Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
FINA
I’d like to say I got my happy ending. That after Emo’s delightful demise and my return to Rome, life was all rainbows and butterflies.
But somewhere along the way, I fell in love with Lorenzo Beneventi. Worse still, I think I’ve always loved him.
That’s what breaks me. For most of my life, I’ve only ever loved two people—my mother and him.
Bittersweet doesn’t even come close to the feeling lodged in my chest. It’s like sinking my teeth into the queen of fruit, a perfect strawberry, expecting a rush of sweetness only to taste rot at its core. No amount of spitting or water can wash it away. It’s a fate almost worse than death.
Mix that with rage, and you have a woman in full-blooded turmoil.
It’s no wonder my emotions are a mess. Renzo has always been a man of extremes, like molten lava shapes his iceberg heart. He can be charming one moment, lethal the next. Sometimes gentle. Sometimes a violent beast.
And with Emo, he had to unleash the beast.
Was I fascinated by the way he killed him? Absolutely. So was everyone in the church, and the whispers will haunt the mafiosi for years. The dark and twisted part of me felt a fierce, satisfying justice in it. Emo will never again get off on terrifying women. Enough said.
I’m strong. I’ve survived worse than loving a liar. Anger will fade. Bitterness will dull. Love will wane into a lull, never quite gone, just there.
He can go on dishing out marriage proposals like hollow mints.
While I build a life without him in it.
Stomach full, I inhale the aroma of espresso, and the garlic from the linguine alle vongole in olio e aglio, still lingering in the kitchen.
“It’s quiet on the farm at night,” Camilla comments, pulling me out of my head.
Zia Teresa will reopen in two more days.
My aunt’s excitement is contagious. She even hung a sign on the window that says, “La famiglia ringrazia per la pazienza. Ci vediamo tra due giorni.” Translation: The family thanks you for your patience. See you in two days.
Everyone in the neighborhood will understand which family she’s referring to.
“We can play truth or dare,” Bianca declares, “once we finish the dishes?”
Truth? I don’t know if I believe in the word anymore.
Camilla and I shake our heads.
Aunt Teresa wipes her hands on her apron, then disappears from the kitchen. Leaving us to finish with the cleanup.
Bianca hip-bumps me, and I almost drop a soapy dish into the sink. “It’s too quiet. How did you manage here all by yourself?”
I swallow hard. I never told my friends exactly how I came to arrive in Sardinia or the events that led up to it.
The bruises from the attack are long gone and the threat buried.
The burn mark on my wrist the only reminder.
As for being alone … the feeling’s more intense now than ever before. Bittersweet.
My aunt returns and gestures us to the kitchen table. In her hands, she’s shuffling cards. “Scopa,” she announces. “Best two out of three.”
Bianca and Camilla slide into their chairs across from me, Bianca giggling at the quirky suits on the cards and Camilla asking if the game is “like Go Fish.”
Aunt Teresa’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Something like that, tesoro.”
The first few rounds are harmless enough; Bianca laughing when she accidentally helped Aunt Teresa win; Camilla making a show of overthinking her plays. Until the stakes started to appear, a folded note slipped toward the winner of each hand. Innocent little slips of paper.
The twinkle in my aunt’s eye says otherwise.
“We can’t have you girls bored,” Aunt Teresa clucks.
They stare at her, wide-eyed.
For the first time in two weeks, I laugh.
“Redeemable for a favor,” Aunt Teresa says when Bianca opens hers. “Any favor.”
“What is this?” Bianca asks, staring at her in wonder.
“This is how we draw guests back to the restaurant.”
“By my singing ‘Mambo Italiano’ while I’m on the floor?”
I laugh so hard my stomach aches.
“It’s not even an authentic Italian song,” she continues to protest.
Aunt Teresa gives Camilla a smile. “You’re next, tesoro.”
The game goes on, every note wilder than the last, every laugh convincing me that I’ll be okay. That I’m not alone. That I have an aunt and friends who love me.
Still, the sweetness is tainted.
God, I hate you, Renzo.
Because what cuts the deepest, aside from knowing I wasn’t the only woman he asked, is that the last time he promised me marriage, he was completely sober. He lied, fully aware. No addiction. No chaos. Just Renzo, his true self, serving me another broken promise.
RENZO
“How are you?” the shrink with the Harvard degree asks. I’m in the same chair I occupied months ago, sucking on a stale lollipop I swiped from the container by the door. Same reluctance, same disdain for psychobabble.
What I’m not is the same man.
“Been better.”
She smiles. “We’re already off to a better start than last time.”
I sink back, letting the sugar rush settle in.
“I was surprised when you called.”
“Without my father demanding I be here?” No one knows I set up this appointment or the ones after it. The reason for the secrecy isn’t because I’m worried about the same old whispers: Wild. Unreliable. Weak.
Trust me, that dying dog’s been laid to rest. Oh, the fucking rumors still circulate, except now they don’t bother me, now that they’ve got it right for once.
He’s the most deadly Beneventi of them all.
But discussing mafiosi gossip, violence, or the Life isn’t why I’m here.
The therapist crosses her legs, cheeks heating. “How can I help you?”
Sex isn’t why I’m here, either.
“I’m in love.”
“In love?”
The lollipop sours in my mouth. Not because what I shared is a lie. Because I blew it. I toss the lollipop into the bin. “You heard me.”
“Well, okay …”
“She’s part of the reason I’m here.”
Fina found out about my father’s wife, my almost-fiancée.
How I handed out marriage proposals like candy—just as stale, because the motive wasn’t love.
It was stupidity mixed with misplaced kindness, wrapped up in some fucked-up hero complex I’ve carried for years.
I still carry it. What I unleashed on Emo proves that.
The one time I actually was sincere about marrying wasn’t a proposal at all, but a declaration.
An epiphany.
Fina is my girl. The woman I’ll spend the rest of my life with.
But first things first.
Yeah, I’ll always carry the monster within, and I fucking embrace him. He’s my strength. He wins wars. Keeps the Beneventi name feared.
I’m here for the demon. He doesn’t respect family or himself. He’s pure hunger and chaos, and if I let him off the chain, he’ll destroy everything I love.
The monster builds empires.
The demon burns them to the ground.
“I’m an addict,” I say bluntly.
The therapist opens a file and picks up a pen.
“I’m here because I want to stay sober.”