My mind processed memories, wavering like the flames in front of me. Waking up after surgery. Doctors. My parents. My brothers. Evelina.ZioRocco. Saverio was missing. I tried to ask for him, but my throat felt like it’d been shredded. Darkness pulled me under. Saverio there with me when the light hit my eyes. Telling me we were leaving. Sleeping the entire flight. Italy. Sicily. A place hidden from the rest of the world, it seemed. Saverio’s casa on his family’s property in Modica.
It was all such a haze, but I remembered.
I was still in a fog, though. Nothing seemed real, but then again, it did. I could smell his cologne in the air, feel the soft bedsheets beneath me. Whatever they were giving me was strong, but somehow it only dulled my mind, not the true aches in my body. Or maybe it did, but it couldn’t put the hurts out completely. I didn’t even want to know, then, how I would feel without them.
My arms felt…light. As light as my head. Spinning until I took off like a top.
“Trying to fly away from me?”
My eyes blinked against the glow of the fire. That was when the man in the rocking chair next to it came into focus. He was haloed by red and orange flames, outlining him against the murky tone of the room. He was shirtless, a bandage covering his shoulder, wearing grey sweatpants.
“Hardly.” My voice came out as a whispered croak. I cleared it. “You really shouldn’t do that to a girl who’s in recovery.”
His eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”
“Look so fine. My heart—” I made awhoonoise, mimicking it with my hand. Speeding.
He threw back his head and laughed. His Adam’s apple bobbed with it.
“Don’t do that either,” I said, a bit breathless. The sound of his laughter did crazy things to my heart.
He tried to stop me when I went to sit up, but I was determined. He helped me into a sitting position. My head whirled before it stopped spinning. Once he knew I was okay, he took his seat in the rocker again.
My eyes narrowed. Rarely did he put space between us. He was doing it now. Like he refused to be close to me. I didn’t say anything for a while, staring past him into the fire. After what had happened, maybe he realized that I’d been right. That I was nothing but trouble and always would be.
Who deserved that kind of life?
He would never have peace, being stuck with a magnet for trouble. History had already started repeating itself, and my last name swirled at the center of it.
“Fuck it all,” I said, the flames wavering with the tears stuck in my eyes. Why would life give me this—this gorgeous man, and then make it impossible for me to accept him?
He’d been shot. Papà had been shot.
My heart—I rubbed a hand over it, trying to ease the ache inside of it. I felt the burden mamma carried over the years. She was the cause of so many of papà’s wars, even if not intentionally. That probably made it a lot worse. That she didn’t do it on purpose. They just happened because of who she was and who papà was.
Saverio Macchiavello was someone in that world, too, and paired with me… I sighed.
“Mamma?” I asked to fill the silence. “Papà?”
“Out to eat at my parents’ place.”
Even though he said the words, it felt like he implied something else. That we had to talk and needed the privacy. I braced myself for the impact of his words. Even though I’d agreed to the arranged marriage, hearing him confirm my fears—the realities of this life—would break me. I’d crack right in front of him, like an old statue in a beautiful garden. There, but never being able to touch or express anything. Suffering in silence.
“Remember when we were in Austin?”
“Austin, Texas?” My mouth was faster than my mind. I was expecting him to say something else.
He grinned, but it faded fast. He nodded. “Austin, Texas.”
“I remember,” I said.
It was right after Olivier Nemours tried to kill mamma. It was the first time Saverio was ordered to keep an eye on me. The Fausti family had accepted him and had started training him. He left not long after the trip, but I would never forget it. I never forgot anything where he was concerned.
I even remembered coming to this place—it was almost like a neighborhood behind a main residence—as a child. Each family member had a casa. The Sicilian land sprawled around us. Evelina and I would feed the butterflies in her mamma’s garden.
“What about it?” I said when he didn’t go on.
“We went swimming,” he said. “At the reservoir. It was the first time I’d ever been.”
