Nino sighed, rather fucking dramatically, and Sistine turned away from me and grinned. Dr. Musagrinned back, but I knew the grin wasn’t meant for her. It was from the dramatic note in Nino’s sigh.
I turned my wife’s face back toward me.
You didn’t fucking tell me.
She sighed, a deep sound from the depths of her chest.I know this. However, there is nothing I can do about it now.
This was the conversation.
Over and over.
There was nothing she could do about it.
It was done.
The thought of it haunted me like a screeching ghost.
That thought fucking made me harden.
I should have never allowed the distance between us, even if it meant her family would always question our connection. Her mamma was not of sane enough mind to see past whateverlies her husband had fed her about how Capri treated Sistine. Her grandfather and father knew the truth about who was the disturbing force in the palazzo. Her sister was a spoiled toddler, and toddlers couldn’t understand unless it was explained to them. No one in that palazzo was doing the explaining to her.
I fixed my suit, then opened the door, stepping out. Nino was right behind me. He rushed to his wife’s side as I went around to my wife’s side and opened her door. I gave her my hand, and she stepped out of the car like the woman she was. I almost expected birds to sing above her head, and dangerous wild animals to bow at her feet.
That was me.
The dangerous wild animal.
She squeezed my hand.I cannot change it.
I squeezed back.Don’t fucking tell me something I already know.
She sighed and then released me when Mamma and Papà came out to greet us. Mamma pulled Sistine into a hug, joking about how jealous she was that Sistine had the perfume of the island on her—the magic it held. Papà shook my hand and then squeezed my shoulder. Mamma came to me next, and I hugged her tightly. She smelled like my childhood—roses and something specifically hers. Something that was tucked away in my DNA.
A subtle reminder that this small, delicate woman was powerful enough to give birth to five offspring of Fausti blood. My sister wasn’t as tiny as mamma, but she wasn’t as big as Brando Fausti’s sons either. Still. My sister was strong of will—probably as strong as me and my brothers put together. That still counted as being strong enough to pull off such a difficult feat for a woman of my mamma’s size.
Mamma was strong of will too.
I glanced at my wife.
Yeah, she had it in her as well.
“You look so good, my son,” Mamma whispered. She stepped back and smiled at me. “You look healthy. Healed in a way you weren’t before.” Her eyes moved to the left, and mine moved with hers.
My father was standing stock-still. Sistine had hugged him. She didn’t even seem to care. She let go, maybe to give him a chance to recoup from the touch. My father was all about my mamma touching him.
The fucking end.
I stared at my wife, fixing my suit. Fucking same. I was all about her touch alone too.
The end.
My wife smiled at my old man. “Have you been staying away from those big choppers?” She meant chomp-ers, as in big teeth, as in horse teeth. I’d heard Atta call them that. Sistine showed him her teeth and then snapped them at him.
Her teeth were fucking perfect. When she smiled, the sun came out, and so did the kaleidoscope colors of the world, all breaking around her.
My old man made ahunhnoise deep in his throat. It meant he wassimultaneously amused by her behavior and somewhat wary of it. Mamma had that same kind of personality—my sister too. Monsters never bothered them. Even though Brando Fausti wasn’t a monster to my wife, definitely not to his wife and daughter, they knew him for what he was and accepted it. The rest of the world didn’t look at him in the same light. He was a Fausti. That meant what existed inside of him wasn’t for the fucking faint of heart. He passed his blood on to his daughter and his sons.
His sons, though, were considered monsters, the same as him. Even our youngest brother, Maestro—he was an artist, his finesse different from his brothers, but he had a monster lurking inside of him too. He was like a mad scientist, except he was amad artist. He was touched the way mamma was too—all of us were to a certain degree. Except Maestro had found a way to channel it into his music. He could read the mood of the room and write a song to represent it. Some of the music he wrote was dark.
