Then I collapse into her arms and finally forget all else as she softly strokes my hair and the birds outside start to sing louder.
The sun is coming up, but I can stay in her arms a little longer.Might be this memory will have to last us both for eternity.
Chapter32
GIANNA
He’s not sleeping,but neither is he getting up.And the sun is rising higher and higher.As much as I want him to stay, I want him to come back to me tonight more.Safe and sound.Cleansed of his darkness, those fantasies of revenge he’s lived and breathed for the past ten years, and the angry ghosts of his family finally laid to rest.And then he will return to me with only the sunshine inside him.That was one of my many wishes I made on she sparks shooting from the fire at the bikers’ party.And on the falling stars I could see in the sky.
“It’s time, Matteo,” I whisper to him.He burrows his face deeper into my breasts.
“Not yet,” he mutters.
“You must.But once it’s done it will be done,” I say.“And then we can truly begin our lives.Go surfing some more, go to more parties, watch movies all night long.”
“I prefer to do other things with you all night long,” he says, rising his head and nipping one of my nipples, grinning at me as I moan sharply.
“We’ll do all that too,” I promise.
He rises all the way, his face very serious now.“Not if I don’t come back.”
The words pierce me like a sword, one of those huge, heavy medieval ones.
It’s time… time I give him life to fight for, not just the dead.I’ve been up half the night, trying to decide if this morning would be the right time to tell him.Now I know it is.
“My period is late, Matteo.By weeks,” I say and watch his eyes, his whole face flitter through so many emotions it’s all just a blur.“So you see, you have to come back to me.To us.”
I place my hand on my belly as I say it and he reacts instinctively, covering my hand with both of his.There’s joy in his eyes, but so much worry too.No darkness though.
“How sure are you?”he asks, his voice hoarse and faint.
“I haven’t taken the test yet, but I’m sure.A woman just knows.”
I’ve heard women talk about this, about just knowing that a life is growing inside of them, and never really believed it.Until my body started changing in ways it never had before and my heart told me it’s not just me anymore.That I’m caring for two now.It’s probably why I was able to stop drinking so suddenly.
He squeezes my hands and kisses me, deeply, softly, more caringly than ever before.
“You’ve made me so happy,” he says as he pulls away from the kiss.But his eyes are still very worried.“Not just with this.With everything.You gave me back all the years I lost to Moretti and his carnage.”
I squeeze his hands too.“And you showed me that the kind of life I always wanted was possible.Even if you had to force me into it.I want to spend the rest of my life with you, raising our babies together, making a new family together.But first you have to bury your old family for good, send them off properly.”
“I love you so much,” he says and kisses me again before I can tell him I love him too.
But I do tell him, later, once he’s dressed and I’m kissing him goodbye.
Chapter33
MATTEO
Goldie’s newshit me with the same force as hitting a concrete wall in a car going a hundred miles an hour.And then spinning out, rolling the car.I did that once, years and years ago.And the feelings that followed were not unlike that spinning and rolling.
But the feeling that emerged first was pure joy over the fact that the woman of my dreams is having my child.That my line won’t die out with me.That I finally have something to live for.
All that came before the first worry over the curse that will likely claim me soon.The curse that will claim all my descendants too, one way or another.
But I chose to focus on the joy.
And I will focus on that joy for as long as the curse will let me.
