“Fuck!” I swear, immediately grabbing onto the blanket to cover my bare self.
This is something I’m going to wake up from!
I watch my brother stutter, staring wide-eyed and scared. He’s stammering on his words, and I’m unable to tell him to leave the room.
“I guess we’ll postpone the party,” Carlo mentions. I notice his eye contact is on the floor, and he looks more than a little nervous. “I’m going to leave now. I’ll tell everyone to come along tomorrow. Clean up before then, please,” Carlo begs, retracting his prior steps to seeing him out of the house. “Bye!”
I look at Zane, who’s trying poorly to stifle his laughter. I hit him; ounces of hatred hit me at the thought of him enjoying this moment.
"He saw everything!"
"It's nothing new, is it?!" he exclaims, stifling a laugh. “They saw your gorgeously ample ass. If I remember rightly, Carlo saw my cock.” Just for emphasis, he grabs my ass with both fucking hands and squeezes.
“You’re incorrigible,” I mutter before covering my face with my hands and burying it for a moment. As Zane’s laughter begins and his grip relinquishes, I look back up. I now know payback is a bitch. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Nope,” he said, adding extra emphasis upon the ‘p’ in the word. “Gonna be getting payback for that when we’re old and gray and still squabbling over pathetic things.”
I crinkle my nose, scrunching my face up at the idea of that. It leaves me warm inside. I honest to God feel that warm, fuzzy sensation that people in love always speak about in the movies. I used to wait for that feeling, and even when I had Zane in rounds one and two, hell, and three, I knew I was in love, but something held me back from appreciating all that it made me feel.
“We already squabble like an old couple,” I remark; every note in my voice is a happy, sated one. “We’re just still hot ... and now, I’m going to never live down the fact that Carlo has seen me naked.” I moan and throw my face down against Zane’s body as I wallow. “I’m so fucking screwed.”
“I know you are,” Zane quips, chortling. “That was my intention. Carlo walking in like he owns this place was just icing on the cake.”
“Sometimes, I really hate you,” I utter, narrowing my eyes as I attempt to be angry with Zane.
“Hate only makes your love for me grow fonder,” he replies, acting so sure of himself. “I’d say we’re even.”
“Until next time.”
Zane raises an eyebrow. “Oh, Miss. Abbiati, you seem so certain there’ll be a next time.”
“With us, there is always a next time.” I grin, my mind conjuring memories of blissfully devilish moments. “We’ve been caught in compromising situations before, but never so much that my brother got a face full of my bare ass! My brother,” I whine, whimpering on the memory. “He’s never going to look me in the eyes again.”
“He will,” Zane responds, nodding his head. “He’ll be afraid to let his gaze drop any lower anymore.”
Yup, this is the life. That push and pull of banter, that total solace of being with one another. That ability to make fun of the other and know it’s done in good humor.
“You’re a bastardo,” I mutter, slapping my flat palm down onto his chest.
“A bastard you love.”
He’s true; I do love him and his bastard ways.
***
“I thought I’d find you here.” Zane’s gentle tone washes into the silence.
“So this is her file, right?” I ask, as he sits opposite me.
It’s funny; I’ve sat here for what could be hours, staring at this file, knowing that the ‘name’ on the front is all an elaborate lie. Alessandra Massi changed her name, morphed her identity, and forced a new life under the alias, Alice Cooperman.
“Amelia, I felt you get out of bed over a half an hour ago. Are you really telling me you haven’t read the file yet?”
I shake my head.
“I’m scared,” I mutter, pulling my bottom lip as I stare at the file. I raise my gaze, meeting Zane’s as he watches me across the table. “What if she has moved on? I asked for this so I could make my brother happy, but what if this tells me Alessa is happier now without him? He’s so unhappy, and it kills me to know that out of all of this, Enzo is the one who doesn’t get a happy ending. Instead, he has the option to resort to helping my father. How is that fair? Enzo stayed with us, let Alessa go to save us, and now, he doesn’t have the girl or the happiness.”
“Trust me,” Zane tells me, a slight encouragement to his words. “Just read it.”
I brave the file with that gentle coercion. As if Zane telling me to just do it was enough of a pep talk to give my bravado the kick it needed. I drag the file across the table, drawing it closer as I warily prepare myself to look into Alessa’s life post-Abbiati.
Initially, I trawl across her general details, the ones I know – birth name, birth date, age, height, weight. I read how she’s made a life for herself. She’s settled, but I see no mention of the man Enzo claimed to see her with. My pounding heart begins to relent, seizing from fighting the restraints of its bony cage. She has an admirable career, a house she owns, and no track record to follow. Alessandra Massi is still the model citizen, but no detailing she is with someone exists. Her house is hers alone, her bills are all in her name, and she has no joint bank accounts with anyone.
The only difference is her name. Alessandra Massi is now Alice Cooperman.
I pause; my fingers linger over her new alias, and my brow begins to pull together.
“Why would she change her name?” I question; while my fingers trail the words, I start to lift my gaze to look at Zane. “What would possibly make her do that?”
“Running with a broken heart makes people do crazy things,” he whispers, a heart-breaking ebb of honesty in his tone. He slides his hand over the table until he covers mine. “I know what it’s like to be at a point you’ll do anything to live on and tell yourself that time will heal all the cracks, but Amelia, some cuts are far too deep to ever heal. Sometimes, the one person that made those fault lines is the only one who can repair them.”
“I know,” I reply. I give him a small smile before replying. “But you healed all mine.”
“Not all, I didn’t,” he replies, his tone dripped with whispers. “Some I won’t ever be able to mend, but that’s okay because I won’t ever allow them to be enough to break you entirely.” He squeezes his fingers around my hand, and I take the moment to really appreciate that Zane understands all battle wounds and scars I’m left with. “There is no way you’ll ever do this life without me again.”
He shifts, releasing my hand enough to move forward and change seats until he’s beside me. He holds my attention without much energy, and I watch him smile as he lifts his hand to graze against my jawline.
“I will do whatever I can to sit by you and see you through your highest of highs and support your lowest of lows, Amelia. There is no bad day that could ever come between us. Wherever this life takes you, I will be trailing behind you.” He pulls me closer as if to strengthen the moment. “I allowed outside forces to drive us apart, and I fought to have this moment with you. I will fight to have more.”
“The fight’s over,” I whisper, leaning in to seal that comment with a kiss. Unlike the kisses earlier, this is innocent, a delicate peck, but ends with my forehead resting against Zane’s. “This is our life, now. There’s no need to fight.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear you say, sweetheart.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“You’re making saying yes a lot of pressure,” I utter, walking away from a potentially cataclysmic argument.
“I thought the house would cement it,” Zane remarks, following me. I hear a desolate manner reach from within him, and I turn to face him. I watch as he seems to become broken the more I remain reticent to his proposal. “You’d see we have a life here, and you’d finally say yes.”
“I understand that,” I reply, keeping my words soft.
“But do you?” he asks me, his jaw tightening. “Because I’m not sure you do, Amelia.”
I feel my heavy hands clamp around my throat as he says that and anger pours from him. His aggression is enough to enrapture me in a tightening vise, and I panic that if I don’t find my moment to say yes, he’ll stop asking, and I’ll let the chance slip away.
“I do want this.”
“Do you?” he asks. “I wonder if this is really what you want. I mean, we fought the fucking world for this, and you still cannot say yes to me. I am here to stay, and I’m here building to give you a life, but every time I try to push us a little further toward a relationship that will be set in stone, you become hesitant and scared. You act like we’ve been dating for a week, and I’m already picking out rings.” The gaze he fixes me with is one that holds such sadness, and it’s been a while since I saw him have such a despondent look. “Do you love me that little?”
The vase breaks into a thousand pieces as that sentence pierces into my mind – do you love me that little? My heart thuds, pulsating a new heat of blood around, and as it filters into every muscle, every organ, every fiber of my being, I find fury courses my veins.
I snap. Zane has broken me – in a much-needed way. I’ve hidden away my true reasons to be hesitant because I’m even scared of the girl I once was. The old Amelia scares the new and improved me.
If I’m terrified of myself, why would a man willing to marry me not be?
But his last question stings, forcing a dagger straight through my heart. After all this, he dares to ask me such a question.
"I don't want to say yes because I'm scared!" I bellow; a fuse in my brain finally bursts, and frustration masks my words. "I love you, I know I do, you know I do, so don't you ever question that, you bastardo!" I can feel my eyes burn with unshed tears.
"Then tell me what's scaring you, Amelia?" His tone begins to sound desperate, and his eyes bore into mine as he tries to make sense of where my head is right now. "Please, because all I want is a long and happy life with you as my wife."
"And that's what scares me!" A tear becomes unbidden; rolling down my cheek as I look at the man I love so selflessly. "Everything I have ever loved has always come under threat. My madre, Bruno, Manuel – Christ, even my sanity. Even my family have almost all been ripped away from me because of who I am."
"No, Amelia; that was your past."
I shake my head. "Our pasts have a knack of creeping back up on us, and I am waiting for someone somewhere to decide it's time I get another teaching like I did in Italy." I wipe my tears, not allowing my sense of domestication to become a charade. I have been living the good life, and this isn’t about to disrupt it. “You can’t just outrun the mob.”
“I know that, but you cannot allow it to dictate your life when you all fought for a chance to be standing here,” he tells me, trying to calm himself. “I don’t want to argue with you, Amelia, although it makes us like every other couple in the world. I just need to understand. Our miscommunications were killer before; let’s not make them that this time.”
Maybe I’ve been blind. I’ve wanted nothing but a carefree, happy life to happen, but in doing so, I’ve made sure there have been no hiccups, no drama, and no real moments of true tension.
But what’s worse ... denying myself the normal ups and downs of life or going back to that life? It’s now time I tell myself that arguments happen, fighting changes nothing, and disputes strengthen. Everything I used to know is nothing like it is now. I’m still learning how to live like a normal human being without expectations or birth rights.
“I just feel like everything’s too good to be true,” I admit, meeting his gaze. “It was before, and look how it ended. How it ended both times. After Italy, I don’t know; I don’t want to take everything for granted. I just want to freeze this moment. I don’t want to change it in case we never get it back. Everything is perfect, and I just want to push pause. After Amalfi Coast, my perspective of everything changed, and then with Manuel dying, it changed even more. Right now, life is good; I don’t want to jinx it.”
“You won’t be,” he tells me, but I can see he’s giving up pushing me. He moves closer, closing the gap to comfort me. "What happened to you there, sweetheart?" he asks, backing away from his proposal. "The only way we can work through this is to talk about it."
"I can't," I defy him, shaking my head as my gaze drops.
"Why?"
I take a struggled breath, hold it in my chest, and feel the lack of oxygen begin to burn before I finally exhale and talk. "Because I don't want you to look at me like I'm a monster. You saw what I did in that house, but what I did in Amalfi Coast doesn't even amount to it!"
"I know what you did was horrific,” he counters, striving to convey his understanding.
“No, that’s not even close to it.” My words are painful litanies, each syllable a curse that will follow me for life. I know I have moved on, but how can a sinner truly repent? I still have blood on my hands. I still vowed to do my part within the Dio Lavoro, and that was to take the life of others however I deemed necessary. "I was a killer. A heartless, emotionless killer. I had to be a textbook killer to survive. However much I hated it, I still murdered, and I still hurt others. I broke families apart by following orders. What I did made my grip on any goodness become a struggle, and I have been grappling to get more and more of it back. I don't want any of you to know what I was made to do."
“It won’t matter,” he whispers, my eyes burning all over again as he speaks. “I have a good idea what you were made to do, but you need to tell someone. You can’t expect to save the world, sweetheart, if you can’t let someone save you first. I promise you, I will quit asking you to marry me if you just learn to let your past stay behind you. It cannot influence every move you make when you are proving every day that you are a better person. Everything you’ve done is out of loyalty you placed in the men you thought were family.” He reaches out, placing his closed fist under my jaw to run his thumb along my cheek, gently easing me into a sense of comfort to speak freely. “So talk to me. It will not change anything.”
“Promise?” I ask, inwardly panicking he’ll loathe me.
“I promise,” he whispers back. “We walked through hell; I’ve seen what you’ve done before. This is just a formality.”
“I never wanted to do any of it. No matter how much I hated you and my father, I never wanted to hurt others because I was hurting. It was never my aim. I just wanted to forget, and turning myself off to what I was doing worked. I just used them as an excuse to become a cold-hearted version of myself. One that didn’t get hurt.”
I ramble on, trying to justify my actions in Italy, but whatever happens, I know I could’ve said no and run. I could’ve gotten out with a bounty on my head and been able to live under an alias, but knowing I would be needed home at some point kept me there. It wasn’t the idea of a reunion with my father that did it, but getting back to Enzo, Carlo, and Bruno kept me enduring every atrocity under that Italian sun.
“Alberto made sure I wasn’t saved anything. He made me stand by his side through everything. Apparently, it was an order of my father’s. That was when I first decided if I ever made him home, I’d give him hell. I knew he only sent me to Italy to straighten me out, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of breaking like that. I guess in a way, it did break me, but I wasn’t going to go back and wait for his every beck and call. So I watched and waited.” I close my eyes, summoning strength. “I watched families burn, and children see their parents slaughtered. I saw all manner of killings, and I never tried to stop them. I stood by my uncle as if I supported him.”
As I take a moment to recalibrate, Zane moves us across the room and to the couches. He sits up, and if anything, him doing this makes me want to talk to him. I want him to know every dark cloud that smothers my happiness.
My life has chipped pi
eces of me away, mercilessly and tirelessly working to create a husk of my former self. I’ve tasted lust, blood, death – sometimes all at once – but freedom is still something that my tortured soul cannot comprehend.
I don’t know when I’ll be free of my past; part of me knows I never will, but I can live each day in this form of domestication, loving every easy breath of air I take if I give my all to be upfront with Zane.
Today is that day.
I will give my all to make sure I do this right.
"I met this one man, his name was Stefano. He was so kind to me, and I knew he was one of us, that he was caught up in the wrong life. He did it for family, did it to keep a roof over their head and make sure they never went without, but he tripped up once. He made one wrong move, and it cost him everything.” I roll my eyes, looking up as tears lace around my lashes, threatening with their freefall, all the while the lump in my throat grew more suffocating by the moment. "I was forced to castrate him in front of so many people. I hesitated, but my uncle grabbed my hand with the blade in it and guided me to do the job. Stefano screamed and screamed for us to stop, but even with all my might trying to refuse, my uncle finished the job."
I allow every tear to fall of their own accord. I let them trickle, dance, pour down my face. I allow my admittance to my sins show in my emotions. If I’m going to talk it out, I’m going to cry it out too. I’m going to wash away the demons I keep locked in.
"That night, a few of Alberto’s henchmen ambushed my room and pinned me down onto the bed." I watch as anger ignites in Zane's eye, but that part of my life isn't something he had any hope of saving me from. "They threatened me with what would happen if I continued to defy them, but I refused to give up entirely. They told me they had my uncle’s permission to beat me into submission, and if need be, they had every right to try every method they could. When I didn’t cave, they decided to show me. They promised it wouldn’t have been a warm-up; it’d be the real deal to knock the Dio Lavoro lifestyle back into me. If it wasn't for Lorenzo hearing my screams, he would've raped me that night."
Femme Fatale Loved (Pericolo #3) Page 6