Seconds later, the mattress dips under his weight, and his arm slides under me. Carefully, he rolls me onto my side so I face away from him. He shuffles in close until his chest is solid against my back and his breaths are warm at my neck.
I flare my nostrils and breathe him in. He smells like soap, cologne, and something darker, like how cigarette smoke clings to your skin even after you shower.
His familiar scent grounds me, but it also reminds me of why we smell so different. My thighs are still sticky, and the hygienic smell isn’t solely from the equipment around my bed.
My skin smells just as sanitary.
I stare at the wall, trying to process what’s happened, but the question I want answered more than anything slips out spontaneously. “The baby?”
Giovanni’s arm around me stiffens for the quickest second before his stressed words batter my temple. “We don’t know yet. It’s too early.” He angles his head so I can see the truth in his eyes when he adds, “But no matter the outcome, nothing changes. It will always be us.” His voice is steady now, like iron beneath velvet. “Worst outcome, we’ll try again. It won’t be until you’ve recovered, but we don’t have to rush.” His husky laugh is unexpected but highly required. “My father’s illness seems to have left town the instant his eyes landed on your mother.”
You can hear the smile in my words. “Maybe he was dying of a broken heart?”
“Maybe.” I’m highly skeptical his smile reaches his eyes. He’s tense, like he’s worried I’ll run like I thought he would the instant I realized the blood seeping into my dress was coming from my vagina.
“Is everything okay?”
Giovanni’s slow exhale trickles through my hair. “You collapsed because you were poisoned.”
“Poisoned? Who would do that?”
The tension exuding from him coils like a spring. “Tomasso.”
I blink in rapid succession.
That isn’t the name I was anticipating.
“Valeria’s father?” I hear Giovanni’s nod instead of seeing it. “Why would he do that? That doesn’t make any sense… unless it was for Valeria.”
“I thought the same.” His fingers trace circles on my arm. His touch is both soothing and terrifying. “But it wasn’t about Valeria. It was about control and an influence he had no claim to. He wanted leverage, and when I took that from him, he took it out on you instead of on me.”
Fear weaves through my veins like ice. I thought I’d only have to get around Valeria to save my heart from being stomped in eight months’ time. I had no idea I’d have to take on her entire family.
When I involuntarily shiver, Giovanni inches closer. “He won’t hurt you again, Valentina. I promise you that. No one will ever hurt you again.” He waits for my shudders to slacken before he says, “But I need you to know that I couldn’t guarantee that without the steps I had to take tonight. I had to remove feelings from the equation to make sureyoucame first.” His body vibrates with anger. “This was the second time he’s tried to kill you, so I couldn’t let him off scot-free.”
I freeze, and then tug at my ear, certain I heard him wrong. “What?”
The only other time my life has been in jeopardy was when I was nestled in my mother’s womb. That tormentor also went by Tomasso, but that name is as common here as Chris is for the rest of the world.
With the pieces too haggard for me to slot together, Giovanni cuts them up into manageable pieces. “Tomasso isn’t just Valeria’s father, Valentina. He’s yours too.”
“No,” I deny, shaking my head. “You said Valeria’s last name is Giuffrida. That she only used her deceased grandmother’s maiden name to save face at the IVF clinic. You must be mistaken...” My words fade as a memory surfaces too fast for my woozy head.
My mother wasn’t dragging me away from Giovanni like she was suddenly unsupportive of our relationship.
She was dragging me away from the monster in her nightmares.
The once-safe room suddenly feels suffocating, and the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor is too loud. They shriek in my ears as if they’re counting down to a truth I’m not brave enough to face just yet.
I can’t help but push, though. “What did you do?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,dolcezza.”
I pay no attention to the warning in Giovanni’s tone. “Did you kill him?”
“Val—”
“Answer me. Did you kill my father?”
