“Honey, what’s going…” Her words trail off as she stands there, her small frame frozen as she takes in the scene before her. “BeeBee?”
I open my mouth to tell her what’s going on, but Giacomo beats me to it.
“Angela, you look well post-op,” he says, smooth as honey. “We were just discussing how your husband gave me your daughter to save you.”
“Giacomo!” My father lurches from his seat like a man ready to kill.
“Oops, was that meant to be a secret between us three?”
My mother looks back and forth between all three of us. Her mouth opens and closes in shock, her eyebrows pulling together in confusion.
It all happens in less than ten seconds, but it feels like time stands still.
One moment she is upright with the tray of cookies in hand. The next, she’s tumbling to the ground.
The tray clatters, cookies scattering across the floor. Her body follows, her head almost striking the ground if not for my father, who surges forward and cradles it before she can injure herself.
“Mama!” I scream.
My father cradles her in his lap, cupping the side of her face. I dive to the floor next to them, checking her vitals to make sure she has a pulse.
She does. I breathe a little easier. “She’s fine, Dad. She just passed out, I think.”
“Amore, wake up,” my father pleads, his voice thick with tension.
“Oh dear, I guess the news must have overwhelmed her,” Giacomo says from above us. “I can only imagine what losing everything will do to her health.”
The words are meant for me, not my father. He’s trying to show me what not accepting his deal will do to my family.
I look up at him. “You are cruel.”
His eyes hold mine, a shine reflecting brightly in his pupils. “I am a man of my word,cara.Your father came to me for help, and I wanted something far more valuable than the money I gave him — you. Half a million is nothing to me when the prize is you.”
He crouches before me, offering what he calls salvation. “Take it, and your mother lives. Refuse, and the world you know burns.”
The sight of his hand barely registers. It’s his eyes that trap me, cold and merciless.
His features are striking, but the air he carries is one of dominance and power. Everything in my body tells me not to trust him. Not to take his word at face value.
But he’s caught me between a rock and a hard place.
My mother’s life for my freedom. Both so precious to me, but I can only have one.
So what do I choose? I only have one life, but I also only have one mother.
Selfishness or selflessness.
So I choose the only thing I can live with: I choose my mother’s life over my own.
3
MATTEO
She hasn’t left my mind.
Brown hair, autumn-leaf eyes with golden flecks that caught the morning sun.
This woman has my head in a fucking tailspin. And I’m pissed at myself for letting one woman destabilize me.
