“Gia, enough!” Rafe snapped.
“Iamworried about you, Gia. You…you’re my sister, and no matter how mad you get with me I w-will always care about you, and love you,” I told her, hoping it would calm her down. I was wrong.
“Fuck off, Cara! You never cared about me. You left me! You took our mother and never even gave me a chance to know her,and now you got me fucking kidnapped! Everything is your fault! And now you have all ofmyfamily wrapped around your little finger, at your beck and call constantly. You should have left me tonight, No one even would have noticed or cared if those pricks had killed me!”
The rage she turned on me hit me harder than any blow ever could have, and I started to cry, huge tears rolling down my cheeks as I fought for something to say. But what could I say? In Gia’s eyes I had come along and ruined everything for her, and maybe she was right in a lot of ways.
“Rafe, do something or I will!” Dio raged. “I get that she’s been through a lot tonight, but she doesn’t get to talk to Cara that way!”
“How is she?” Cal asked Dante.
“In pain and in desperate need of rest. She was just drifting off when this shit show broke out!” Dante growled.
“Gia, please just go to your room and calm down,” Rafe pleaded. I knew he was struggling because he didn’t want to upset her anymore than she had already been that night, and I was relieved for that. She was scared, and the last thing she needed was Rafe losing his shit with her.
“Rafe, stay with Gia, okay?” I told him as my eyes met his. “I’m alright. Dante said he’ll stay with me, and my injuries are minor. I’ll be fine,” I assured him.
“Forget it! I don’t want any of you staying with me now, anyway! It’s clear I’m everyone’s second choice! Stay with your precious Cara!” With that Gia marched next door to her own room, slamming the door closed behind her.
I collapsed back against Dante with a groan when the yelling and slamming of the door reverberated through my pounding head.
“Deal with that,” Dante grunted as he nodded towards Gia’s room. “I’m taking Cara down to my room so she can sleep in peace. Do not disturb her again.”
“Cal?” I called without thought. When I opened my eyes and looked for him, he was right there before me. “Will you come too?” I asked. I knew it sounded childish, but I was attached to him and I felt better when he was close.
“You don’t need to ask me, Cara. I’m on you like white on rice from now on,” he told me with a gentle smile.
“Tesorino?” I looked past Cal to my brother and forced a wobbly smile for him.
“I need to sleep for a while, please Rafe. Gia needs you now. I don’t want her to be alone after what she went through,” I pleaded.
“What about what you went through? You’re hurt,” he pointed out.
“Not the first time, remember big brother. I’m just rolling with the punches,” I told him, reminding him of an earlier comment I had made about sometimes having no choice but to roll with the punches life threw your way.
“Gia will come around. She’s just in a state right now,” he told me, and I nodded, even if I didn’t believe it for a second.
I’d obviously done something to make Gia loathe me. Maybe she was right and I had made her life harder since I got there. Whatever it was, I was beginning to realise maybe this new life I had stumbled into wouldn’t be quite as simple as I thought itcould be. If things with Gia went on the way they were, I couldn’t stay there much longer. If she wanted me gone, then I refused to force my presence on her. It was making the whole house feel uneasy and unbalanced, not to mention it was all stressing Rafe out to breaking point.
Maybe me leaving to find my own life would be for the best after all. Rafe could still be in my life, but I didn’t have to be in his home, fucking up all of the peace he had built for himself and those he cared for.
CHAPTER 3
DARIO
It killed me to stay put where I was and watch Dante walk away with Cara in his arms, Callan right behind them. She was mine. I should be the one holding her and caring for her. I needed that. I needed her close to me, to feel her breath against my skin, just so I would know she really was alive and safe.
When we had approached the doorway of that filthy, run down garage, and saw her sat there, shaking, bleeding, and clearly in pain, yet still aiming a gun at the others as they approached, ready and willing to do whatever it took to protect herself and Gia, it both tore me apart, and made me fall even deeper in love with her. Tore me apart because she was hurt again! Because I had failed her again! But her strength and intelligence, along with her determination, had me falling for her more, if that was even possible.
And now she was traumatised again, after being forced to do things and face things she never should have had to. She was hurt and in pain again! And she was working hard to hide it all, in order to protect everyone around her, again! Things couldn’t go on this way. Something had to change. Not only did we have to do a hell of a lot better at protecting her, but we also needed to find a way to make her feel secure in her new home, and safe from attack from her own bloody sister every time she saw her!Fucking Gia!
I knew she had been through her own terror filled horror that night, and don’t get me wrong – I had been worried sick about her as well as Cara when we got that text from Cara and understood what was happening. But the way she just behaved with her sister right then was not acceptable, no matter how she was feeling and what she had been through. She had torn Cara apart with her hate filled words and baseless accusations, and it wasn’t just Cara either. Rafe was in pieces trying to work out how to handle the situation without losing either of the sister’s he loved.
“Rafe?” I went over to where he was leaning against the wall beside Gia’s room and placed my hand on his shoulder in support.
“I don’t know what to do here, Dario. Gia’s a wreck, and Cara’s hurt and badly shaken. I just want to be with both of them, but wherever I go, I’m fucking it all up, aren’t I?” he asked.
“You need to put your foot down with Gia, brother. I get that she’s shaken up, but she was treating Cara like that before all of this, and it can’t continue. Yes, things might have changed for Gia since Cara got here, but none of that is because of anything Cara did. She’s been nothing but patient and kind with Gia, and you know it.”
