Gina
It’sbeenthreeweeks,and Tommaso has kept his promise of coming inside me at least twice a day. At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m walking bow-legged.
He just left to go to a meeting with the leaders of the other strongest factions in the city. He’s been trying to implement peace among them—apparently, it was an idea I gave him—and they’re working through the details of how that would look.
The collective alliance is being called the Chamber. They’ll make decisions behind closed doors that will impact the rest of the criminal factions and be the core of power in this city.
They won’t rule together as one entity, but as allies with a common goal, and they’re negotiating which criminal activity they’ll each take the lead on, like a monopoly rather than stomping on each other’s toes. The fact that Tommaso discusses this openly with me, and that I don’t seem to have qualms, tells me that I was definitely familiar with and desensitized to this world before my amnesia.
Of course, the other criminal factions in the city won’t be pleased that the top five are banding together for an alliance and collectively growing their power. So even though the tensions, especially with the Triads, have died down, Tommaso is still keeping me protected here. Isolated.
I understand he’s protecting me because he loves me, but it’s driving me insane. I tried to reason with him that seeing other people, being out in the world like a normal person, could help my memories come back. My therapist, Marie, agrees, but Tommaso won’t relent.
Naïve, stupid girl, a man’s voice hisses in my head. My father’s. NotBabbo’s from when I was younger, but the cruel, calculating man he had turned into.
“You need to know, Tommaso was using you,” he says almost gently. “He never wanted you. Not the way you thought and hoped. He was using you…wanting you to be his whore.”
I shake my head in denial, even though it makes me almost vomit. “No. He…he…”
“Loves you?” he mocks. “See for yourself, naïve, stupid girl.”
I look down at what my father is holding for me to look at. But all I see is blackness.
I blink rapidly as I come out of the memory, trying to recover more of it to see what I had been looking at back then.
But there’s only the blackness, along with shattering despair, as it feels like something had broken me back then.
Nausea fills me as it does whenever I have any fleeting memory of my father in later life. However, this time it’s more than just nausea. I make it to the trash can just in time, falling to my knees in the library and retch into it.
I can’t stop the waves of vomiting as I heave on my knees, holding the can to my face. I’m trembling when I finally stop, strands of hair that escaped my braid stick to my skin, and I realize Etta is kneeling beside me.
She takes the trash can from me and hands me a napkin. I see she’s brought the orange ricotta cake and cappuccinos for us on a tray that sits on the ottoman. We had just finished baking and were going to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
“Let me help you up.” She grips my elbow to help me to my feet. I feel shaky and weak. “Sit.”
“I need to clean the waste bucket.” I grimace.
“Nonsense,” she scolds. “Jerome will see to that. Don’t worry.”
I sit on the sofa and reach for some water. “I need to go brush my teeth.”
She takes one of the cappuccinos off the tray and puts it on the side table. Then she picks up the other and takes a sip, eyeing me.
I frown, staring at the cappuccino she put out of my reach. “Why did you do that?”
“No cappuccino or caffeine for you. And when you go brush your teeth, you take a pregnancy test, too.”
My heart skips a beat, thinking that I could be pregnant already, and the thought of little feet running through the house fills me with joy. But I shake my head.
“I had a memory break through. It was one of the ones that cause nausea and my head to hurt.” My head is aching with pain, and I sip the water again.
She studies me with a contemplative look. “Those memories don’t usually make you actually vomit.”
“They have a few times.”
She shoos me with her hand. “Go upstairs, and we’ll have cake when you return.”
“I want the cappuccino, too.”
