!” I bellow, exasperated. “Now that I know where the money came from, I can send it back. We are trying to make a life after the Dio Lavoro. You cannot come and interrupt that now. Our lives don’t run by your decisions anymore, Sal.”
“I will always have a hold over you,” our father announces, relaxing into his seat. “I made sure I left my mark on all of you.”
“If only you knew the truth,” Carlo says, chuckling at the irony of this. “You can explain your idiocy of letting him back inside your head later, bro.”
As he leaves, I narrow my gaze on my father, watching him intently as he watches me.
“It’s reasons like this which make me glad I’m away from you.” I shake my head in dismay. “I might agree you left a mark, but you don’t have a hold on us anymore.”
“I have a hold on your brother there,” our father mocks, pointing at Enzo.
“I never said yes,” Enzo mutters, grinding his teeth together.
“But you never said no,” my father adds, playing devil’s advocate.
“He’s right,” I say, grinding my own teeth with agitation. “You’ve been in contact with him and didn’t think to pass on the memo? Is that why he gave us all the money? He knew how lower class we had become.”
“Whoa! I never spoke about you or our brothers. I would never break our trust like that, but while you all landed on your feet, I haven’t. I got lost, and Sal offered me a reason to get back in the running again. It was an option, but I haven’t said yes.”
“Were you?” Carlo asks, stepping forward to confront his brother. “Would you have said yes with a little more begging? Would you have caved and turned your back on everything you helped make happen?”
“I don’t know!” Enzo roars, and without anymore said, he rushes from the room.
I chase Enzo out of the room, unable to let this go. As he storms through the haunted corridors, I rush to keep up with him. I only catch up with him when he makes it out onto the back veranda of the house. I know there is more to this than Enzo unable to cope with normal life.
“What is going on with you?” I ask him, standing just behind him. “First, you just seem to sit in the background of everything we do to make sure it’s all running like clockwork, and now, we find out you’ve actually had contact with our father?” I ask, trying my hardest not to sound angry. “I’m trying so hard not to be mad at you, Enz, but I am. I feel a little betrayed.”
“This wasn’t about you.” Enzo’s posture stiffens; he’s bristling at the reality that he has to face up to the situation he’s gotten into, and he has to face up to me. “It’s about me.”
“Then tell me,” I say on instinct. “Talk to me, Enzo.”
When he lifts his gaze, the guilt is lost and that somber gaze he’s recently worn so well ignites in his eyes. “You all have a purpose but not me. I’m nothing now.”
“That’s not true,” I argue, shaking my head. “I know you feel like life left you behind, but I would sink without you, even now. You leave, and I have no hope. I may have Zane by my side, but you made sure I made it out alive.”
“I know I’m that to you,” Enzo says, pausing slightly, “but what else is there? I’ve tried to find someone to settle with, but what’s the point? I can’t do it. I feel like this is one of my only options now.”
“It’s not,” I defy, unwilling to let this continue. “I know you envy us.” My statement is met with stark shock. “I know you miss her now more than ever, Enzo. I see it every time you’re with us. Even when you’re with another woman, I know she’ll never meet your expectations because you can’t settle for second best no matter how hard you try.”
“Stop!” Enzo bellows, throwing both hands up to run through his hair. “Just stop, Lia, please.”
“Why?” I ask, unable to let this slide anymore. “Because you know I’m right?”
I watch Enzo intently as he becomes defeated and worn down. This is the true Enzo living beneath his façade. The others might be content enough to believe Enzo, but I have watched as the weeks crashed into months and he became a ghost of himself. I won’t stand for it anyway.
When I wanted to get lost, he was the first to stop that. I won’t allow him to slip into this unhappy state where he thinks his only options in life are to come running back to the family.
“Enzo,” I whisper as I take a step forward.
“Don’t,” he breathes, his tone heated. “Nothing you say will change the man who stands before you, Lia. Anything you have to say on the matter is futile.”
“Why?” I ask, desperate to know. “You can find her, you can beg her, you can love her again! I got my second chance with Zane; you can have it with Alessa.”
“She’s engaged, Amelia!” he bellows; within the anger is his heartbreak. “So this is officially over. She’s found a man who can give her absolutely everything and will love her right.”
Oh, I inwardly wince.
I think back to Manuel’s funeral when she appeared. She wore no ring on her finger, and the woman who looked longin
gly at Enzo was not one tied down. There is no way she fast-forwarded to an engagement. Unless she did it to protect her heart.
Heading across the veranda, Enzo puts his hands out, stands against the railing, and looks out across the unloved grounds of the Abbiati Mansion. I don’t move to be closer to him; I allow him the space so he’ll actually speak to me.
I know Enzo. If I don’t bombard, I’ll get more out of him.
“I headed out to California a few months back to find her. Which I did, by the way. I found her relatively easy. I saw her in a jewelery shop not far from her apartment. She had a ring on, and when she turned and threw her arms around the guy she was with, it didn’t take long for me to work out the math.”
“Why didn’t you try to meet with her and talk to her?”
I know I sound desperate, but I saw the girl at the funeral; I saw the couple that is still lost and living in heartbreak without one another. I cannot – and will not – believe she’s just moved on and found a man to eclipse the void Enzo left in her heart.
“And say what?” he asks me, turning back to face me. “Oh hey, Alessa, remember me? The man who broke your heart. I’m still wholeheartedly in love with you; let’s start again. I’ll wait in the car while you dump your fiancé.” He offers me a deadpan expression. “Life doesn’t always mean happy endings like you and Zane got. The love of my life isn’t mine anymore. I didn’t get lucky like you.”
“You have to fight,” I whisper, trying in vain to get him to listen. Zane and I didn’t get where we are without a massive fight to get it.
“We don’t all get blessed like you did with Zane. You have a man who will walk to the ends of the earth for you. I can’t do that for Alessa anymore. Now, she has someone else to do it for her.” He offers a sad smile before straightening his posture. “You don’t have to worry about me, though,” he announces, changing his tune. “As much as I have nothing outside of the Dio Lavoro, I get to see you happy. That is enough to keep me from taking Papà’s opportunity and rebuilding the business with him at my side. I won’t jeopardize seeing you so free, Amelia.”
Femme Fatale Loved (Pericolo #3) Page 4
