by Anthology
Alberto begins to grin wickedly at me. “Then we’re doing it right.” He throws my face as he releases me. “Get out of my sight, Amelia. I told you once, but you’ve proven it again that you are an absolute disgrace.”
I start to hear men mock me, but I drown them out as I flee the common room of the house and run towards the stairs. I need my room, the sanctum it offers. I head straight out to the balcony, vying for an escape, but all I managed to do is collapse in a heap on myself. I’ve finally found my breaking point. I survived with splinters my heart, my sanity shattered, my courage is disarray, but now I’m completely defeated. I’m not made for this life – I’m not made for the blood and gore of being a part of the Dio Lavoro. Not unless I have a reason to fight or strike back.
This isn’t a case of Zane breaking my heart, because love has told this to me in a multitude of ways. My love of my family began to splinter me, my father used it to his advantage, and then the love of a man finished me.
“Bella?” I hear Lorenzo call the nickname he’s taken for me. “Amelia.”
“Leave,” I bark, unable to face him in my current state.
“I can’t,” he admonishes, settling down beside me on the tiled flooring. “You’re crying.”
I snort at his observation. I don’t mean it maliciously, but I’m a wreck and any fool can see that.
“You speak to me,” he says, his broken English hindering him again. “I’m here.”
I drop my head as desolation befriends all of my inner demons. I can’t bear to face even myself right now, so I stare at the blood staining my hands, drying into my skin.
“Please, Bella,” he presses.
“I feel like I’m drowning,” I start to say, unable to look up from my hands. “Like all the time. It’s like the longer I’m here, the more I struggle to reach the surface to just get some air. I feel like I’m constantly struggling to tread water.” Now, I look at him, my eyes wide, and my tears wild. “I don’t know how I’m meant to survive this.”
“You’re strong,” he starts, reaching for my hand. “Even after what Zane has done.”
“I don’t know,” I say, shrugging nonchalantly. “I don’t know when I’ll get over this... if I ever will. A part of me still holds hope that above everything he’ll just be there waiting for me when I get home. The part of me that loves him most tells me he won’t, because he’s better off without someone like me. I’m so screwed up and the things I’ve done and been made to do tell me I’m not worthy of love.”
“I love you,” he states, and when I look up his doleful eyes watch me so intently. “You know this, Amelia. I told you when you came home. I love you.”
“I know,” I whisper, but I’m unable to repay him the sentiment.
“I wait,” he says, placing his hand to my chin, lifting my chin up. “You know that, Bella? I wait.”
I swallow hard around the lump forming in my throat, tears still fleeing down my cheeks, but I look into his eyes, allowing myself to become consumed by them.
“I don’t know much in this life, but I learned a few things while being here,” he begins, keeping his tone soft. “I know that love doesn’t come easy, but when it does you do anything to keep your hands tightly on it. I do that for you, Bella, without even a new thought.”
“Lorenzo,” I try to stop him, but he shakes his head, stopping me.
“I don’t care when you’ll be ready, but I be here,” he states, shushing me.
I’ll never be ready, my mind resonates and I know it’s true. It doesn’t matter if Lorenzo is the kindest, most understanding gentlemen. I’ll never heal enough for him. A crazy part of me tells me to try, to make those first gallant steps towards a newer, brighter future.
So I react to his plea, finally.
I reach up, framing his face with my hands and pull him close. I deserve the chance to live freely of my heart’s desires even for a short while – however that may be. There’s a moment where I bite my lip, wondering what I’m doing, but I forget about my tears, about my earlier sins and begin to lean in. I kiss him, at first it’s hesitant and slow, but the gentle ease forces me to keep this going for sanity’s sake.
All the while telling myself it’s Lorenzo kissing me, not Zane. For the first time in months, I believe it is really him kissing me. I allow myself a moment of realism to let my head lead and not my heart and I find I enjoy it.
Until we pull away and everything comes rushing back in.
How am I ever meant to get over this?
How am I ever going to heal this time when my heart won’t let go?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ZANE
“ZANE!”
My eyes shoot up, but the gun remains in place.
“It’s not worth it,” Enzo says from the doorway of the hotel room. He comes closer, his hands up as if to show he isn’t a threat. “Please, this isn’t your only choice now.”
“Isn’t it?” I ask, my voice quivers. “How can you be so sure?” I close my eyes, pushing the gun closer to my temple than ever. “He was right, you know?” I ask, opening my eyes to look at Enzo. “Everything I touch turns to dust.”
“It’s not true,” Enzo tries.
He takes a few more steps in, closing the door behind him. He shuts off the outside world again and comes toward me. I can’t deal with him trying to stop this, and my shaking body tells me this.
“Don’t!” I spit, grinding my teeth together. “I’m a weak man, so this is right.”
“It’s not,” Enzo fights, ignoring me as he comes closer.
“Don’t come closer!”
“Fine!” he tells me, his hands rising higher up. “Can I sit?” he asks and points to the bed opposite me. He gives me a weak smile when I nod and sits directly opposite me. “Can you put the gun down and we talk?”
I sit, pondering on the matter. I could easily do as I say, allow him to console my bruised ego and attempt to fix my broken mentality, but what good will it do? I’ll still be in the same predicament. So, I don’t listen or obey, I keep the gun to my temple and watch him struggle with what to do next.
“C’mon, Zane, this isn’t like you,” he argues lightly. “You’re not a man to do this.”
“Maybe once before I wasn’t,” I mutter, but it’s with that comment I unravel. My demeanor falls, my shoulders slump and with it my hand drops, taking the gun from my head. Enzo looks immediately less tense. “Why did I even think it was possible? Why did I think I could ever win her back this way? She’s never going to look twice at me after all I’ve done.”
“You don’t know that,” Enzo speaks, offering optimism. “Amelia is a lot of things, but my father seems to ignore the fact that she was always, always foolish in love and she has loved no one like she loves you.”
I drop my head to look at my lap, but when I met with the glistening metal of my gun, my heart begins to slow and it dawns on me that I was willing to end it all. I heave on a few intakes of air, sobering up and I start to shake my head. I chose the worst way to go, chose a way I never really believe in.
Suicide.
It’s the worst fate because it’s the loneliest, but I’m not that – Enzo has proven that again. Him coming here proves that I’m not alone in this world.
“If she could see me now...” I trail off, starting to lift my head. “If either of them could see me now... my mother would disown me and Amelia would wonder why she ever fell for a man like me.”
I force myself to sit a little straighter, and while I still feel the immense tension, I’m grateful for Enzo for stepping in. However, I don’t let the gun go, or make an attempt to move it. I know I won’t use it, but the weight of it reminds me of the moment transcending.
“How did you know?” I ask, my voice becoming incredibly hoarse. The shame I’m feeling is incredibly damning. “How did you know to follow me?”
Enzo offers a weak smile, but it speaks volumes.
“I was once with the girl of my dreams, too, you know? And I was also
idiotic enough to throw her aside and pretend that the love I had for her wasn’t life-changing. What she gave me was out of this world, but like Amelia, I had to choose. I always chose them over Alessandra. I also felt like I had nothing to show for my life but a trail of failures.” He laughs emptily, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “I chose my family over her because I thought it was better for everyone. She played second to them and I’ve never been able to forgive myself for it.” He slowly pulls his hand away, dropping it into his lap so his hands can wring against one another. “And I remember being in your position, Zane. The gun loaded and in my hand. I remember looking in the mirror and I had that exact same expression when I decided to end it all. It’s the one thing I remember when I grabbed my gun from the dresser in my room, that finality in my eyes. I know what it is to feel like that void in your is all too consuming. I know what it feels like to be at that point in your life where you believe you have nothing left to live for. I remember feeling like the world was crushing you down.”
“So what changed?”
“I heard Amelia’s voice calling for me,” he admits, shrugging a little. “It was like a reminder that I was still needed.”
I scoff. “What am I really needed for?”
“To fight for her,” Enzo points out and I shake my head. He’s got to be fucking kidding me. “No, no. Just hear me out on this. Sal did what he does best... he plays against a man’s weakness to bring them to his knees. He plays mind games to get into your head and you allowed him.” Enzo leans forward on his perch, his arms lining his thighs as his hands come to grasp another. “He had you reduced to the smallest you could be, Zane. Don’t you see that? My father is cool and calculating and in order to win above his opponent he has to know every single last sordid secret there is.” I watch his brow pull together as frustration starts to garner powerfully in his voice. “That’s why he mentioned your mother, why he went and saw her, and why he used her against you. It’s all a part of his tactic. He saw you were desperate, fuck we all saw it, but to men like my brother and father that’s ammunition for them.”
It’s now I feel at my most foolish – I played right into the devil’s hand.
“Don’t you see it?” Enzo asks, issuing a strong question look. “They break men in order to overpower them and do what they did to you earlier. It’s all a game, so you have to play in order to beat them rather than play to match them.”
“And how do I do that?” I ask him, shooting him a quizzical look. “I’ve made myself look like an absolute fool. No one in that house will take me seriously.”
“I do... as do Carlo and Manuel, and of course, Billy does, too.” Enzo’s comment is matched with a deadpan expression, nothing being given away. “You’re the man I always wanted to be, Zane. Even if, right now, you’re carrying more baggage than ever, you had the courage to make an attempt to get the girl back. Once Alessandra left, I never looked for her, never tried to get her back, never even tried to make her realize how undyingly in love I am with her. I just let her go.” I can see his eyes glistening, as if the pain from his past is far too much to bear. “You’re a bigger man for coming back.”
“I came back to end up like this,” I say, looking back at the loaded gun in my lap. “I don’t know why I thought it was a clever idea.”
“Because sometimes stopping the pain is a better idea than learning to live with it,” Enzo quips wisely. “You’ve been living with it a while.” I watch him taking a deep breath. “Dealing with a death is never easy. I understand how it feels to lose a mother, but I still had my brothers and sister, you were left with no one. I can’t understand how not having that link to who you are feels. Grief isn’t a fleeting emotion; it’s one you’ll feel for decades. All that will happen is it‘ll get weaker. You’ll live with it.”
“I can’t blame all of this on grief,” I point out. “I’m a weak man for not loving Amelia enough.”
“I think you loved her too much,” Enzo observes, musing as he sits up. “That girl is hard to deal with at the best of times, but you managed to make her concern herself with something worthwhile. But my little sister is so confused by her loyalties that it even scares me. She wants to do what’s right, but her heart steps in. She loves you, I know she does, but she also loves our father for the wrong reasons. He has his claws in her so firmly; she just needs the right guidance to see how wrong his love is.” He pauses to take a deep breath. “She’s scared.”
I find myself unable to deal with the thought of Amelia struggling to find who she loves more – still wracked with difficulty at seeing her take a side. I place the gun down on the bed beside me, standing up I make my way over to the stand with the television on it. I open the paper bag and start rummaging in it.
“I need a drink,” I muse, pulling out a bottle of whiskey.
“Gimme that,” Enzo says, putting his hand for the bottle. I pass him it and he immediately opens it and downs a massive gulp. “I’ve been after a drink all day.”
I take the other bottle from the bag and sit on the bed, only to use it to slip onto the floor. Enzo quickly follows sitting directly opposite me.
“Were you planning to drink all of this before or after blowing a hole in your head?” he asks, not caring about how crass he’s being. “Or was it for that Dutch courage you were going to need when you realized you weren’t entirely sure if it was the right move or not?”
“The latter,” I mutter.
“It’s not in you to take that way out, you know?”
“I guess we’ll never know,” I comment, musing over the fact he’s here. “If you hadn’t have come through that door I’m not sure I could’ve backed out. I was so close to pulling down on that trigger and then you were here. It felt right.”
“You were completely out of it,” he observes, a solemn tone. “I couldn’t let you do it.”
“The entire way here I kept seeing Amelia and all those moments leading up to before I threw her, but then it all came at me full throttle. She was in Italy, probably hating my guts, you father was in command and I had no say in matters of her heart. I am the man that broke her heart... that’s my stigma. It’s all I’m good for.”
“It’s not,” Enzo argues, popping the bottle by his side. “I know how hard it is to be loved by people on the outside. Alessa, while aware, always hated how she came after my family. She tried to understand, but you’re both human. You love so much to receive little back, but it’s not like that at all. We regret it, believe me.”
“You can’t speak for Amelia,” I mutter, trying to get him to stop.
“I can because I know that girl better than she knows herself. She loves fiercely, but she is naive. If there’s one thing I know for sure it’s that she’ll do anything for a million chances to be with you... believe me.”
I chase that comment down with a gulp of my whiskey. We sit in relative silence, as the night begins to claw its way through the daylight. We’ve sat here not doing much but talking, and I don’t even care, because doing this has taken all desperate thoughts away, channeled them and made me realize that whatever threat Sal has placed on me, I will always have that hold on Amelia. That’s untouchable to him.
Every sat here, thoughts of my suicide still lingering vehemently, I know that my hold on Amelia’s heart was always far stronger than Sal’s, even if at times I forgot it.
“She can never know,” I say, staring straight at Enzo as I break the silence. “She can never know how I crashed this hard. She’d hate me if she knew I had become this man.”
“Strike a deal,” Enzo starts, pointing the bottle at me. It’s as he looks up at me, with his eyes full of hope for what’s about to transcend. “She never knows about me contemplating it either. It’ll be our secret we take to the grave.”
“Surely someone knows about it? How can they not?”
He shakes his head gravely. “I tossed the gun away before Amelia made it into the room and she never second guessed my weird behavior. I never had a reas
on to speak about it until today, but I still feel shameful for even picking up the gun. So, just like you, I never want her to know what sort of man I became.”
“It’s a deal then,” I say. “I say we toast to this... to the grave.”
I hold my bottle out to Enzo and he wastes no time to lean forward and crash his bottle into mine.
“To the grave,” he reiterates.
We both put our bottles to our lips, tipping our heads back to allow the liquor to infiltrate our mouths, taking away the distaste of our own weakness. We’re both bound to the other for matters of the past and even though I have no idea how to work on from this, I know that I’ll be forever grateful Enzo bringing me to my senses just by following me.
“Do you still dream about Alessa?”
Enzo breaks into a bright smile as the sound of her name. I don’t need to his verbal verification, but I can tell he wants to revel in their past.
“All the damn time,” he admits. “She was everything I ever needed... strong, resilient, and loving. Her heart was so big sometimes I used to watch her sleep wondering how on this earth I managed to find her. She loved Amelia and Manuel back to happiness too by being a maternal figure they needed after our mother’s passing. She loved them as much as she loved me. She was like the perfect missing piece to our family.”
“And you threw that away?”
“I threw that away,” he repeats, affirming. “I could blame Sal all the way, but I can’t. I got to this point in my life, where I felt I was going to let her down. Well, I already felt that, but in me loving her, I also placed a danger on her and I used to lie awake worrying about not being able to protect her. It seems so mundane now, but back then, I thought her being free of me and my family would save her from a world of pain, but that was a lie.”
“Never thought of fighting for her?”
“She moved across the country to California to rebuild. She apparently couldn’t bear to be in the same state as me so she took it all and moved across the country. I can’t find it in my heart to go and destroy whatever it is she’s managed to make of herself without me.” He brings the bottle up to his lips, but doesn’t drink from it until he’s spoken his final words. “I only want her to be happy. If it’s without me, then so be it.”
