The bad news was that the puddle was back. My father’s decision to sear my wounds closed had temporarily kept me from bleeding out. It’d worked as a stopgap measure, but it apparently wasn’t proving to be a permanent solution. So now, I needed to find some other answer. Something that would work. But since my brain had become so muddled, I didn’t have any idea what that something might be.
Letting my head rest against the curved wooden arm of the bench, I glanced up and back. An object gleamed dully from on the wall directly behind me. It was one of those images of Christ on a cross, a crucifix. This one looked ancient and appeared to be made of bronze. It seemed to go from blurry to clear and back again, but then, that may have had more to do with my less than reliable vision than reality.
The thing was, I’d seen that cross before. St. Clements had once been my mother’s church, and though the memory was vague, I recalled standing here in this exact spot as a child and staring at this crucifix. I recalled my mother praying to it. How weird was it that all these years later, I’d returned here on such a life-altering day without even being cognizant of it till now?
Did it signify anything? My being here? Or was it mere coincidence? I wasn’t one to believe in things I couldn’t see. I didn’t subscribe to religion, even though my mother had. Yet now, as I laid here all by myself, I couldn’t help but wonder about that cross’s presence. Was it a judgment on my life? On my misdeeds? Had I in my final moments been given this opportunity to make spiritual amends? Or was I going to hell regardless?
My eyes wanted to drift closed, and all at once, I realized just how tired I was of fighting all the time. Fighting my father. Fighting all the other crime families. Fighting the two conflicting parts of myself: the part that liked cruelty and violence—which had taken me over more than once—and the part that felt repulsed by it. Maybe it would be okay to let myself sleep for a little while. What harm could it cause? I felt so fatigued. So worn out. And yet I knew if I allowed myself to nod off now, I wouldn’t wake again.
Perhaps that would be for the best.
But then, unbidden, an image of Lucia’s dead body floated into my head. I hadn’t wanted to go there, hadn’t wanted such a thought to cross my mind, but now that it had, I couldn’t erase it. It horrified me, scared me more than anything ever had.
Though I’d been too stupid to realize it until now, Gianni was capable of anything. He might kill Lucia out of spite, or just so I would no longer have her. That was the type of behavior I’d exhibited in the past myself, ruining something so no one else could have it. I’d even threatened my bride’s life right to her face on more than one occasion.
What kind of demented soulless being was I?
I felt toxic, as if even on a cellular level, everything that existed inside of me had been tainted with poison. As if evil had grown and mutated throughout my system like a fast-acting cancer, and now, anything that might’ve been good had been destroyed. One thing I knew for certain… If Lucia died, any glimmer of decency within me would be lost forever.
And the thought of that made me feel ill.
I tried to get up again, needing to do something to reach her—to save her—but I fell even more quickly than I had when facing down my father. I was worthless. Less than nothing. My anger evaporated into guilt. I didn’t deserve to have Lucia. And if she died…
Pain worse than anything I’d ever experienced filled me then. But it wasn’t like the physical pain of being backhanded, beaten or even shot. It was the sort of pain that went on and on for infinity, and I could see no end to the grief or the suffering. Not ever. And for the first time in my life, I wanted everything over. I wanted to die and let whatever horrendous afterlife I’d earned grab me up in its clutches.
My arm slumped onto the polished wood of the parquet floor as I gave in to the inevitable, but then I felt a warm presence encompass me. It was beautiful and familiar, like an embrace, even though logically, I knew no one else was there. I’d been left alone in this small enclosed space, and no one had so much as walked by since. Yet I felt it, nonetheless. I felther. The first woman who’d ever cared about me not as an heir, not as a Cavetti, but as herson.
Even though feeling her here now was impossible.
Yet feeling her presence did something to me. The darkness that flowed through my veins retreated as the knowledge that somehow my mother was watching over me filled me up instead. As if someone had sent an electrical jolt through my system, my eyelids lurched open. I sat up and pulled myself over to lean against the wall the crucifix hung on, feeling the odd sense that as long as I stayed right there, I’d have whatever I needed for extra support.
I didn’t know how long I sat there. It might’ve been minutes or hours, but eventually, there were footsteps. And then an apparition dressed all in black materialized at the threshold of the room. She appeared fuzzy in my view, but I recognized the narrow oval of her face.
“Mama?” I said, reaching out to her. But when I blinked, the eyes, nose, and mouth of my mother evolved into someone else. Someone in a nun’s habit.
“I am no one’s biological mother, my child,” came a soft soprano voice. “But I have worked many times as a nurse. May I take a look at you?”
Realizing she meant my injuries, I nodded. She helped me turn on my side and examined my father’s work. “Cauterization is often effective, but in this case, you will need some additional assistance. I’ll return in a moment.”
The nun disappeared, and feeling my awareness wavering again, I attempted to sit up, but this only had the effect of making the prayer closet spin and swirl around me. I thought I heard my mother’s angelic voice, then my belovedfarfalla’s, but whose voice I actually heard and where I might be going, I didn’t know. In fact, as the voices grew more distant, my vision shrank to the size of a pinhole. I felt my consciousness being dragged away.
Then, all at once, I was pulled all the way under.
21
Lucia
Just when I thought all was lost, the majority of Gianni’s weight vanished from on top of me. I coughed and gasped, inhaling lungfuls of air as fast as I could. As blessed oxygen raced through my body, I sat up, clasping my sore throat and looking around.
The door to the limo stood wide open and revealed the beefy broad frame of Romeo’s brother Marcello. My eyes caught on the white calla lily in his boutonniere, reminding me that he’d been included in the wedding party as Romeo’s best man. I went motionless for several heartbeats, staring at him almost blankly.
“Lucia? Are you all right?” Marcello asked me.
Yet I didn’t answer him. Instead, I peered over at Gianni. He laid beside me face up, his legs crisscrossing over mine. I saw that the foam remained on the corners of his mouth. I detected powder coating the inside of his nostrils, too, but neither of these oddities could keep my attention from the side of his skull. Or rather, the lack thereof. A sizable portion of it was missing, leaving a bloody opening behind. Gianni’s eyes were open, his pupils fixed.
The man couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anything but dead.
Marcello moved like a shadow, yanking Gianni all the way off me. I squinted at his short hair and wide shoulders, slowly absorbing that he’d asked me a question.
