by Anthology
“No, I can’t,” he agrees quickly, coming down the steps of the mansion. “But I can kill you like I never could her.”
“Is that a threat that’s meant to scare me?” I ask, taking a step forward. “Believe me, Salvatore, if I thought you could have me six foot under, I wouldn’t be a fucking desperate man coming here!” I take a few careful steps back towards him. “You kill me, you ruin ever getting Amelia back. My death will be the final nail in your relationship.”
“You think she’ll care when she comes home?” he asks me, laughing hysterically.
“She’s the reason I ran,” I observe, ignoring his mirthfulness. “I might have no job or life, but I’m still alive… and that’s because of her. She may have been broken hearted, but she saved me. I’m still alive.”
“Pitifully,” Sal reminds me.
“Least I’m still here fighting!” I argue, not caring for the importance of the man before me. I don’t even care as men come to stand around him, hands preparing to pull their weapons to protect their boss. “I wish I could say the same thing about you with her.”
“You have no idea what happened in those final moments before she left!” Sal bellows, charging at me, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “She needed to be reminded of the importance in life!”
“Her happiness should’ve been it!”
“Very hypocritical of you,” Sal mocks, dropping his hand as all his defenses abandon him. “You’re the man who broke her heart!”
“Not before you did!” I say, squaring up to him. “Do you know the one thing I always knew about Amelia?” I ask, I mean it rhetorically, but I like seeing the light shift in Sal’s eyes. “She was always sorry for knowing she was breaking your heart first! That girl only ever wanted to make you happy because she only had you in life. Until there was me.” I’ll never stop saying hypocritical bullshit. “I admit that I broke her, but I am fully aware of the only way I can be with her after this. I have to prove myself to you and I will. Mark my words.”
“No you won’t,” Sal tells me, shaking his head. “Want to know why? Because everything you touch, Zane, turns to dust,” Sal grounds out, killing my prior argument. “I know everything there is to you.” He laughs, as he begins to pace before me. “I learnt a lot about you and your family when Amelia first announced she had found a man to love. Zane Maverick, an awarded Manhattan detective, falls for Italian princess of infamous mob boss, Salvatore Abbiati. It was calling for attention.” He grins, stepping closer. “Imagine my surprise to find out you were a bastard child with a mother who worked two jobs to keep you from going homeless when you grew up. You worked hard to shrug that label off you, but if anything, I think you helped your mother into an early grave.”
“Don’t you dare speak of her!”
“Oh, I will! She’s quite important in the pathetic excuse you’ve become.” Sal pauses, narrowing his gaze upon me. “I met with your mother a few weeks before her death,” Sal acknowledges, a solemn tone to his voice. “She was very aware of the breakdown between you and Amelia. Did you know that you devastated your mother in her final days?” he asks me and I flare my nostrils as tears brim in my eyes at hearing him using his mother against me. “She told me how she had only a few wishes and they were to see Amelia one final time and know that she was leaving you alone with Amelia by your side.” He sniggers at me, shaking his head with disappointment. “Amelia didn’t even know your mother was dead until you were shot.”
“I wasn’t prepared to give my mother false hope,” I say, trying to tame my urge to go wild. The mere mention of my mother is enough for me to become psychotic. “I wasn’t going to lie to her.”
“So you decided to not even try?”
“It wasn’t like that!” I argue, throwing my hands up into my hair. “She was dying and Amelia wouldn’t even answer my calls. I couldn’t fight for Amelia while preparing myself to lose my mother!”
I hate myself for getting emotional over this, but the broken man I’ve been since my mother’s death has been waiting for this moment. He’s been teetering on the edge, waiting for a moment of opportune importance.
“After she was gone, the last thing I wanted was Amelia back in my life because she pitied me!”
“And you don’t think she will now?” he asks me, rolling his eyes. “Have you seen yourself, Maverick? You’ve come here today to pledge as one of my own, but you don’t even stand close to them! You’re a man waiting for his opportunity, but he’s not prepared to give up on a broken dream to find it.”
“That’s because this is where I’m meant to end up!”
“It isn’t!” Sal yells, his words hitting me with force. “I see the weakest of all men in you. Even now, over a year on from your mother’s death you are still reduced to tears at the mere mention of her. Death should empower a man, not cause him to grieve longer than necessary. My children all lost their mother; they’ve grown accustomed to a motherless existence. They actually grew into it quickly.”
If only he knew what their mother’s death did each other them.
“What do you have to offer my daughter anymore, Maverick?” he asks me, all signs of sincerity over my mother’s passing gone. “You have no financial stability. You’re flippant with your emotions. You don’t even seem mentally stable anymore. You’re a loose cannon, and they’re the most dangerous in my eyes. It’s why you’re so careless.”
I can tell he’s not done yet, so I keep quiet. I feel like I’ve already lost the battle, I stand no chance to win the war.
“You see, the way I see it is that you wanted to try your luck to get to my daughter through me, but I am wise. I know men like you, Zane. I was once someone like you. However, I built myself a name within my family and within the Dio Lavoro. I didn’t think one fight would score me gold. Now, unlike you, I worked a hell of a lot harder than presenting myself to men who would be beneficial to me how you have. Men like you don’t deserve chances. I’ve seen what you do with them and every time I have to look at my daughter now until my final breath, I will know what the consequences of your actions are. For that, I will always hate you. It will always be the one thing that makes my blood boil, but seeing Amelia will be a reminder that, like you said, I kill you and I might as well kill her. You have a lot of reasons to make me hate you, but none to make me value you.” He gives curt smile. “Goodbye, Mr. Maverick. It was nice doing business with you, but I’m not interested in what you have to offer.”
With his piece said, he turns around and leaves, his entire entourage part to allow him to walk back into the house. I watch as they all follow but Enzo, Carlo, Manuel, and Billy remain behind. I give them a weak smile and shrug before I drop back and begin to walk away from them.
This life just became emptier and darker. I could fight for Amelia until my final breath, but it changes nothing – my mother is still dead, my job is still lost, and Amelia had her heart crushed by me twice.
I’m destructive and toxic and being stripped down by Sal has proven that.
I was a weak man for running from the woman I love, but I’m weaker for giving up on everything I held so dearly. He’s right, my sanity is questionable and has been since I let Amelia go the first time, but the death of my mother still rocks me hard, causing such an uproar of grief that sometimes I can’t breathe at the thought of how lonely this world is. I guess the shooting and Amelia’s true intentions were enough to tip me over the edge I spent so long to tittering on.
I’m a weak man; it’s time I acknowledge him.
“Zane!” Enzo runs after me, grabbing my sleeve to turn me back. “You can try again. You have to keep trying.”
“Can I?” I ask, laughing in disbelief. “I’m nothing but a loser to your father. He wants nothing to do with me. He’s just proven I have no worth in this life anymore.” I take a few steps away, throwing my hands up in dismay. “You were right, Enzo, this was a bad decision.”
“You’re giving up?” he asks.
“Isn’t that what you
wanted?” I ask, taking a deep breath I prepare myself for the departure. “I’m finally doing the right thing. I give up.” I shake my head, more at myself for not trying harder to prove to Sal or any one of his men I was worth the bother, but I don’t know what else I could do when the biggest issue was always my ability to destroy Amelia’s happiness. “Love her for me. When she makes it back, make sure she knows her worth to all of you. She’ll never know how much I was willing to love her when I got it right, so make sure she finds someone that will.”
“Zane,” Billy tries this time.
“Don’t,” I stop him. “Your loyalties... like Amelia’s... lie with Salvatore. I understand that now. I broke a heart not quite getting it, but I do now. Just do me a favor, and make sure no one ever finds out she ever had a hand as the Femme Fatale. That goes to the grave.” He gives me a nod and I swear I’m about to break. “It was nice knowing you all.”
I make quick work to walk away from them, ignoring their arguments to keep me there. Salvatore managed to do what no one else was able to – he managed to strip me down to the broken morsel I’ve become since I first broke Amelia’s heart. In Amelia I found my reason to rebuild, without her there’s no reason. Sal managed to see who I am under the guise I wear. It’s time I accept it.
I blew my chance to have my final shot with Amelia.
If I can’t even win her father over, I don’t deserve to pretend I’m okay with being with her.
He was – and always will be – a thorn in my side.
***
I know I need to get away.
I have very few options to outrun Salvatore, but the one I’ve chosen will see me through. He can’t follow me where I’ve decided to go and it feels with a sweeping sense of ease. I wanted so much to enter his world, become one with him, just so I could be standing there when Amelia walked back into the house and now I’ve opted to leave.
And all she’ll have is the memories and a letter. I look at the paper I just wrote on and I chortle at myself. I never thought I’d ever be a man who’d have to write a suicide letter, but I always imagined I’d have some grand speech to lay down in black and white to immortalize myself.
But I don’t.
My fingers travel across the embossed lettering and I utter the words, as if affirming them harsher:
I’m sorry, Amelia.
My suicide note is all of three words long. Each one holds their own conviction. Each powerless alone, but harrowing when put together. I don’t have much to say to Amelia because my apologies will never mend her heart. I broke it, I can’t fix that. I see that now.
Sal made it all so abundantly clear through my mother’s dying wishes. I’ll never fulfil them because I let her die knowing I was broken-hearted and that I was a coward.
So here I sit with my gun on the bedside table, lying in wait.
I've never put much thought into how I'd die. Apart from the thought of it being in my sleep, warm in my bed after years of wedded bliss. There were the imagining of deaths that came with being an officer, but otherwise, I imagined I’d die happy and old with the love of my life.
Yeah, I'm one of those dreamers.
Today changed all that.
Now I imagine the cold of steel against my temple. I already feel the tremble of my hand as it pulls down on the trigger and I'm yet to even bring the gun close to me.
And I just keep thinking of how everything will just stop in an instant.
I won’t live with regret or need or self-loathing. I won’t live with being this pathetic excuse that can’t even stay and fight for what is true to his heart.
Amelia will be better off without me to be a permanent reminder of what real heartache feels like.
It doesn’t mean that in these final moments I imagine she’s here. After all, if I could see her one last time before I do this, I’d tell her I’m sorry and that I see so clearly now. I’d tell her that I don’t regret losing it all for her or because of her. I’d tell her how I never hated her for who she was, but loved her for being the bravest of hellish of lives.
But I don’t have that opportunity and I don’t have the courage to list the many apologies that I live each day with. I am in no way the man she fell in love that first time. She would hate the man I’ve finally accepted I am. She wouldn’t look twice at the broken man that resides here because he isn’t admirable.
I will admit I’m a lot of things, but today, I name myself a weak man.
Life has worn me down, made me make awful decisions and caused me to change the path of my life beyond return. I am broken shell of who I used to be and no one on this earth will be able to bring me back. I lost her - my one true love. She was the only one who could help. Amelia is the only one who could love me back to life because with her I have purpose. For her, I would fight for every breath.
I just wish she had known that.
I stand, sluggish movements help me approach the bedside table and I stare at my gun. It’s helped me out of a lot of tricky situations, but I never imagined it would help me while my world collapsed at my feet and I accepted that it had.
Reaching out, I wrap my fingers around the hand and lift it. In all my years as a police officer, this gun has never felt this heavy. I feel every ounce of metal used to orchestrate this weapon into a deadly machine.
As I back up towards the bad, I pull the hammer and ready the gun for ignition. I fall onto the bed’s edge and wrap my hand around the gun tighter, my finger steadying itself on the trigger. I sit there, facing the door, knowing I’ll be the first thing someone finds when they hear the gun shot. I gaze down at my lap and watch as the gun tests the hold of my fingers. It’s heaviness seems so different to what it did when I first picked it up when I first because a cop. As if every second that passes added an extra pound, as if each bulleted is weighted with lead.
It’s as if it’s letting me know of my own decision. Reminding me that this is the last time I’ll hold this weapon. It’s as the decision sets and reality washes in that I realize this is the best decision I’ve made in a long time. Picking the gun up and putting it to my temple, I feel my lips finally form a small contented smile.
Nothing to stop me now.
No love, no rhyme, no reason.
***
“The name’s Amelia,” she tells me, laughing at me. “Jerk.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, cupping my throbbing cock after her knee just landed me hard enough I fear infertility in my future. “Didn’t mean to get on the wrong side of you!”
“Didn’t your mama ever tell you not to touch what wasn’t yours?” she asks, her lips twitching into a playful grin. “It’s rude.”
Still on my knees, I look up at her. Her bright green eyes stay at me, a bemused smile twisted on her lips. She is the most stunning woman I have ever come across and she’s certainly left more her mark on me.
I stand, keeping my space from her – for now.
“The name’s Zane,” I say, putting my hand out for her to take. “The detective you just accosted.”
Her eyes go wide, but she doesn’t look scared of my attempt to execute some power to her.
“I always had a thing for men in uniform,” she states, taking my hand to shake. “My daddy wouldn’t like it.” She pouts, but I see a wicked glint in her eyes. “But I don’t listen to him much.” She gives me a wink. “Now, are you a good cop or a bad?”
“You tell me,” I utter, pulling her close to me. No fear of a second knee to the cock, I pull her into my arms, not caring who’s listening and kiss her.
Immediately and with no heaviness, she melts into the kiss and I swear the world slows down. Everything disappears, fizzling down to total nothingness. My hands run up into her hair, my fingers threading through it to allow me to deepen the kiss. I tease her lips with my tongue, helping the kiss along, but it’s when she moans against me I have to relinquish my hold and slowly and reluctantly pull away from her.
“That’s one to remember me by,” I tell her, giving her
a cheeky wink. I watch her part, bruised lips as she watched me. “Next time you can do the approaching, Sweetheart.”
That’s the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
I might not know much, but I know that for sure.
CHAPTER TEN
AMELIA
“LIKE THIS!” ALBERTO bellows, wrapping his hand around my wrist to force my hand to complete the task. “You cut deep and you keep cutting, Bambina!”
“No!” I say, striving to resist him as warm blood begins to smother my skin. “Alberto! No!”
“You’ll do this, Amelia, to see how we handle business!” he says, continuing to cut the main. “Men who act like this bastardo, don’t deserve to be men at all! That’s why we castrate the them all!”
The man screams as his pain continues and each howl embeds itself into my mind, lashing out in harsh remembrance already. He cries out in Italian profanity, his words hindered some by his pain and I close my eyes, whimpering about this assault I’m forced to partake in.
And then it stops.
Alberto lets me go and my entire body sags. I’m sat on my knees, the knife still in my hand now set at my side while the man before me bleeds out after I was forced to castrate him. I cry on my spot, silent sobs wrack my body and I hate what I’ve been forced to become.
“Leave him to bleed out,” Alberto orders as he walks away. “Amelia, get up.”
I do as he says, leaving the wounded man as I slowly rise to my feet, dropping the bloody knife as I do so. Every man here stares at me, sees how weak I am as my facade crashes to the ground and for once, I don’t care about their opinion of me. Not even as Alberto spins me around and captures my face in his hands.
“This is your life, principessa,” he tells me, his hands closing down on my jaw. “You’ll learn to accept it or you’ll die denying it. Do you understand that? Your fate is yours to take... join your family or abandon them.”
“This isn’t a life,” I ground out, looking at him with a deathly gaze. “This isn’t a family. This is hell.”
