The Accardi Twins: A Mafia Romance Duet

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Elisa

M om and Dad exchange a worrying look as I collapse against Mom and quietly sob. “I hadn’t started dinner yet,” Mom tells him over my shoulder. “Let’s order pizza.”

“I’ll call it in.” Dad kisses Mom on the lips before pressing a tender kiss on the top of my head. “Whatever it is, know we are here for you.” They talk in hushed tones for a bit while I try to pull myself together. Gravel crunches underfoot as Dad walks off into the house.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Mom asks, easing back and holding my arms so she can look at me. “Or we could talk over a glass of wine in the sunroom?”

“Wine sounds good,” I say, pulling a tissue from my jeans pocket and dabbing at my eyes. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to break down like that.”

“Better out than in.” She smiles lovingly at me, brushing strands of hair off my brow. My brown hair is the same color as Mom’s, and we share the reddish tints running through it. Although she is only a few years away from fifty, there isn’t a gray hair on Mom’s head or a single wrinkle on her beautiful face. I hope I grow older as gracefully as she is. “Is this something to do with Caleb?”

I nod because I never lie to Mom, and she knows most everything anyway.

“Oh, Elisa.” She kisses my cheek and squeezes my hand. “I hate to see you hurting so much.”

“It’s my own fault.”

“Don’t beat yourself up. Your feelings are natural, and it’s not like you can flip a switch and turn them off.”

“Wouldn’t that be a handy trick?”

Her features soften as she gives me another hug. Warmth surges through my icy veins, and I’m so glad I came home. Mom always makes things better, and I really need her tonight. Shea offered to come to my apartment, but I turned her down because my place is with my family. A weekend at home, surrounded by their love, will go a long way toward gluing back the new cracks in my heart.

She circles her arm around my shoulders and leads me toward the house. Glancing around, I notice my bag is gone. Dad must have taken it inside. “I know everything seems insurmountable right now, but you will heal, and you will move forward with your life. At some point, you will look back and see it differently. During my worst days with Alfredo, clinging to the hope of a brighter future was all that kept me going. Hope, you, and Romeo.”

We step inside the house, and I’m instantly bathed in warmth and the scent of lavender and lilies. Mom loves lilies, and Dad buys them every week for her. Auntie Sierra sells aromatherapy oils at her clinic, and Mom is always burning different oils on the various diffusers she has around the house.

“And then you had Dad.”

Her face instantly lights up as we walk toward the kitchen, where the sound of chatter filters into the hallway. “Alesso saved me in all the ways I needed saving. His love lifted me up when I struggled to stand by myself, and when I had healed, he gave me the freedom to soar.” She sweeps her finger across my cheek. “Someday, you will have a love like that.”

I bite my tongue to smother my negative retort. No point in raining on Mom’s parade. She is a true believer in love because she found it after years of enduring sheer hell. I wish I had even a tenth of my mother’s inner strength. Compared to what she went through, my heartbreak is nothing but the whimsical yearnings of a foolish girl who still hasn’t grown up.

I tell myself this all the time since I discovered Caleb slept with Gwyneth and her despicable friends, but I have yet to drill the point home.

“Lisa!” Aria barrels toward me as we enter the kitchen, throwing her arms around me with gusto.

“Hey, cupcake. Missed you.” I crouch down to her level and hug her properly.

“I missed you more,” she says. “It’s boring being at home all the time. I can’t even see my friends,” she pouts.

“It’s important to keep you safe.” I tell her something she’s already been told a lot, but when you’re eight it’s hard to wrap your head around the fact your father is a powerful man with dangerous enemies who wouldn’t think twice about hurting you to get to him.

“And it won’t be forever,” Mom adds, messing the top of her hair. It’s darker than Mom’s but lighter than Alesso’s. “I’ll talk to Daddy and see if we can arrange a playdate for next week.”

I doubt Dad will agree. Not while the big Italian boss is in the wind. All the kids are still being homeschooled because the threat is far from over, and the memory of Rowan’s attempted assassination is still way too fresh in everyone’s mind. There is no point in taking risks.

“Where is Will?” I ask, straightening up and approaching the counter where Dad is talking with Romeo.

“Where do you think?” Romeo snorts out a laugh. “We should hook him up with an IV to the PlayStation and just be done with it.”

“You weren’t much different at his age,” Mom reminds him as Romeo reaches for me.

My brother bundles me into his arms, whispering in my ear. “He’s not worthy of you, and he doesn’t deserve your tears.”

Everyone instantly knows the cause of my heartache because I’m just that obvious. Gawd, it’s so humiliating.

“How come you’re back early?” I ask, shucking out of his embrace.

“I don’t have much going on tomorrow, and I wanted to come home early and check up on everyone.” We were all worried this week after the big battle, and Romeo is a total Mommy’s boy, so I’m not surprised he came home from college a day earlier too. My eldest brother is a nerdy genius, and he graduated high school early last year. Now, he’s a freshman at Yale studying accounting, and I couldn’t be prouder of him.

“Dad’s ordering pizza,” Mom confirms as she grabs a bottle of chilled wine from the refrigerator.

Aria jumps up and down and claps her hands. A wide smile graces my lips as I watch my little sister whoop and holler. You’d swear she never got takeout, but I love she’s excited and she doesn’t take it for granted. Our parents are extremely wealthy, but they are careful not to spoil us too much. Dad came from humble beginnings, and he was even homeless for a short period while he was a teenager. It’s important to him that he instils the right values in us, and it only makes me love him more for it.

“Rowan is coming over in a bit. Better order an extra pizza,” Romeo says. There is only a year between the cousins, and they are as close as brothers. Have been since they were little even though they are so different.

“Better make it two,” I quip, remembering how bulked up Rowan has gotten lately. Now he has initiated, he is embracing it fully, and he’s training and working out a lot in between study.

“Come on.” Mom jerks her head to the side, holding two wineglasses. “Let’s sit down and have a talk.”

I trail Mom out to the sunroom, shutting the sliding doors behind me to keep prying ears out. Settling on the comfy couch, I accept a glass of wine and kick off my ballet flats, tucking my legs up. Outside, the perfectly manicured gardens are lit up under the dark night sky by a multitude of pretty outdoor lights.

Mom is best friends with Natalia—Caleb and Joshua’s mom—and she got Mom hooked on gardening. We have a rose garden and a small vegetable patch though we mostly get our produce from the large garden Natalia planted over on the far side of the estate. There are copious apple trees, and we enjoy homegrown pears, peaches, strawberries, and blueberries too at different times of the year. Sometimes I go out to the orchard for a walk because the scent in the air is heavenly and I find it soothing.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Mom asks, quietly sipping her wine.

Although I haven’t mentioned Anais to Mom in years, I’m too hurt and too angry to hide it from her, so I tell her what happened when I dropped by Caleb’s place.

Mom shakes her head and sighs heavily. “That woman.” She takes a big gulp of her wine. “I know she’s your dad’s cousin, but I regularly wish I could throttle her.” She pats my thigh. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a very different side to the story she told you. Anais can’t be trusted, and I sincerely doubt Caleb has let her move in.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“It matters if it upsets you.” Her eyes probe mine. “How long has she been treating you like that?”

I gulp back a giant mouthful of wine, feeling Mom’s eyes on me. I turn to face her. “Don’t ask me to lie to you.”

“She never stopped, did she? Not even after your dad asked her to be kind to you.”

“That only made things worse. You know she doesn’t listen to a word Dad says. I know why he keeps trying with her, but it’s painful to watch.”

“Your dad has the patience of a saint. I’d have lobbed her and her fake boobs off a cliff a long time ago.”

“Mom!” I snort out a giggle. “I swear she’s had them done again.” My face contorts. “Unfortunately, I got an up close and personal look at them. She was virtually naked at the front door.”

“She has no shame and no morals.” Mom turns on the couch, angling her back and kicking off her shoes. “When she was a child, I had sympathy for Anais. Growing up without a mom and having Saverio Salerno as a father could not have been easy. But any sympathy I felt ended when she tried to mess things up between Ben and Sierra. Anais has been playing the same game for years. A man is only truly attractive to her if being with him hurts another woman. I’m disgusted she has been treating you like this for years. All because you care for Caleb and he cares for you.”

“He doesn’t care for me. Not really. He wouldn’t have done what he did if that were true.”

“I won’t interfere or tell you what to do, love, but Caleb gets a lot of bad press that isn’t justified. Don’t get me wrong, some of it is, but he’s not completely heartless, and I refuse to believe he would deliberately hurt you. He has always been so protective of you and considerate of your feelings. You need to talk to him. I don’t see how you will move forward unless you get answers.”

“I know it happened, and it’s not like I can erase those images from my brain. At this point, I’m not sure answers will even help. Look what happened this evening? I thought it was the right thing to do but seeing her there has only made things worse. I don’t know how he can bear to be with her. She’s awful.”

“You’re preaching to the converted.” Mom clinks her glass against mine. “Nat despises her. She knows why Caleb started it but wishes he would just let it go now.”

“Revenge for Bettina.” Gia confirmed it a few months ago. “It explains how it started between them. But why is it still going on all these years later? He must like her.”

“It’s a complicated situation.”

Throwing my head back, I let out a long sigh. “I wish I had crushed on anyone but him.”

“Don’t regret it. You were so adorable, and he was always so good to you. Even when he was putting Leo and Nat through the wringer during his rebellious phase, he always made time for you, and he never complained when you followed him around everywhere like a lovesick puppy.”

“Gee, thanks, Mom.”

“It was super cute.”

“If you say so.”

“You’re special to him, Elisa. I know you are. He just struggles to articulate it. There was a time you received his only smiles, and when he got older, he never forgot your birthday or Christmas or Valentine’s Day. It might not be the relationship you wanted with him, but he does care about you, honey.”

“Why don’t you hate him like Dad does?”

“I’m not happy he’s hurt you, and if you discover it was intentional, I will be having words with him, but Caleb is not a bad guy. He’s just misunderstood.” She peers off into space for a while. “There was a time when Nat and I wished you two would get together. It has always seemed like it was written in the stars to me.”

“Go easy there on the wine, Mom.”

“I want the world for you, Elisa. Your dad does too, and he doesn’t hate Caleb. He just doesn’t want him for you.”

“Well, he doesn’t need to worry about that. It’s never going to happen.” I knock back the rest of my wine. “Even if Caleb came crawling on his hands and knees begging me to be with him.” I take Mom’s empty glass and stand. “I’m going to give my all to Seb and put Caleb out of mind. Seb loves me and wants me, and he’d never make a promise and then break it and trample all over my heart.”