“I’m not sure how long we can contain the news,” Joshua adds, lifting another spoonful of the delicious soup to my lips. “You know how gossipy made men are.”
“They shouldn’t hear it from anyone else,” Natalia says.
“Okay. You’re right. I only wanted to protect them, but they should know. Can you call them?”
“Of course.” She leans in to kiss my cheek. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Gia. You gave us all a terrible fright.”
“Joshua told me what happened to Rowan. How is he doing?”
“He is shaken up but coping. It’s the fathers I’m more concerned with. Ben and Leo want to burn the world down right now.”
“I don’t blame them. I’m sorry about Luca. He didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“No, he didn’t. But it’s an honor to die protecting your don, and his family will draw some comfort from that.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Gia
My family and Elisa show up later that day, all freaking out and crying, as I predicted, but they calm down when they see I’m holding it together. Nat reassures Mom my injuries will heal, and it helps to assuage her concerns.
The few days immediately after the kidnapping are a bit of a blur. I sleep a lot, thanks to regular doses of pain medication, and multiple tests are performed to ensure there are no lingering side effects of the GHB I was given. I breathe a sigh of relief when tests prove I didn’t contract any STIs from that prick, and though I have an IUD implanted, I asked Nat to conduct a pregnancy test to ensure no accidents have happened. Thankfully, it came back negative too.
We attend Hennessy’s and Luca’s funerals, protected by groups of heavily armedsoldati, and they go off without issue. I spend some time with Hennessy’s family at the wake, explaining how their son willingly gave his life to protect mine and it’s a debt I can never repay. I tell them to call me if I can ever do anything for them.
O’Hara has cleaned house, and his operation is running smoothly now all the traitors have been rooted out and dealt with. We got some good intel from the interrogations that tookplace before their deaths. We know now the big boss is an Italian, but no one knows his name. It was a closely guarded secret, and only the higher-ups know.
Confusion is ripe in our circles as we try to figure out how Italy is involved in this. In the past, our connections were with Sicily, not the larger mainland. When Serena Salerno eliminated Stefan DeLuca years ago, we thought the family line died with him. All intel points to that, but a team has been sent to Sicily to check it out.
However, if this is someone from the mainland, we are at a complete loss. Italy is a pretty big country with a population of fifty-eight million. We can’t just blindly send teams of men to the mainland, and we can’t decimate our ranks here because war is coming, and we need every available man.
Tension is running high in The Big Apple, but the streets are ours again. The foreign supplies coming into the city have dried up. It’s no surprise considering Liam is still MIA. We’re not stupid. We know it’s the calm before the storm, but the newly enhanced board of The Commission is pulling out all the stops to put an end to this once and for all.
Weeks pass and I’m healing, inside and out. My face is back to normal, my concussion is gone, and while my ribs still hurt, they don’t hurt as badly.
Joshua has stayed true to his word, barely leaving my side. He has taken such good care of me. Cooking my meals so I’m eating healthily. Ensuring I take my medication on time. Bathing and showering me. Applying ointment to my myriad of injuries. Watching movies with me and teaching me to play chess on the onyx chessboard I bought him for his birthday. At night, he holds me tight, helping to chase any potential nightmares away.
I am so in love with him, and I know he is it for me—the man I will marry and have a family with. The man I will grow old with. Neither of us has said it out loud, but I can tell we’reon the same page. I am really happy, and I’m loving living here with him. We work well together, our strengths and differences complementing one another.
On days when Joshua has to attend a critical meeting at the company or Commission Central, he has his mom or Elisa come and stay with me and he doubles the security detail.
I’m part of the team working to ferret out the rats in our organization. Going through the chip-tracking reports for the past few months for thousands of men is painstaking work, but it’s proving fruitful.
Ben’s IT team identified a pattern that pinpoints those using reverse-engineered chips, and we are slowly compiling a list of men who are traitors. We can’t move on them yet, not without alerting our enemy we are onto them. Some of my colleagues from the informant team are tailing a few of these men in the hopes of identifying the key figure or figures at the senior level within themafiosowho are aiding the enemy. So far, we’re not making any headway, but we presume this person, or persons, is aware we are closing in and they are not doing anything to jeopardize their position.
But they will slip. They will make a mistake. And when they do, we will swoop in and do our own spring cleaning.
Today is my first day venturing outside, and I’m loving the feel of the brisk February air on my face as I walk hand in hand with Joshua toward the plastic surgeon’s office where I have an appointment. Ten men surround us, and we’re garnering our fair share of curious gazes. Joshua is a recognizable face around the city, but I’m a stranger to most.
“I can take a skin graft from your inner thigh and use it to repair the damaged skin on your arm,” the doctor says after examining me. “You should heal in two weeks, but it will take a year to two years for the skin to fully settle. It’s likely you will have some small permanent scarring, but it will be minimal and a drastic improvement.” The look on his face when he saw the rudimentary name etched on my arm was priceless.
“I want to do it.”
I’m eager to get that prick’s name and his mark off my arm so it’s not a permanent reminder of that night. I’ve been doing well, and I won’t let this hold me back. I have attended a few therapy sessions, mostly to appease Mom, Nat, Elisa, and Joshua, but it has helped to talk it all through with a professional. I have successfully compartmentalized the ordeal and blocked it from my mind.
Joshua is another matter.
He’s so gentle with me, like I’m this fragile thing he’ll break. Apart from kissing and a few heavy make out sessions, he hasn’t taken it any further, and I’m seriously sexually frustrated at this point. I had too many physical injuries at first to even think about sex, but now I’m mostly healed I’m keen to reset our relationship and reclaim my sexuality.
