Gianni
Icouldn’t get my mind to stop reeling. As I made the drivebackto Chicago, bound for the hospital, I tried to reconcile the woman I knew and loved with the one who’d just admitted to me that she pushed a pregnant woman down the stairs. I knew I had to take some of the blame on myself. It wasn’t just because I’d neglected to show Philippa in earnest that she meant more to me than Lucia ever would, but that didn’t give her the right to attempt to kill her.
I forced that thought from my mind. Philippa wasn’t that woman. I was certain once I got a chance to hear it from her, I would learn that for sure. Until that time, I had a different, much more important conversation to focus my attention on. Whether she did it the way I wanted to or not, Philippahadgotten me the window that I needed. If I could just get ten minutes alone with Giorgio, I was certain.
I could inspire him to kill my father.
There was an emergency room in Hyde Park in Chicago where my family often sent anyone who needed to be patched up. We had a few doctors there on the payroll, and a couple of the rooms in the trauma ward had been carefully debugged and were reserved for the Cavetti’s revolving door of bodies. Whether it was someone inside of our circle that needed healing or assurance that someoneoutsideof our circle met a timely demise, there was no shortage of good uses for a doctor on retainer.
The car I had was a rental that I’d been paying for by the month ever since I first left the Cavettis household. I had a car back at my father’s, but it was in his name and probably bugged to high hell, plus it wasn’t like it wouldn’t be suspicious if the dead Cavetti’s car went missing after his death, so I had to leave it behind. I’d always anticipated that Philippa and I wouldn’t stay in Chicago, so I didn’t worry about investing in a new car that would stay with me in the city. I would take public transportation where I could, and when it became obvious that I would need a car for quick transportation, I got a rental in my new, legally changed name.
It was for that reason that when I pulled into the parking garage at the hospital, those few employees of my family’s that were lingering around the entrance didn’t even seem to take notice. I parked far enough back from the entrance that no one would be taking a second look at the car, and used the chilly morning as an excuse to pull on a hat to hide my face some. Most of my dad’s men hated him just as much as we did, so they weren’t what anyone would consider the world’s best security. If his eyes weren’t on them, they knew how to slack off. They were embroiled in a conversation and working on some cigarettes, so I slipped past them and into the hospital.
It was easy enough to get past the reception desk without getting stopped and inquired for a visitor’s pass. It wasn’t a small hospital. I got on the elevator and made my way up to the 7th floor where a room was designated specifically for my family, and one of them had all the lights on and a bed occupied. I slipped between a couple of the curtains and watched him sitting at Lucia’s side. He looked inconsolable as he held her hand and spoke softly to her, and it was almost like I was looking at a different man entirely. How did my heartless brother, the man Angelo had raised to be a clone of himself, turn into the man I saw before me?
Love’s power was transformative beyond what I could comprehend.
After about twenty minutes, Maestro, one of my family’s chauffeurs, entered the room, and he had Giorgio close behind him. Maestro dropped Giorgio and quickly turned and left as Giorgio walked further into the room. Romeo, shockingly enough, didn’t put up much of a fight at all, but rather kissed Lucia on her forehead and passed Giorgio to leave. He seemed frustrated, but not so much with Giorgio, just in general.
As he was crossing out of the room, he stopped right next to the curtains I’d slid between. My heart thumped a little harder as he turned, but his gaze continued past me, back to Lucia and Giorgio, then he faced forward yet again and continued out of the room.
“Hey Luci,” Giorgio said to his sister softly. “How are you feeling? I heard you got to visit with the twins yesterday. I hope it went well. They’re worried about you, but they let me see them from time to time, so we’re all looking out for each other.”
That gave me some relief. Knowing that after everything the Bonifacios had already suffered, my siblings were at least doing their part to not rip them from one another anymore, was good. Maybe if I’d just approached my siblings out the gate and told them I wanted to take my father down, they would have gone for it. Could I have ever lived a happy life alongside my siblings if Angelo Cavetti wasn’t there to dictate otherwise?
Probably not.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about lately?” he said. “It keeps me up at night. Do you think mom and dad would be mad at us? We’ve… fallen for the Cavettis. Your feelings for Romeo are true, the twins with Savio and Marcello.” He cast a glance backward over his shoulder, likely to make sure no one was listening. Of course, he didn’t realize that I was standing just outside. “I never had a chance to tell you, but I’ve been spending my time with Natalia. She nursed me when I was injured and made sure I was able to come here and see you. I know you two haven’t spoken much, but you should. You’d love her I think… I do.”
Love.
It was such a foreign concept around the Cavetti household, yet it seemed every single one of us had found it somehow. That on its own was a miracle, but hearing how Giorgio spoke about my sister made me happy. He would take care of her. I had every confidence in that.
As quietly as possible, I slipped into the room and shut the door behind me, twisting the handle so the latch didn’t click when it met the frame.
“I don’t think they would be mad,” I called out. No parents would be mad that their children found beauty in such an ugly world.
Well,minewould, but ‘parent’ was hardly a word I would use in association with Angelo Cavetti.
Giorgio’s body rigidified in his chair, clearly having recognized my voice. He slowly twisted around in his chair just as my eyes fell on Lucia. She looked like a marionette puppet with the number of IVs stuck into her, and a machine was keeping a rhythmic beep at her right. My heart broke that I had, in some way, played a role in her laying there. Not just via Philippa, but in not stopping the monster that was my father much sooner.
“Gianni,” Giorgio whispered. “How?”
“Your parents always liked my family,” I said, preferring to answer his last question as opposed to the more recent one. “We managed to fool them I suppose. They’d be happy for you, even if it was because they didn’t know any better.”
Giorgio stood up from his chair and took a defensive position between me and Lucia’s bed. His eyes were wandering up and down my body, likely looking for any signs of the injuries Marcello and Lucia had no doubt reported when they got back to the house after my display. I was probably fast earning myself a reputation for being unkillable.
If the circumstances weren’t so dire, I might have actually been proud of it.
“If you come any closer, you’ll regret it,” I said.
I recognized the way Giorgio’s eyes flitted all around the room, calculating his best options. To him, I was an enemy, and he needed the best way to defend his sister. Romeo wasn’t far, and he could probably rely on him if he needed to, but he knew just as well as I did, that Romeo would be a tornado in that hospital room if he saw me. Certainly not good for Lucia or the little life she was holding.
“I believe you.” I kept my voice calm so that he knew I was serious. “I’ll keep my distance. I just came to see my beloved Lucia before leaving for good. I never meant for this to happen.” I reallydidlove Lucia, but not the way I loved Philippa. She was a reflection of myself. I wished I could have done better by her when it came to my family, but if she found real happiness with Romeo and she was slowly changing him too, then that was the best I could ask for.
“This? What do you have to do with this?” Giorgio asked.
He shrugged. “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself for a few days now. Somehow, I know it’s my fault.”
