“No, you’re not.”
I said that aloud, too?
“You’re sad.” He tucked a piece of hair behind me. “You’re hurting, and you’re brave.”
I bit my lip, trying to stop the overwhelming dam behind my eyes that was about to break. Again. My chest hurt from the burden of it. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“You don’t. We take one day at a time.Sì?”
“We?”
“Fuck yes. I’ll be right next to you.”
I was burning up inside and out. It was so overwhelming that I couldn’t find the words to tell him what it meant to me. I’d never even told him I loved him. Because that’s not what I did. I didn’t love anyone. Not even myself. I wanted to tell him all of that. But my chest vibrated, and sobs tore out of it. He pulled me into his arms, and I hid in them. Somehow, I knew he understood what I wanted to tell him. One day, hopefully, I’d be able to word it. How much this man and his deeds meant to me. But it would not be today, and I hoped he’d have the patience to wait for me until I could.
CHAPTER FIVE
7 MONTHS LATER
LUIGI
Although Ada had once been the don’s wife, she was still a woman. The knocks on the door were a tap at best, yet they reverberated within our four walls like a hammer pounding against the door. Next to me, my wife jumped every time her mother’s knuckles met the wood.
“Orietta,la mia figlia, per favore. I know you’re inside. Open the door.”
Even my cold, useless heart bled for my mother-in-law. But unfortunately for her, it paled in comparison to what I felt for her daughter. She would always be my priority. Mypiccolo porcospino.She looked utterly lost, swallowed by the armchair in our living room. With the way she fidgeted, with one hand tucked underneath her trembling thigh and the other cramped into a tight fist beneath my palm, she might as well have been in a dark cavern on her own.
“Are you going to open it?” Her tone was so broken it was nothing but a whisper with a lifetime of agony rippling within it.
I soothed her taut skin. I doubted whether she even felt it. She was cold to the touch. Her gaze a mixture of panic and a deep yearning.
Another knock. Another clench. “Do you want me to?”
Her chest heaved up and down three times before she could respond. The utter helplessness reflected on her face split me apart like an ax to my chest. Hope and fear fought within it. “Can’t you decide for me?”
I dropped to my haunches in front of her and stilled her trembling knees with my hands. “I can, if that’s what you want.”
She clutched my hands, wrapping her long, thin fingers around my thick ones in a death grip. Her nails dig into my skin, but she didn’t notice it.
The next knock made her keel over, burdened with physical pain. Inside, I ached with frustration, but outside, I was calm. Threading my hand through her hair, I sealed my forehead to hers. “Would you feel better if I let her in?”
She went quiet, searching for the answer within herself and coming up with none.
“How about if I don’t?”
A soft, painful gasp grated out of her before she dragged her gaze to mine. Tears pooled freely down her cheeks.Cazzo.This was so fucking hard. I wanted to take the easy way out. Fling the door open and kick her mamma to the other side of town. Don’s mother or not, she was the cause of all of my wife’s agony, and I wasn’t taking it. But according to my wife’s therapist, I shouldn’t intervene. A task that was easier said than done. I was so busy thinking through how to handle the situation myself that I missed her fucking answer to my question.
“What?”
Her eyes were a mirror to her soul when she answered in her cracked voice. “I don’t know what to do.”
I parked my fucking arrogance because I was so proud of her. She was making progress. Her reaction seven months ago would have been to shut her out completely and pretend not to be bothered by it. Or open the door and give in to a verbal shitshow of hurt her mamma. This was the first time she wasn’t sure how to react . Where she wasn’t going down the path of self-destruction first. Or walking all over the people she loved to hide her pain.
“It’s okay not to decide now.”
“Really?” Her tone was hopeful.
“Yes,” I assured her.
