“Misericordia.”Mercy, I’d whispered, but had to clear my throat and try again. It came out too gruff. “You are shown mercy here. Show the same on my heart.”
Two fat tears slipped from her eyes, ran down her cheeks in a rush, and dangled on the edge of her face before falling to the pew, a rainbow of colors bursting against the wood.
She gave me a subtle nod in return, and I squeezed her hand hard, knowing my ring bit into her flesh.
“Go ahead,” she whispered in Italian. “Tell me.”
“I need to keep you safe, to know that you’re safe,”I said in Italian, keeping my voice so low that only she heard me.
“I’m safe here,” she whispered. “We’re all safe.”
After time had melted into the past, she cleared her throat; her hand tightened around mind and her knuckles turned a ghostly white.
“Essere ancora,”she said. “Ascolta.”Be still. Listen.
I did as she wanted me to, but in the stillness, I could only hear her breathing.
* * *
Out of the safe walls of the church, the cool air rushed against me, as sharp as a knife that cuts through tough flesh. It ripped apart the temporary semblance of peace I’d found, reality shoving its ugly truths in my face.
Scarlett, on the other hand, gazed out of the car, the picture of calm.
“I was safe,” she said for the tenth time. Her breath fogged up the window. “Perfectly fine, Brando. Nino was with me. So were two other men. You should’ve stayed home with Mia.”
Calm or not, an edge to her voice snapped at me when she said those words.
“You won’t leave me again,” I said, squeezing the wheel tight enough to snap it in two. A strange sense of déjà vu made me feel as though I had done this before. Ah, because I had. On the ride over. “What did you say to me last night? You want to see my hair turn grey. Wait around a few seconds. I can feel one coming on. It’s like a thorn sprouting out the side of my head.”
“Ho ho! Ha ha! Hilarious.”
“I’m not fucking around, Scarlett. How can you tell me how afraid you are one night, and then leave without me the next morning?”
Truth found me at the doors of the church, but since we were alone, I wanted her to admit to it. Well, not entirely alone. Rocco sat in the backseat, a grin on his face at her “ho ho, ha ha, hilarious” comment.
“I want to keep you safe. I need to. That’s my way of doing it.”
There it was—the admission. In record time. Church had made her more pliable, made it easier for the truth to spill from her lips.
“What about you? What would Mia do without you?”
“Bella,” Rocco whispered. The thought of her not being in Mia’s life, or his, seemed to wipe the grin off his face.
He and Rosaria might have repaired their relationship, but he still had feelings for Scarlett. He loved her. Everyone did.
Judging from the outside, Rocco had a tender spot when it came to mothers. He had never known his. Neither had Dario or Romeo, but they all internalized it differently.
Scarlett inhaled a shaky breath and it trembled out. “I was safe. I—Ihadto go. It was a need. I can’t even explain it—the why. No. Compelled—perhaps that’s the right word to use. I needed to be alone in church. Just for a little while.”
“You won’t leave me again,” I repeated for the last time. “Where you are, I am.”
She placed her hand over mine. “All right,mio marito. I’m attached to your hip from now on.”
Although she’d agreed, I got the feeling she only did because whatever she had been seeking in church, she had found.
5
Brando
