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by Kirsty-Anne Still

  “They want you back?” Bruno asks, intrigue filtering his system.

  “They need me back,” Zane muses, looking a little pleased with himself. “They’ve never found my replacement, so they’ve been pestering Billy a little to find out what I’m playing at. If I’m honest, I miss it, but I will not regret coming back for Amelia.”

  I feel a small blush beginning to creep up my chest, clawing up my throat to infuse a pink shade across my colorless cheeks. I never knew an importance quite like this. You can tell yourself that to one person you mean the world, but until you really are the middle of someone else’s universe, you never quite know just how it feels. That feeling of being loved, wanted, and cherished is like being delivered every star in the sky.

  “Before this turns into a gushy moment, can we look back at houses?” Carlo quips, breaking the sentimental moment. “As much as I love you two loved up, I don’t think my stomach loves it as much.” He gives me a twisted grin, really teasing me. “We can discuss job plans at a later date.”

  There’s a moment of deliberation and then I’m hit with a brainwave. The brilliance of the idea strikes me comical and I have no idea why I never thought of it before.

  “I have an idea,” I utter, getting up from my seat.

  I ignore everyone around me as I leave the room and head for the stairs. I rush up them, skipping a few steps as I go, as if it’ll hurry my pace. In actual fact, it just seems to tire my body quicker, but I know I have to fight against this bout of fatigue.

  I enter my room, bypassing everything so I can get to my closest. I walk inside and seek out my safe. I punch my code in and open it. I have three items stashed in the little charcoal, fireproof box – a small amount of money, my gun, and my mother’s pearls. I snatch the money and the necklace and slam the safe shut. Hurrying myself, I head back stairs and into the great room where everyone seems to be waiting with bated breath.

  “I put a little bit of money away every now and then,” I say, throwing the wad of green papers down onto the table. “I’ve never counted it, but that could help us.” I then present them with the necklace, my most prized possession. “And we can sell these,” I say, presenting them with my mother’s pearls. “They have to be worth something for Gio to have presented them at that poker game.”

  “No way,” Enzo intervenes. “You’ve lost so much and given up so much already, Lia. You’re not going to give them up, too.”

  “I’d rather lose them than have to continue to deal with Manuel gone,” I utter, dumping the pearls on the tabletop. “They’re barely worth anything to me in comparison.”

  “Maybe not, but they’re also the only thing of Madre’s you still own,” Enzo fights, pushing the pearls toward me.

  “I have her gun,” I counter, trying to be playful in order to break some of the tension weighing in the room. “It’ll always be a threat to Papà and Gio.” I see my cheekiness won’t win favors and I growl. “They’re just pearls. They have a sentimental value, yes, but if they’ll be our way out of here, then for fuck’s sake, please use them!”

  “Grandfather is helping us,” Bruno casually interjects. “He’s acquired quite a business behind him since Madre died.” He puts his arm around Allana and draws her close to his body. “I met up with him after I called him and he told me all about Sal’s threats and showed me exactly what he did to our grandfather. I swear to God, had I known before, I would have made sure that asshole knew exactly what hell looked like.”

  “I think it’s safe to say, he’ll know that,” Enzo quips hearing my father’s voice resonate from somewhere in the house. “I’ll start setting up viewings for the houses we have all agreed on.” Enzo stands up, picking up the posts of houses we have all chosen so far. It’s many, but it’s a start. “It might be a bit more cramped than we’re used to, but at least it’s the start of freedom. Now, keep quiet. We want to make sure he’s surprised when he finds himself all alone.”

  ***

  I’m a glutton for the punishment.

  I will always be the one to deliver some sort of penance to myself than enable someone the ability to do it first. I’ve come into the room that’s filled with demons and death and I’m sitting in the very spot I crumpled after Giovanni stabbed me.

  The house has been so still, so silent, so gentle since I woke up in the middle of the night. No one is awake; no one is wandering, plotting, or planning. The tranquility that has hit the house since the funeral is one I hope won’t stick with us forever. Life without Manuel will be painful, but I can’t live with this overbearing feeling that we daren’t live. In the same sense, I find it painful to make a start on healing and moving on. Grief is a confusing time of life. While you fear each labored breath, you know you have to fight for your heart to keep beating. You have to keep your nails dug into those you hold so dearly, but who can you trust when death hangs over us all waiting to snap its fingers and claim us? How do you push yourself through the moments your life changed and imagine a life beyond that when nothing is set in stone?

  This is why I’m putting myself through the slow burning torture of reliving what happened that day in this room. I need to first prove to myself that I did try to help him, that I was overpowered, that I wasn’t to blame for Manuel not surviving. Then I need to remember Manuel as he was, not how he became. I was granted a second chance; therefore, I have to live for him. I can’t ruin that.

  I look at the very spot I remember him lying – the bloodstain on the wooden flooring - and I'm haunted by those piercing blue eyes. They showed life slipping away and I never fought hard enough to save him. I allowed Giovanni to have the upper hand when I could have outsmarted him.

  I came back to this house from Italy to be a stronger, harsher, more memorable version of what I had been made into. I wanted to be Femme Fatale Reloaded. I wanted men to quake with fear while simultaneously getting a hard-on with just one look at me. I wanted that mind melt of being their strongest desire and their biggest downfall. I so wanted to come home and hide my heartache by being a siren to men who should have known better, but I was anything but that. I don't blame Zane for ruining that by turning up; I blame myself for not being strong enough, for not seeing Giovanni’s downward spiral, for not being enough to save my baby brother as I had always vowed. I blame myself for being the biggest Abbiati failure.

  But I need to stop.

  I cannot play God and expect to achieve the greatest in life at the same time. I need to remember my mortality, adjust to its weaknesses, and love within it how I know to – unequivocally. It should never have come to this point to remind myself that I am just a human. I’m made of bone and muscle sheltering a beating heart like everyone else. If you cut me, I bleed; if you hurt me, I cry. I was once before made to feel invincible by my father, but now I own a new version of that word. I know my downfalls, cut losses when I know I’m in uncharted water, but my invincibility comes from the love Zane has painstakingly kept offering. I may miss the power I used to possess, but this newfound transience I’ve been delivered feels like my second chance. I feel I could live forever enclosed in the life Zane and I have found.

  “Hey,” Zane’s voice breaks into the room, thick with sleep.

  Speak of the devil.

  I look up at him as he stands in the doorway, his pajama bottoms hanging low on his hips, his chest bare, muscles laminated by the moonlight shining through the windows. There he is – my one piece of salvation. We’ve fought hard to be where we are and I know that he was right when he told me our love story was meant to be epic. He was also right in being an absolute dipshit for coming back to me the way he did.

  He looks around the room, uncomfortably eying up the room, and I imagine his mind is recreating that day he screamed life into me. The day he fought for me to come back to him is bellowing back at him in vicious shades and I can tell he’s fighting with himself to rid those thoughts.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” I whisper, looking down at the floor before me. “The nightmares se
em to just be getting worse.”

  “So, that led you here?” he asks, still remaining framed by the doorway.

  “I came for clarity,” I tell him, looking back up just as he crosses the room.

  “Are you getting any?” he asks, coming to sit down beside me.

  “Some.”

  I look at Zane as he sits facing me in the same exactly the same position – legs out in front of him. I reach for his hand the moment it’s close and take from the physicality what I can. There’s no upheaval at this moment, my lacking heartbeat, slowly regaining its healthy rhythm.

  “I felt like we were running out of time,” I whisper, making sure my eyes firmly captivate Zane’s. “When I felt him stab me, I thought I had ruined my chances in this life. Everything I wanted was slowly ebbing away, but then you were there fighting again. You’d come into this house with so many motives, but one intention... me. I didn’t see that until it was almost just too late.”

  “You gave in, though,” he speaks tenderly, offering understanding.

  “After too long,” I regrettably admit. “I had so many reasons for resisting you, but one is that our love could prove dangerous. It’s one thing to want in this life, it’s another to love. There’s so much danger being alone in this world as there are being with someone and jeopardizing their life with your actions. You’re that to me. If I loved you, it meant you were an easier target. You’re everything I want and need in a man, but I daren’t love you because while I saw what you were becoming, I watched that already large bounty over your head just grow.”

  “Do you feel that now?” he asks, taking my words on harder than I expected.

  “No,” I murmur, tears burning in my eyes, a lump forming in my throat. “That revolution that Enzo gave up on is finally happening. We’re setting new rules. You’re part of it all now. Hell, I think you may be one of the reasons for it.”

  “I’m happy to be,” he remarks softly.

  The silence that’s filled the room begins to dance around us, encasing us, and I spend a moment of reflection just listening to those tiny demons in me shouting in nothing louder than a cutthroat whisper. All my actions will have consequences I’ll take through life, but I have to right my own wrongs.

  “Do you want to know something?” I ask Zane, cutting into the quiet. He doesn’t verbally tell me to continue but encourages me with a gentle look. “I had this idea before of a swan song,” I say, looking up from tracing the patterns in the wooden flooring. “I was going to avenge what happened to you, make my father think I was the perfect replica of what he wanted, and then I was going to run.” My eyes fixate on the blue orbs that stare at me, and I offer a small smile. “After that final kill, I was ready to take your hand and run. My swan song wasn’t meant to be so violent, but it was and I wished for everything to have gone differently that night.”

  “You’re not the only one living with regrets, Amelia. I have them all day long, believe me.” His grip on my hand tightens somewhat exponentially, but I lavish that tightness, that grasp on me. “Even after what I found out, you fought for me. You saved my life when you could have set me up. It wasn’t until I realized what was going on that it was too late.”

  “I would do everything to save you,” I tell him, honesty spilling from me in verbal ribbons. “While I was away, my uncle mocked me over you. It only made me angrier toward him and my father. Fuck it; I was angry at the world. I was shipped off as if I had no rights and I was forced to do things I never wanted a part in. It’s when I knew I had to change my mindset.” I pause, gulping in doubt. “I became someone I knew I could protect, Zane. I was someone I despised, but that was better than torturing the person I wanted so badly to be.”

  “And now?”

  I involuntarily sigh. “You helped have a hand in making me someone I want to be. I don’t love myself just yet, but one day, it’ll happen.” I scoot forward a little, closing the proximity between us so my face matches against his. “I want a happy life. I want a true love story,” I admit, smiling bashfully. “But I know that’s already happening.”

  “How so?” he asks, questioning through his confusion as he muddles through working out what I mean.

  “I don’t want a happily ever after that comes easy, Zane. If I got given that I wouldn’t take it. I want to feel something. I want to feel like I could lose a huge piece of me if anything happened to you. I want to feel like I’m cold when you’re not near. I want to feel that breathlessness you cause. I want to be caught up in a whirlwind so hell-bent on being able to destroy everything that I can’t and won’t escape. I want to fight with you. I want to scream at you, but only because I know I can say the absolute worse to you and know that my heart will still love you and yours will still love me back. You’ve proven that to me already.”

  “If that’s so I have no regrets in life,” he whispers, his hand coming up to frame one side of my face.

  The warmth that emits from his palm forces me to close my eyes and as I do, his lips touch one, starting of gentle, attentive, loving. This interlock of love is not forced, nor is it rushed. We both just become unbidden after our heart’s finest truths made it into the still air of the room. At the moment, we just found a mutual attraction to what we were already feeling. As if the kiss was just aiding what it was we were feeling.

  And as we slip away, our breathing now staccato, we both seem sated.

  “We were always meant to be this or some semblance of this.” I watch a sadness lick at his gentle eyes, waiting to take him over. “It wasn’t long after my mom’s health deteriorated and she told me to find you that I realized you’d always be a wound I’d never heal from unless I made things right.” I watch a small smile creep across his lips, as he chuckles and shakes his head. “She always knew you were my better half... completely corrupt, foul-mouthed, but totally my soul mate.”

  “Your mom always did love me for some strange reason,” I comment, musing on the past life we had lived together.

  “She knew you wouldn’t let me get away with shit,” Zane jokes, dabbling with the memories of his mother and me. “She didn’t even think it was stupid when I got your name tattooed on me. She felt it was a punishment for being so stupid.” He chuckles again. “But don’t flatter yourself over that, sweetheart, I had an awful tribal idea waiting to cover it up if I needed to.”

  I hit out at him, playfully scolding him. I feel a smile tug at my lips, one of the first real smiles in so many days.

  “You should do that more often.” He waits for me to look at him. “Smile. There is life after death, Amelia. You just need to see that. I know it may feel like a struggle right now, but it’s not forever. You just need to remember to keep breathing and working through the grief.”

  “Is that what you told yourself?” I ask, referring to his mother’s own death.

  “Yeah, except I had to pretty much do it alone.” I see a ghost of something swoop across his face, but before I can quite put my finger on it, it’s gone and he looks up at me. “There’s a lot I get wrong in this life, a lot I regret as a result of my mistakes, but coming here, doing what I have is not one of those moments.” Again, he cups my face, this time not to kiss, but rather to steal my whole attention. “Not a lot is certain in this life, but what I feel for you is.” He leans in, pushing his forehead to mine. “Nothing and no one will ever change that.”

  I track my breathing, make sure I’m compliant with the throes of living, I listen so intently to him. I’m still drawing air, my heart is racing, and he’s still talking.

  “Actually, they will. People like Giovanni fucking Abbiati will magnify my every feeling for you, Amelia. I love you more every day because of that fucker. He might have caused a lot of bad, but he only caused me to love you more.”

  How is it that pure beauty can unravel from the midst of a horrific tale?

  I never knew it was possible for life to stop in a beautiful balance as I revel in the moment so intensely woven with love and passion that nothing
else matter. My grief knows no place here, my fear slain.

  All I know is the future may be different than what I imagined, but my future is still mine to have, and I will not be allowing men like my father and brother destroy it.

  “Thank you,” I tearfully whisper. “Thank you for giving me the strength to hold on to experience this with you.”

  “I wasn’t going to let you slip away, Amelia. This life isn’t one I could walk without you. Not sure how many times I have to say it, but I will keep saying it if I need to.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I’ve stood watching a lone figure linger at the Abbiati crypt, flowers clutched in his right hand. He’s smartly dressed as if he were going on a date, but if that were so, he is in no hurry to leave the cemetery.

  I watch him begin to wipe his face, and as much as I hate to, I have to intervene. I have to learn who this stranger is.

  “Can I help you?” I call out, restarting my movements to take me toward the family grave. I know I shouldn’t interrupt, but no one’s here and we’re on a time limit today. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry or disrupt, but I wasn’t expecting anyone to be out here.”

  “I’m Ryan,” he states, clear and precise. “I’m Manuel’s... I mean I was...”

  “Manuel’s boyfriend?” I ask, a small smile gracing my pale lips. It didn’t take rocket science to put the twisted fact together.

  “Right. I’m sorry,” he immediately apologizes, blushing somewhat beautifully. “I wouldn’t have been here, but Manuel and I would have celebrated our sixth month anniversary together today. I know I had no right coming, but we joked about the date we’d have when we reached this point if we reached that point.”

  I feel my eyes water, the bittersweet sting of a tragic love story still unraveling before me. This is Ryan, the man who made Manuel feel renewed, stronger, and confident. Even though Manuel has left a gaping hole in our family, it’s harder to see the obliteration his death has done to a man outside of the family fold we were so tightly knitted to.