“Are we crashing?” I yawned.
“You are being very calm about this if we are.”
I blinked at my husband, bringing him into focus. “Are we?”
He leaned in and kissed my head. “We have encountered bad weather. We will land for the night.”
“All right.” I pulled him even closer and kissed his arm. “Where are we spending the night?”
He lifted a glass of whiskey to his mouth, and even though the liquid trembled, he kept it steady as he took a drink. After, he set it down in a holder, his eyes hard in the distance. Fear wasn’t a natural occurrence for Rocco, so I knew the change in his mood had nothing to do with a little turbulence, and that disturbed me. He wasn’t feeling fear—he was almost…eager to land.
He rolled his lips in, the amber glowing when he released them, before his tongue poked out and cleaned it off. “Utah.”
The word didn’t roll off his tongue as smoothly as many others. “You-tah,” was what it sounded like, and I went to repeat it.
“Uta—” I couldn’t even finish. I began to choke on the name of the state.
Utah.
Where my mom lived with her new family.
“It seems fate has stepped in, ah? I considered speaking to your mamma alone, but I did not feel this would please you.”
“It wouldn’t,” I cracked out.
He held the whiskey to my lips, and instead of sipping on it, I downed the entire thing. Before it could start a fire in the pit of my throat, he took my mouth and took most of it for his own. Even the little leftover made me feel like a fire breather.
“I had the thought.” Rocco tapped his temple. “And here we must land. Fate has spoken.”
“Only for the night?”
He lifted a finger. “One night.”
“We’re going to stay at the hotel the entire night? Leave early the next morning?”
Seemed like fate was on my husband’s side again, because right as I asked the question, the Italian pilot came over the loudspeaker and said it was going to be a rough landing. Rocco checked me over a few times to make sure I was fastened in my seatbelt tight enough. No landing was going to keep me from speaking my piece, but the landing felt like a war for our wheels to touch ground. The fear of going to see my mom and her new family paled in comparison to the landing. Though I kept it together well.
Until we exited the plane.
Then it caught up to me.
Before I could open my mouth to speak, my husband took me by the shoulders and kissed me. He kissed me so thoroughly, when I pulled away for air, I was dazed.
“You were not afraid to crash, Amora.”
“No,” I breathed. “Not when I have all I’ve ever wanted next to me, in front of me, wherever, as long as you’re close to me. You’re as vital to me as my heart, my lungs, my everything.”
“You please me so with the words you speak from the heart,” he whispered, looking so deeply into my eyes, he had to keep a firm grip on my shoulders to keep me from collapsing.
Somehow, we moved from the plane to the armored car Donato drove, his wife, Chiara, in the shotgun seat. I excused us for a moment, and the privacy window rolled up.
My husband looked at me.
“I don’t want to do this, Rocco.”
He took my hand and kissed it. “You do this, you will free yourself.”
“I have freed myself.”
