I can still remember how his hand felt against my face. The way one of them applied pressure and the way his words were spat into my ear, his breath heating my skin uncomfortably and the threats that kept me from sleeping most nights for fear they'd come true. The others cheering beside him doesn’t weaken either. My uncle ordering them to ambush me will never lessen. If anything, I cannot forgive him for that one. I wish I could repay him for that.
“I started to switch off every day I woke up in that place. I lived all of that life numb until I just disconnected completely. Lorenzo was the only one who saw a side to me I closed off because he was the only one who cared enough to save someone. He saved me, and I felt myself put a trust in him that I used to put in you.”
Zane reaches for my hand, as if holding onto me strengthens my courage to tell him everything.
“There was one heist that went wrong, and my uncle ordered a man to be killed. Except I didn't have a chance to move out of the way before I felt blood hit my face. It smothered me, and I just stood there in shock. Even after he had dropped down dead and my uncle suggested we leave, I just stood there. Without Lorenzo, I wouldn't have moved from that spot. He just seemed to always be the one willing to look out for me."
"I can see why you fell for him now. He was your hero when no one else was," Zane comments and although I know he's trying to keep the peace, the way he speaks paints a very different story.
"I never loved him like I did you." I see that my words fail to reach Zane’s rationality; he doesn’t want to know of my past acquaintance with Lorenzo. “I never loved him,” I reiterate and grab Zane, forcing him to hear the truths that I know hurt him. I know my relationship with Lorenzo is a black mark, but it needs to be addressed. “You do know that, right? I know Lorenzo is old news, but I need you to understand it was only lust with him. I never felt anything close to what you make me feel. I just tricked myself into believing he was a substitute for you. Even now, I see how foolish that was. He never could love me like you did, and I only ever fantasized about you. I guess that is what stopped me from being a total lost cause. I couldn’t let go of you and the hope my heart had, and it meant I still felt something, somewhere.” I give him a small smile. “It gave me hope that you’d come back. Even when I thought all hope was lost.”
There’s a bittersweet silence. I want Zane to understand every part of me, and even in this blissful domestication, shadows are still within me that I don’t dare allow light to enter. Now is the time to allow every bit of sunlight to penetrate and burn away the demons I keep within.
“So please, don’t lose hope in me now.”
When he reacts, it’s not how I expect. After his silence, I expected him to get up and try to realize that I loved him above any other man. But he doesn’t move to get away from me. He shuffles closer, his hands coming up to frame my face, and all I see in his face is a new fire.
“I will never lose hope. It’s not something that will happen. When I thought you were going to die, I lost hope, but when I got you back, I knew that was it, sweetheart. We were going to have eternity together, and we’ve not even chipped the beginning of that.” His tone whips at me with confidence, with an unheeding will to make me realize once and for all. “Whatever happened between you and Lorenzo, however much it makes me bitter, is not going to change a damn thing. I wasted many chances on a wholesome life with you. Now that I have it, I’m not going to be reckless; not with this life, you, or your heart.”
Whatever I thought I deserved, Zane only ever offers me the opposite.
And in that, he offers me everything a girl could ever dream.
***
“I’ll go and get us some more drinks.” I excuse myself and leave the sight of a perfect family afternoon.
As I escape into the kitchen, I look outside to see Kai get Enzo with the water gun before running off. He looks happy when he has the attention of Bruno’s kids to himself, but once he’s alone, the sadness creeps back over him.
It strengthens my decision to seek his happily ever after for him.
“I have something to ask you.” A voice jolts me from my thoughts, and I look to see Allana. “I saw some plane tickets back in the study. An open-ended ticket, nonetheless. I pushed it under the paperwork in there so no one else sees it.”
“Oh, thanks,” I muse, looking away.
“You’re not getting away that lucky, Amelia. It’s a good thing I went in there to get the kids coloring stuff and no one else.” She has a grin on her lips, one that speaks more than she actually has to. “Are you and lover boy going away for a little while?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m going away for a little while on my own,” I comment and make no attempt to look at her as I start to mix up a new batch of fruit punch. “Not for long, but I’m not sure how long it’ll be.”
“Where are you going?” she pushes for more details.
“California.”
“And why?” Allana asks, pondering on the idea of what I’m up to. “What’s in California? And why isn’t Zane going?”
“Alessa.”
My singular response has her looking at me as if I’ve summoned the devil. I know my decision to go hunting for Enzo’s long-lost love could be catastrophic, but it’s also a detrimental move to my brother’s future happiness.
“I’m going because I think he saw part of a story and pegged it up as she’s moved on, but I know otherwise. I can’t let him wallow anymore without knowing if she’s still waiting for him or if she’s found someone to replace him.
“If she has, I will come back and never tell him. If I get there, and she’s as miserable as he is and still as in love, then I will drag her back here and make them see sense.”
“You’ll do that for him?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, delicacy in my response. “Why wouldn’t I? Enzo fought for me when I didn’t have the fight, and even now, he’s my protector. He’s always looking out for my happiness. It’s time I repaid him and looked out for his.”
“When do you leave?”
“I sneak off tomorrow morning. Only Zane knows because Zane stole her file for me.” I giggle, laughing even harder as Allana rolls her eyes. “It’s time we all got the life we wanted. We’re all nearly there, but it’s time we give a little back to the man who fought to make sure we had some sort of life to leave that house for.”
“I’m going to tell Bruno,” Allana says and waves her hands as my face filters my alarm. “Listen to me. I’m going to tell Bruno because he can give Enzo more hours at work, and you can call him and bitch about work and stuff. If you do that, then he’ll be none the wiser. We’ve had a housewarming; you can say you’re just busy with work and Zane. You need every ally to make this work.”
“Then we have to let Carlo in on this too,” I say, pondering on all the ideas.
“Volunteering,” we both say in unison as the bright spark hits us both.
“This is the perfect idea, Lia,” Allana gushes, a sated smile growing on her face at the idea. “He needs her, and a blind man wouldn’t be able to miss that. I had noticed how he doesn’t seem the same since you left Sal behind and came to us that night. I never knew Alessa was an option.”
“I only know because she came to Manuel’s funeral, and she begged me not to tell Enzo she was there.”
“She’s still in love with him. He’s still in love with her. It’s just time they saw they have a chance with one another now. He made that plausible then didn’t chase her properly. He got scared and ran.”
“Then we have to do this,” Allana comments, rubbing her hands together. “This is perfect, Amelia.”
“It will be. Just don’t tell Enzo the truth, and we’re good.”
“My lips are sealed,” Allana agrees, forming my perfect alliance. “I know their story’s just beginning. Like yours and Zane’s is. This family needs all the good it can get after everything that’s happened.”
“I know, and it’s about to finally get it.”
/>
CHAPTER SIX
“So he just threw money at you and expected you to take it?”
I nod, cutting into the grilled chicken on my plate. While I wouldn’t usually mix food with the conversation topic of my father, my grandfather no longer remains in the dark and would like to keep it that way. After learning the true demise of our mother, he’s found himself hell-bent on a game of revenge.
I wonder if he’ll listen to me if I told him how revenge tore into my life, ate me up, and left me with a harder heartbreak than ever. The idea of revenge, of finding vengeance, is alluring, and the moment the idea settles, it consumes, like a disease vying to kill every healthy cell in a body, but it doesn’t stop once retribution has been found. Instead, it continues to rip through you until nothing is left but a husk, and even then, it’ll strive for total destruction.
“He needs to learn you are not his family,” my grandfather growls, the tension causing his jaw to clench together. “What he allowed to become of this family is something he’ll have to live with until I get my hands on him. I have wanted my family back for absolute years, but I did not want them back in this way.”
While the others remain quiet, I find I’m unable to. Listening to my grandfather draw lines and conspire battle plans causes my heart to cramp fiercely. We’ve had a year where we’ve all sought normality, but my grandfather has been unable to get past having us back in his life, broken by family and grief.
He can’t seem to realize that we’re a family destroyed by revenge and lies.
We stand here, alive and seeking a future because of the immoral actions we made and allowed others to make. We lost ourselves in the Dio Lavoro, and now that we’re free, we don’t want to be dragged back down.
I’m just worried that my grandfather hasn’t noticed how much we’re grappling not to be cast back into the life we were in no more than a year ago.
When our house of cards came tumbling down.
I clear my throat, preparing to bring my grandfather down a few notches. “I think you need to be careful with plotting revenge. It’s a dangerous game.”
“What do you know about revenge, Lia?” my grandfather asks me. I know he means his question innocently, but the way he looks at me makes me feel like he underestimates me. “From what I heard, what your father made you do was all clean kills. There was no rhyme or reason to them.”
“I killed on my own accord once,” I mutter, looking down at my dinner, nudging the salad to the side with my fork. “It cost me everything.”
I only look up when I feel Zane’s hand on my lap, his fingers squeezing gently around my knee. He’s giving me the strength to relive a time in our lives that was destructive. I find my grandfather watching me more intently now; he’s transfixed, waiting for further explanation.
“I killed the men who went after Zane,” I admit, making sure my expression conveys the same conviction my words hold. “It was just after Sal gave me Zane as my next kill. I couldn’t do it, and apparently, some of Sal’s men knew that and saw how the hit was tearing into the family, so they ambushed Zane one night and shot him.”
“Is this true?” my grandfather asks us. He looks from Enzo to Carlo, even looks at Zane. “What happened, Amelia?”
“I killed two of them one morning, and the third nearly raped me before I got away from him and killed him,” I mutter, ashamedly looking away from my grandfather.
“You let her do this alone?” my grandfather suddenly barks at my brothers. He throws his knife and folk down to turn in his seat to face them. “You know the men your father associates himself with, and you allowed her to get into a situation as dire as that one.”
“Don’t blame them,” I say, defending them all. It was my heart and my idiocy that forced me to exact revenge, and it was myself I lived with after it. “Enzo didn’t know until I came home. I was a little beaten, but it was fine. They died. They knew not to mess with an Abbiati, exactly how I had wanted it.”
“Until it wasn’t,” my grandfather finishes my sentence. I nod, and he turns back to me. “Amelia, I’ll be careful, but your father cannot get away with this.”
“Oh, trust me,” I begin to scoff, “he’s not getting away with anything. He lives in a hovel and drinks himself into oblivion. He has no business, no money coming in, no family. If I ever wanted his comeuppance, I couldn’t ask for a better one than this.”
Seeing my father rocked my conscience, but since seeing him, my nerve has calmed, and I now revel in the sheer fact he is suffering how we all did. He’s battling in a life he used to rule. His empire caved and fell beyond repair, and I cannot feel bad.
Salvatore Abbiati is finally seeing that nothing lasts forever – money, reputation, family.
“I’ll even toast to a broke, pathetic Salvatore Abbiati.” Bruno holds his glass up in the air, pleased with the toast he’s making. Bruno loves every moment of life now. We’re all sharing a life without the bindings to the Dio Lavoro or our family. We have lost, but we still stand united. “The great will always fall.”
“Here, here,” Carlo agrees, raising his own glass. “He has everything he deserves, but unlike us, he has no one to fall back on.”
“We’re a closer family,” Enzo chimes in, his tone still wavering from his normal stoic note. “There are still some kinks, but this was the way of life Bruno and I wanted for us all. We don’t want anything to ruin the progress we’ve made.”
“Okay,” our grandfather notes, nodding in acceptance. “I’ll concede and stop with trying to bring Sal down. But if the opportunity presents itself, I will take full advantage of it. Same goes for that brother of yours. Giovanni has gotten away much too lightly; he will feel the wrath of me one day.”
As much as I agree, the talk of retaliation is enough to make me feel nauseated. I have to stop our grandfather’s rampage before it spirals.
“Revenge tactics and trying to be more powerful being led us here, Nonno. Don’t let it drag us back,” I say, pleading with him to just let us live the life we want. “We are a family now, finally. We aren’t a business. We’re here, together as a family, and I don’t want that to ever change.”
I raise my own glass, keeping my eyes on my grandfather in the hopes he’ll join us, toast with us, and agree that the old mafia life we had is always going to remain in the dark. It may be a part of us, and it may live within us, ingrained and primal, but we have the choice to follow its call or allow it to become dormant.
Again, my grandfather’s preaching echoes in my mind, the words rattling me – we all have demons, but we have that choice to let them win or not. It’s time we hinder their hold on us, beat them, and prove that we’re bigger than our teachings. Our grandfather managed to get his family back, but unlike other families, we have enough reasons to retreat from anguish and moments that will be detrimental to us.
We have learned to leave our pasts well alone in order to recover, heal, and survive.
I relax and grab Zane’s hand in mine. I apply a gentle squeeze and try my absolute hardest to quell the pounding in my heart. We’ve discussed not dragging the past up, and here I am, soon to leave to go and bring one vital piece of Enzo’s past back to him.
Or so I hope.
***
I giggle as a cup is placed down in front of me.
Good morning, beautiful, it reads.
“Repaying the favor,” he tells me, dropping a kiss on the top of my head. Even though we’ve shared a good morning, the loving gesture makes my heart swell. I pick up my cup of coffee, wrap my hands around it, and breathe in the aroma as Zane waltzes across the kitchen chuckling. “Cheesiest gift ever.”
“But so well used,” I tease, bringing it to my lips. I lavish the instant hit of coffee across my taste buds and groan in appreciation.
I watch as Zane crosses our kitchen, the sun beaming in and shrouding him in a beautiful natural light. We’ve settled into this new house so quickly that I cannot imagine living elsewhere. While we lived our little happily e
ver after in his apartment, I imagined a house with a yard and drive. Now that we’re in it, my expectations were matched and beaten.
Leaning against the counter opposite me, he picks up his cup, one that states ‘Good morning, handsome’ across the front. It was a novelty gift when I bought these mugs for us. It was when I found our newfound life too surreal to take seriously. I reveled in waiting for it to end, but as that faded, the cups become a part of our morning routines.
“You sure they’re okay with you going in late?” I ask, pulling my breakfast bowl closer.
“Yeah, of course. Billy understood, so he’s going to text me if anything happens that I need to know, but until your flight leaves, I’m all yours.” He sets his cup down on the side again, placing his hands either side of his body, and watches me. “Believe me; I’m using my drive to the airport wisely.”
“I’m not going forever,” I admonish, trying to downplay the anxiety that is beginning to burn within.
“No, but this will be the first time you’ll be gone since you came back from Italy.”
“But I’ll be back,” I add, raising my eyebrows at him. “And think of that welcome home.”
I giggle as his hands grip my waist, pulling me close for a kiss.
“You’re right. We need to get going. You’re supposed to be there and checked in a few hours before your flight leaves, and I’d really like to spend every moment with you before I have to say good-bye.” He suddenly looks at the table, and his shoulders slump. “I should’ve taken you for brunch instead of cooking a feast.”
“Hey, I love our breakfasts together,” I utter, looking at the amount of effort he put into this. “Plus, I’d rather this than sitting in a busy restaurant. This is much more intimate.” I push him, giving him an & look. “We seriously need to stop trying to impress one another,” I say, giggling a little at our ridiculousness. “We have everything and more that we need here, Zane. I don’t need meals out or public shows of affection. I have everything I need right now in this kitchen.”
Femme Fatale Loved (Pericolo #3) Page 7
