by Addison Jane
What should I follow?
Heart or head?
One single gunshot, that’s all I heard in the darkness, and I clutched hard to the pistol in my hand as I heard footsteps heading back toward me. I recognized the outline of his body with ease, but when I finally saw his face come out into the light, the expression he held was one I didn’t recognize.
My stomach dropped, and I swallowed the lump that had grown in my throat. “Did… Andre?”
Angelo didn’t answer, instead quickly scaling the fence and dropping onto the sidewalk. He slipped his arm around my waist and turned us back toward the burning building that I could now see surrounded by firefighters just a couple of blocks away.
“Tobia is dead. We need to go back and see what we can do to help with the fire,” he said, his voice a little rough and scratchy.
I wanted to ask, I desperately wanted to know what had happened.
I know a part of me was disappointed that I hadn’t been able to get that justice for my sister. I hadn’t even been able to see his last moments in this world and relish in the fact that another monster was gone.
The truth was though, I didn’t need that.
I trusted Angelo to make sure that he made Tobia pay for what he did.
I knew deep down that he did.
It was all over now, the danger was gone—for now at least—and as we rushed back toward the burning building, I felt my body relax. There was no more running or hiding, no more crazy fucking asshole after me, no more being scared to step outside.
There was also no more Sophie.
No more Andre.
No more relationship with my parents once they heard what I had gotten myself into and that I was considering giving up my place at law school to study and pursue dance.
And I just couldn’t find it in me to care.
I was going to start thinking about myself, chasing the things that made me happy and not allowing them to slip through my fingers like my sister had.
I knew deep down in my gut that was what Sophie would have wanted more than anything else, was for me to just stand up and be heard.
To be happy.
Two Days Later
I sat on the sofa in Angelo’s living room with my legs in a trash can full to my knees with ice and an ice pack on my elbow. My body ached, making me regret the fact that I hadn’t listened to Angelo’s warning and given myself time to recuperate before I went back to dancing.
There wasn’t a lot I could do with my elbow still giving me hell and my hand still bandaged, but I just really wanted to practice the dance for the Fall Spectacular. It was only three weeks away and given my injuries, I needed to take more time and effort to get this performance perfect.
I cringed when the door to the apartment opened, and he stepped inside.
He was meant to be away until this afternoon, organizing business with Anthony.
Angelo stopped in the entranceway and stared at me, his brow raised in question as he stared at the way my knees were hooked over the side of the trash can. “Do you often like to wade your feet through the trash before it’s thrown out?” he asked, coming closer and pulling off his suit jacket. When he finally reached the sofa and looked inside, he shook his head. “I told you—”
“Yes, I know you did,” I cut him off, not wanting to hear the patronizing tone that he often used with me. It was like being scolded by my father, and that there was the last thing I wanted to view Angelo as, given that even as I sat here with my muscles tight and painful, watching him unbutton his shirt had me wanting to say screw it and throw myself at him.
He smirked as he took a seat beside me and reached for the television remote, turning it on. He had flicked a few channels before something caught my eye.
“Go back,” I told him, and he turned it back to a news channel where there was a picture of the fire at Dino’s up in the right-hand corner.
“… all the people who lived in the apartments above Dino’s managed to escape with their lives thanks to being alerted by two patrons who were in the restaurant at the time,” she explained. She was talking about Anthony and Gio. Obviously, they had left out the part where Gio was carrying a massive gun, happy to just escape with their lives. “The bodies of five men were found in the kitchen where the fire started, presumably they had run in to try and put it out but got caught up in the blaze. Police are not releasing their names at this time.”
I looked over to Angelo, and he shrugged. “All good businessmen have high profile contacts. Money talks Bella.”
“A strange connection to the fire, two bodies were found in the park the next morning, just two blocks from the burning building.” My heart sunk and suddenly this overwhelming flow of emotion came over me. “Police say an investigation is still ongoing, but they are not seeking anyone else in connection with this.”
I pulled one leg at a time from the ice bath, my skin tingling like it was being pricked with a million pins. Angelo reached forward, handing me the towel I’d placed on the coffee table and I snatched it out of his hands.
He’d refused to tell me what happened with Andre, and I’d hoped that had meant he’d let him walk away. Being here with Angelo may have hardened me. I may have had to question some of the morals and beliefs I once had, and challenged myself to see whether this was something I could live with, but my heart was still strong. I still believed in love and standing for those who had shown me support and caring and gone out of their way to be there when I needed them. Andre may have originally been born a Bellucci, and I may have pulled back at first, not believing that he could deceive me in that way, but that was because I was hurt not because I believed he was a monster like his brother.
Bellucci was not the blood that ran through his veins, it didn’t define who he was.
I knew deep down that my sister would have never wanted him to suffer because she loved him, I’d heard it in her voice and felt in the way she was filled with so much sorrow for letting him go.
“You killed him,” I accused softly, patting at my wet legs with the towel, my heart breaking a little more with each word. “Why?”
“You let one walk away, may as well invite everyone to come walk all over you,” he answered, keeping a heavy mask up and not showing me any kind of emotion. “All it takes is one to make you weak.”
I could hear him, I knew that he was making sense, that his actions were justified and that Andre should have known walking into this, exactly what the consequences were going to be. But unfortunately, that didn’t stop it from making my heart ache when I thought about what he’d been through.
“What if all it takes is one to make you human? What’s wrong with that?” I threw back, my body heating. “He stood beside you for three years, protected you, earned money for you—”
“You want humanity, you’re looking in the wrong place,” Angelo snapped, pushing off the sofa and climbing to his feet. I drew back slightly, seeing the intensity in his eyes. “There are parts of me that can’t be any other way than what they are, because if I start letting people walk away with their lives in tact after trying to fucking kill us, I’m putting my life at risk, your life at risk, and Anthony’s and Gio’s, Rico’s and Celia’s.”
I hated that he was right. Andre could have walked away, or at least spoken up when he knew Tobia was on his way here for revenge. There were a million things he could have done, but he chose to be selfish, cover his ass, and not stand up to his brother.
He came forward, his eyes on me. “If I don’t stand and show people who I am and what I’m willing to do for the people I care about, I’m putting those people in danger.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “So yeah, sometimes the human part of me will change or disappear, and if you don’t think that’s a part of me you can care for then I get it.”
This wasn’t about saving one person’s life, this was about making a decision that would no doubt be hard but would ultimately protect the whole family. I hated that truth with a burning passion in my gut
, but then I remembered how loyal this man was.
Angelo was right, there came a point sometimes where you had to make a choice.
Them or me?
For Angelo, family would always come first, and although Andre technically had become a member of what Angelo considered his family, he’d still betrayed us and put us second—even though my gut told me that we were more of a family to him than his real family had ever been.
Sometimes, I guess, we believed a little too much in the old saying that blood is thicker than water. It’s not true, and in all honesty, I was only just beginning to realize it myself.
Family wasn’t about the blood that ran through your veins, it was about who you were willing to bleed for.
Loyalty, respect, love.
They all played a part in it.
I swallowed my pride and sat back down on the sofa, pressing my palms into my eyes in frustration. “I just… I know what it’s like to have your family put that pressure on you to do something that you don’t want to do. How you feel like it’s an obligation rather than a choice.” I sat back and pushed my hair away from my eyes, leaning my head back and staring at the ceiling. I licked my lips, not wanting to admit the truth.
Angelo grabbed my hands, pulling my body forward and kneeling in front of me, so I was looking directly into his eyes. “He had a choice. We’d spent three years together. You think if he’d come to me and told me what Tobia was planning and helped me to stop him, that I would have still killed him?”
And there was Angelo’s human side.
The side of him that thought about what he’d done, and the life he’d taken and wished like hell that Andre had just told him what was going on. The side that didn’t regret his decision, but knew it was one he wouldn’t have had to make if Andre had believed in the relationship they’d forged.
I nuzzled my face into Angelo’s hand, wanting to comfort him as I could see the pain in his eyes. Death didn’t impact on Angelo like a normal person, but I guess that’s what happened when you saw so much of it. You become immune to the effect it had on your life and your emotions.
This was different though.
He’d killed his friend, someone who he trusted more than anyone else on his team. Who he felt was close enough to be family, who he would have laid his life down for.
It was like losing a best friend, but knowing that you were responsible for them no longer being there.
He’d had to make a choice though.
Lose one person, or possibly lose them all.
“He knew what he’d done, Angelo,” I said, trying to comfort him what little I could. “He made his own choices, and those choices led to consequences.” It hurt my heart to say those words, but they were true and I knew they were, as much as I wished he was still here with us.
Angelo nodded, dropping his head to my knees.
I ran my fingers through his hair, understanding now that losing Andre had hit him much harder than he wanted to let show. Angelo might come off sometimes as cold-hearted and uncaring, but there was that human side of him he kept hidden deep below the surface, and it reminded me that he was not perfect. He didn’t always have his shit together, and that there are things out there which could break him if he let them get inside him.
And I would sit here, running my fingers through his hair, soothing the demons inside him every single night if I had to because that’s what I had to offer.
I’d fill the cracks in his shell if he ever broke.
I’d stand in front of him and fight for him if he couldn’t fight for himself.
Because that’s what he’d done for me. And now, with him here, I felt whole.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
“You’re gonna do great, Emerson,” Sally told me as I stood in the wings of the stage, shaking my limbs and hoping that I’d spent enough time stretching.
My elbow was almost completely healed, but I could strain it again if I weren’t careful. I’d really pushed myself this past month to make sure I was in good shape to perform in the fall spectacular.
Was it going to be enough? I really wasn’t sure.
Ava had pulled out of the show a while ago, and she still wasn’t answering any of my calls or attempts to get in touch with her. She’d shut everyone out, and I was worried about the kind of impact that witnessing Sophie’s death had had on her. I knew I should have reached out, done my best to comfort her, but it’s hard to tell someone else that everything will be okay when you’re struggling to see the light ahead yourself.
Maybe now that I was in a better place, I could see her, and help her through her pain too.
If she would let me.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I could hear the music begin to play, and Sally gave me a nudge in the ribs before nodding toward the stage. “Don’t think, just do,” she said quietly.
I licked my dry lips, and one step after another, I walked silently into the middle of the stage. My ballet shoes felt a little odd on my feet. It had been a long time since I’d used so much ballet in my routines. Usually, I focused on mainly lyrical or contemporary pieces, but this time, I knew it was go big or go home.
The music played, and just like my body knew the movements off by heart, it started to dance. The music was a beautiful but intense piece with a hard baseline, and soft almost whisper like lyrics over the top. The contrast between the two reminded me of the transformation that I’d made over the past, nearly two months.
A twirl, a leap, my body came alive as I felt the music right down in my soul, the beat in time with my heart, pounding hard and growing faster. I hit the ground, bowing my body like I was in pain, portraying the painful words of the song with perfection.
Adrenaline filled me, spurring me on.
I didn’t care if the scouts out there liked my dance or not, maybe they thought my moves were sloppy and unpolished, or that I didn’t fill my dance with enough passion. There would always be someone out there waiting to criticize me, pick me apart and tell me I couldn’t do it.
But I didn’t care.
I would dance forever, whether it was something I could make into a profession or not wasn’t the point. When dance was inside you, there wasn’t anything else that was going to stop you from dancing, whether you were making money dancing in shows on Broadway, or whether you were doing it in your living room at home.
I knew that now.
I should have realized a long time ago that whether my father was going to approve or not, should not be the deciding factor on whether I should.
With one final pirouette my body spun and spun, feeling like it was never going to stop, like at any moment I could tumble to the floor or spin off into the air. But I didn’t because I was in total control…
Of this dance.
Of my future.
Of my life.
I threw myself onto the floor with the last beat of the song. My chest heaved, my lungs gasping for air and my muscles already feeling like they were spent and in need of ice. My hair hung down over my face, and I didn’t want to look up.
Then came the applause.
It roared like a hundred thousand football fans on Super Bowl weekend. I couldn’t even stop the smile that crept up my face and the tears that streamed down my cheeks at the same time.
I finally risked a peek, just lifting my head enough to see the crowd beneath my brows. They were on their feet, wide smiles, astonished faces, staring at me in awe. People called out, they praised, and I felt amazing.
I looked up, searching for the one face that I wanted to see, the man who had pushed me to the next level and made me believe in myself and who I was before what anybody wanted me to be. As the stage lights dimmed, I caught a glimpse of him at the back of the theater, but the look on his face wasn’t one I was expecting.
His frown was deep and rigid, and his arms were folded across his chest as he glared at the back of another man who was walking away.
My father.
I ran to the edge of the stage.
Sally grabbed my arm. “Emmy, you did amaz—”
I pulled away and ducked out the side, running down the hallways to the practice rooms until I got to the back of the huge auditorium, stepping out just in time to see my father’s retreating frame walking out the exit.
I looked over to Angelo, his eyes meeting mine with a fiery blaze. It softened for a moment, and he shook his head before nodding to the door.
My body sunk, but instead of going to the man who I knew would tell me how amazing I danced and would lift me up high into the clouds, I chased after the one who had spent most of my life pushing me away from what I loved.
I broke out into the night air, it was warm, but the slice of a frigid breeze hit my skin. “Why did you come,” I demanded loudly, causing my father’s body to freeze on the spot as he headed down the path toward the parking lot.
My heart hammered against my chest.
I hadn’t seen my father since Sophie’s funeral, the day my life turned around, and I took that one step closer to being a stronger, more confident woman. We’d spoken on the phone, only once since I told him I no longer wanted to follow his dreams of being a lawyer for his company, and that I wanted to follow my love of dance. We’d been civil on the phone once since then, but the conversation had only lasted a few minutes, and I knew neither of us was going to bring up the elephant that was sitting in the room.
After far too many nervous breaths in anticipation, he finally turned around and took a couple of shaky steps toward me.
“I came because he asked me to,” he said as he stepped into the light that illuminated the outside of the auditorium.
I frowned. “Who?”
He shook his head and looked at the ground. “Angelo.”
I really wasn’t that surprised at the admission. I’d told Angelo on more than one occasion that I wished my dad would come to see me dance. Just once, then maybe he would be able to see that this was what I was made for, not to sit in an office or a courtroom every day, and fill out paperwork or argue with others.