by Bethany-Kris
“How’re you feeling lately?” Adriano asked.
“Good. Two weeks out of the hospital and not a problem to be found. I’m not going to keel over and die, kid.”
Adriano laughed. “I guess not.”
“Your sister and my sister worry enough over my health. Let’s not add to it with our own.”
“All right. So what do you have to cash in, so to speak?”
“Just a guarantee, Adriano.”
“Of?”
“Evelina’s status. She’s free to do what she wants. No more Conti business. No more principessa. None of it. She’s not to be used in these games anymore. She’s free to do as she wishes, with whomever she wishes. Give me that guarantee, and we’re good.”
“I already gave that to my sister when you were comatose, Theo.”
“It’s different.”
“How so?”
“You know how. You and I, we’re not the same. We follow different rules. Give me the guarantee.”
“I’m not … taking sides. Not now. I have more important things to worry about, like my wife, if that’s what you’re thinking, Theo.”
“Actually, I wasn’t.”
Adriano sighed heavily. “One condition.”
“What’s that?”
“I want my sister to be safe, which means, I don’t want anyone questioning her status or stance with a family. I don’t want to even offer someone the chance to somehow use my sister in the future.”
Theo felt a line of tension creep up his spine. “Me, either.”
“Good. Then you’ll marry her. Soon.”
“I—”
“You love her, don’t you?”
“Very much,” Theo admitted.
“Then what’s the goddamn problem?”
“I wonder if that’ll feel like tying her down. To her, not to me. She’s spent her whole life under someone’s demands and dictations. I wouldn’t want to marry Eve and it make her feel that way again.”
“I guess you won’t know until you ask, Theo. My guarantee is there, but you marry her.”
Fair enough.
“Soon,” Theo said, “but it’s on her terms.”
“Works for me.”
“You good?” Evelina asked.
Theo nodded, but inside, he was a war raging out of control.
“Yeah,” he finally said.
“You can wait a while, if you want.”
“Today is good, Eve. Otherwise, I’ll just keep putting it off.”
“Okay.”
With a squeeze of his hand to hers, Theo disappeared into the confessional room. Their church didn’t have the traditional confessional box like many of the old Catholic churches had. Thankfully, their church had gone with the times and offered a room full of beautiful art, colorful tapestry and rugs, and ornate chairs for the parishioner and the priest to sit in.
Father Garner was waiting inside.
“Theo,” the man greeted with a small smile.
“Father.”
“Sit, Theo.”
Theo shifted on his feet. “Can I stand?”
“You never did before.”
“This time is different,” Theo explained lamely.
Father Garner rested back into his chair with grace and years of learned patience. “And why is that?”
“Is it possible to confess for men who can no longer ask for forgiveness for their sins?”
“Do their sins leave you with burdens?”
“Every day,” Theo said.
“Then yes, you absolutely can. And if their sins have been wrongs done to you, then it is your forgiveness you’re giving Theo. It might not be something you need me here for unless you want to do your own confession, too.”
“I’d like you here for it.”
“Then I’ll stay.” Father Garner waved at Theo. “You can begin whenever.”
Theo took a breath and it felt almost freeing.
“Forgive me, Father …”
Words spilled easily. Far easier than they ever had before.
Theo confessed for the father who had lost all his loyalty to his family and left his children as orphans. He confessed for the mother who had been nothing but an innocent bystander in games she had never wanted to play. He confessed for the aunt and uncle who had abused those they were supposed to love. He confessed for the brother who died trying to correct all the wrongs around them. He confessed for his sister. For him.
And even for Eve.
Because he needed to be free.
Completely.
Twenty minutes later, Theo walked out of the confessional room to find Evelina still leaning against the wall where he had left her. She flashed him with a brilliant smile.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey. Ready for some food?”
“As long as we get to take it back to the club. I hear the dancers have a meeting early tonight or something like that.”
Theo laughed deeply. “You just like watching them dance.”
“Well, you don’t. At least one of us should enjoy the show.”
“As long as you give me one at home.”
“Maybe,” Evelina said, winking.
Theo grabbed the hand she offered. It was just a piece of something beautiful, one single part of her. It was far too precious to be ignored. But she had offered it to him, and only him.
And in his own, it felt sacred.
Theo had forgotten what those things were to him.
Evelina was all of them.
As they walked out into the main floor of the church, Theo directed Evelina down the aisle between the rows of pews. Silent, the church was flooded with the winter light casting through the stained glass windows.
“Eve?”
“Hmm?” she asked softly.
“What do you want in the future?”
“You.”
Theo smiled. “That’s a simple answer.”
“It’s an honest one.”
He tugged her hand to stop Evelina. “Remember when I told you that there were certain things I couldn’t give to you, because it wasn’t something I wanted.”
“I think your words were a happily ever after, a white wedding, and children.”
“Yeah … those.”
“I’m not asking for them,” Evelina said, reaching out to stroke his jaw.
“You are, and so am I now. Things change, you know.”
Evelina laughed. “They do.”
“We’re going to go that way soon.”
“What way?”
“That happily ever after, maybe the wedding, whenever you’re ready,” Theo said, holding her hand tight in his own. “You just have to say the word and I’ll give it to you.”
Evelina glanced down the altar. “Yeah?”
“The very second you ask me, babe.”
“But …”
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t think I want everyone else’s happily ever after. I don’t want to repeat my history.”
Theo nodded. “Me, either.”
“It’s not selfish to be happy in your own way, is it?”
“No,” he answered honestly.
“With just each other,” she pressed.
Theo got her unspoken words. Like him, she had very little interest in having children. He didn’t mind. His feelings on the topic weren’t likely to change anytime soon.
“Come on,” Theo murmured, pulling Evelina along the aisle again.
They walked hand in hand to the front of the church. Theo pushed the doors open to the flurry of snow and light. Flakes of snow fell in spirals to the steps.
“Theo, you didn’t answer me,” Evelina said quietly.
“I’m going in whatever direction you want to go, Eve.”
“I just have to say the word, right?”
“That’s all, Eve. Just say the word.”
She stepped out of the church and into the falling snowflakes. Haloed in light, she looked like the angel he knew her to be.
Theo followed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother to three young sons, one cat, and three dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, a snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a hubby calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something … when she can find the time.
Find her at her website at www.bethanykris.com, on Facebook, Twitter, or her blog.
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COMING SOON
Breathless & Bloodstained
Tommas Rossi and Abriella Trentini
There were very few things in life that make a man worthy. Those things became lessened when a man is in the mafia. Instead of his value being counted in his actions and words, it was tallied by his deeds and possessions. It was determined by the number of men on his streets and the most red he could cover on a map to say he owned.
Tommas Rossi had always found it amusing how made men were called Men of Honor. There was nothing honorable about this life. The Outfit had forgotten honor a long time ago. Long before the war.
They breathed. They bled.
Life and death.
That’s all this life had ever been.
The one thing in his life that had kept Tommas honorable throughout the years was just a few steps ahead of him, but still out of reach.
Tommas tugged his tweed jacket tighter around his neck, determined to keep the cold February air out. Even with it being the last days of the coldest month of the season, he knew the weather wouldn’t let up for another two. Probably. The bite of the wind was the only thing he seemed to feel lately. Maybe that was why he preferred to be outside rather than inside.
“No way,” a familiar voice said down the way.
Leaning around the lamp post, Tommas watched the two women walk arm in arm down the street. His eye caught the taller of the two and the dark waves of her hair that flew wildly in the wind. For a moment, he felt something else.
His heart splintered.
It was an agonizing crack.
He hated it.
But he loved her.
Copyright © 2016 Bethany-Kris. All Rights Reserved.
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted material is illegal and punishable by law. No parts of this work may be reproduced, copied, used, or printed without expressed written consent from the publisher/author. Exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in reviews.
eISBN: 978-1-988197-02-9
Editor: Dominique S.
Proofreaders: Eli P. & Sheila K.
Cover Design © Jay Aheer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, corporations, locales and so forth are a product of the author’s imagination, or if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to a person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.