Chapter 30
“When you said you would cook for me, I admit I didn’t think it would be this.”
My spoon stops short of my lips, and I look up at Damiano, who has already shoveled the last of his food into his mouth and is chewing. Initially, I thought that he was being polite when he ate his first plate or that he was just hungry when he had his second, but since he’s polishing off his third, I’m withholding my elation that he actually likes my food.
I spoon food into my mouth and quickly chew. “Tikka chicken is one of my favorite dishes,”
I admit to him. “I’ve been craving it for a couple of days.”
Seated next to me, versus across from me at the table that seats six people, Damiano frowns. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He drinks some of the whiskey I poured him earlier, his dark eyes planted on me.
I shrug. For a second, I’m uncertain why I didn’t mention it to Viviana. She would have made it for me to the best of her abilities. “I guess it wasn’t the dish per se that I was craving, but just eating it makes me feel–”
“Safe?”
I weigh his words, uncertain if I want to divulge that to him, then figure it can’t hurt. If I refuse to do the same, I can’t demand that he open up. I need to do more than wave my white flag. I have to extend it to him.
If not for myself, for the baby.
“In a way.”
I spoon more food into my mouth and take my time chewing it before I continue. “My dad used to call it comfort food.”
He nods. “My Nonna used to make foods that made me feel that way.”
Hearing about his grandmother surprises me. Logically, I know that Damiano had grandparents, but since he has never mentioned them, I didn’t think to ask. I didn't know what type of relationship he had with them or if he had even known them at all. But the soft, reminiscent look on his face tells me that he remembers them all too well.
“What was she like?”
His eyes meet mine, but instead of the quiet withdrawal I’ve seen in them before, I see a youthful smirk on his face. He sips more of his whiskey. “She was mean.”
We both laugh. I laugh because I’m sure she was mean to him due to how rambunctious he was as a child, or that I can only imagine him as a wild child. He laughs, undoubtedly, from the memory.
“I was rebellious as a child. I was terrible, didn’t listen to anybody, and my Nonna always told me that L’uomo Nero would get me if I didn’t behave.”
“L’uomo Nero?”
I translate the words in my head, and Damiano nods.
He spoons more food into his mouth, then chews. “We also call it Babau. It’s like the boogeyman.”
He finishes what’s left on his plate. “It’s translated that way just because it’s a dark figure, surrounded by shadows. Anytime I misbehaved or talked back to my mother, she would tell me that L’uomo Nero would wait until I went to sleep and drag me to his world.”
I chuckle. “Was Nonna your mother’s mom or–”
“My maternal grandmother.”
He confirms without letting me finish.
Our eyes meet briefly, then he sighs and looks away while he downs the last of his whiskey. Nausea creeps up my throat at what he’s not saying but telling me by that simple action.
I ignore the somersaults that my stomach is doing and grab a piece of ice out of the mug next to me. Instead of water, I realized that ice chips help alleviate the nausea quicker. I’m quiet as I allow the ice to melt on my tongue before swallowing the water down. When I regain my composure and don’t feel like I have to rush to the restroom, I look up and see Damiano staring at me.
“Did she pass before your mother?”
Through his eyes, I see that he doesn’t want to talk about it. “Um,”
He looks across the room, then back to me, “after. My father wouldn’t let her see me after my mother died. My Zia would sneak me to see her as often as she could. She died right before I went to college.”
I realize that he has no other family besides his uncle and Gio. Like most people, he has acquaintances, but no blood ties remain.
“A name for a name?”
“What?”
He looks at me exasperated. “A name for a name?”
I nod calmly. “Yes.”
Damiano sighs. “Another game?”
The impatience in his tone makes me want to react, but I don’t.
“Yes,”
I hold his gaze. “Another game.”
“Don’t you think we’ve played enough games?”
He shakes his head, chuckling under his breath.
“You had no problem playing the last one.”
I quip gently in response.
His eyelids seem to lower, and his eyes darken as he stares at me. I can see that he remembers everything after our hide-and-seek game in Italy. He abandoned any control he had and relinquished that need for things to happen at his pace. How he had fucked me wildly in the pond behind his house, then in the grass after.
How he’d forgotten and lost himself by being with me.
It also reminds me how easily he returned to his authentic self when we got home.
Quickly, I push the intrusive feelings away. “Yes, another game. We choose a name– Someone that we know. We have to tell three things about that person we know, then the other person gets to ask three things.”
He doesn’t seem interested, but the hint of amusement in his expression makes me think that this will either end great or horrifically.
After a moment, he waves his hand dismissively. “Fine. I’m going to need more whiskey for this.”
“Okay.”
Though my tone is even, the excitement of him doing what I want because he feels guilty makes me feel better.
Quiet, I watch Damiano push his chair back and stand. His tall frame hovers over the table, seeming to dwarf it for a brief moment as he stares down at me with an intense look of longing. It could also be irritation, but either way, it makes me want to forego this little game that I concocted.
“Do you want anything?”
He asks me.
I hold up my glass of melting ice. “More ice, please?”
Damiano tsks but takes it from me. “You need more than ice and soup, Bellissima.”
I groan, rolling my eyes away from him. “I just ate.”
Despite how he’d complained that I didn’t eat enough food, the fact that it hadn’t come up yet is a victory. If I’m going to be miserable throughout this pregnancy, then I will accept any little win.
Not throwing up is a win.
I watch Damiano pour himself more whiskey and fill up the glass I gave him. When he returns to his seat next to me, I smile after grabbing the glass of ice. A frozen piece of happiness is placed between my lips, and I quickly angle my chin towards him to get his attention.
“You go first.
Damiano clears his throat, the movements tense and arousing in a weird way. "To clarify, I pick someone you know. You tell me three things, and then I ask three things about that person.”
I nod. “Exactly.”
He groans. “This is going to be a long game.”
“Then we play for a long time.” I shrug.
“Uh,”
He looks around the room in thought. “Your father.”
I’m not surprised that he’s picked someone safe to start this conversation. “One, my father was an accountant during the day. Two, he loved comic books so much that he collected them from when he was a boy and opened a shop to sell them later in his life. Three, he had the best singing voice. He grew up in a church and was in the choir. When I was younger, he would always sing to me.”
Damiano's lips quirk up in the corner, gracing me with the slightest smile. I imagine he’s visualizing me as a little girl with my father. “So, he wasn’t a wine enthusiast like you said at the hotel bar?”
“Oh no, he was.”
I recall the night in the bar that helped offset where I am. “He loved wine. I think I had my first wine tasting at eleven. He didn’t let me drink a huge glass or anything. A client gave him a case imported from Spain as a gift. My mother was out of town, obviously.”
My father’s disappointment that day was so palpable that it still feels just as intense. “So, he opened it and let me try some.”
“How did that make you feel?”
I allow myself to laugh lightly. “Like hot shit. I texted all my friends and let them know. They were so jealous.”
Intentionally, I leave out that one of those friends at that time had been Aldo. Or that he had responded that when I was old enough, he’d buy me the best wine in the world to try.
I hate that so much of my history is entangled with his name. I can’t embrace a good memory without it being tainted by his presence.
Damiano sips from his drink. “When you got older, did you ask him why he had never tried to fix the relationship with your mother?”
My brows furrow unintentionally. Uncertain of what to say or how to answer that, I pop a piece of ice in my mouth. The freezing sensation cools me down, and my tongue swishes around it.
“No,”
I answer after a moment. My eyes meet Damiano’s, and I shrug defensively. “No, I never asked him– Never cared as I got older. I was happy in my demented bubble like my mother, and I believed that I would be whisked away from them and Gaia would come with me.”
I expect some judgment from him after I speak, some look of disdain, disbelief, or even disgust, but when I look at Damiano, I see none. I remember who I’m married to a moment later. He doesn’t give a shit about my deceased parents.
Because neither did I at that time.
Every once in a while, I’ll get depressed and filled with an unknown seething rage that consumes me until I can’t bear it anymore. For a few years, I would internalize it and give in to the rage until I couldn’t anymore, and then I would cry for days. After losing Sean, the pain would become so unbearable that I would run a razor along the already tattooed scars on my body from Luca. Reopening the wounds to revel in the pain helped to alleviate my suicidal thoughts and release the anguish.
Every time I bled, it felt as if a part of me was getting some closure until the pain would return.
“Last question.”
Damiano chuckles. “Did your father ever explain his obsession with Greek names? Echo, Gaia, Apollo?”
“He said he loved that the Greek Gods still had redeemable qualities despite their flaws.”
I smile at the words that my father said verbatim when I was six. “You can imagine how difficult it was growing up with the name Echo as a child in my old neighborhood– Black or not.”
For the first time, I’m given a half apologetic smirk from Damiano in understanding. His dark brown eyes meet mine, and I devour the expression of earnest emotion he’s showing me. “Echo is a good name- Strong.”
When I stare at him skeptically, he chuckles. “Nobody has ever encountered an echo they didn’t remember.”
I place another piece of ice on my tongue and toss it around, loving the feeling of it melting in my mouth. “I’ll allow it.”
“Grazie, Bellissima,”
Damiano shakes his head softly. “I’ll accept anything that you allow.”
Silence stretches between us as I stare at him, and he drinks from his glass. After a moment, his eyes met mine in question. I laugh. “I’m not sure if that was sarcasm or humor.”
I find myself licking my top lip without thought. “I like it,” I add.
“My turn.”
My husband ignores my blatant attempts to flirt with him. Typically, he would have looked down at his phone, but I know he purposely left it in the kitchen.
If he gets a call, I’m sure the volume is on the highest setting.
“Your father.”
His eyes roll for a brief moment. “Maximo, my father, was the second son of Don Vittorio Bianchi. He was second- Capo. He married my mother and had me out of obligation. There’s nothing more.”
My eyes beg me to allow them to roll from his lack of emotion at his delivery, but I know that his relationship with his father wasn’t a good one. Instead, I dive into my questions. “Did your father hit you and your mother?”
Damiano guffaws at my question, clearly not expecting it. “Gesù Cristo,”
he mutters under his breath. “My father had a temper. When he didn’t get what he wanted, it was worse.”
“That’s not answering the question, Damiano.”
My response and use of his name seem to get his attention.
With a sigh and his lips pursed together, he shakes his head. “Yes, the worst beatings I got in life were from my father. Once, I intervened when he was teaching my mother to stay in her place. I watched him throw her down the stairs by her hair, and her cries- “ He’s silent for a moment. “I can still hear them.”
I watch him absentmindedly run his thumb over his top lip until he snaps back to reality from the memory he was in. “So, I ran up to him with my bat and hit him in the back.”
We’re both silent for a moment until I cave. “And?”
Damiano smirks. “Is that your second question, Bellissima?”
Fucker.
I scoff. “Sure.”
“A man like my father, a second son, is born out of necessity, not love. There’s no such thing as love. If anything happened to my uncle, he would step in and take control, but since that didn’t happen, he was shaped into someone ready to do anything necessary. He was a monster.”
Despite the evident hate in his tone, I see a glimmer of respect for his father beneath the surface, but don’t mention it. “I guess, good thing you had your uncle to show you the difference.”
Next to me, he gives a half bob of his head. “My father took the bat from me and beat me with it. I didn’t count how many times he hit me, but I remember him saying over and over in Italian that I should never yell when attacking someone. That it made me weak and stupid. When he was done, he dropped the bat next to me and said the next time I hit him, I better kill him.”
Only the soft humming of appliances emanates throughout the condo. I pluck another piece of ice and put it in my mouth. I want to feel horrified, to reach out, and to react in an endearing way towards Damiano, but I don’t.
It’s not that I know he doesn’t want it, but I know I wouldn’t. “Did you?”
After a second, Damiano looks at me, the reality of where he is setting in again. He sits back. “Did I what?”
I slurp unbearably loud on the melting ice in my mouth. Mimicking his stance, I sit back in my seat and place my hands on my still flat stomach. “Did you kill him? Your father?”
The sexiest of chuckles turns into a heartwarming smile meant to distract me. Damiano inches forward from his chair and places his hand on my stomach just below my hand. “The baby doesn’t need nightmares.”
“Do babies dream?”
His eyes that are trained intently on my stomach don’t falter. A ghost of a smile is on his face, but it doesn’t break through like the last one. “It’s the only time that they are allowed to.”
I shake my head. “How bleak.”
Finally, dark brown eyes meet mine, and in the few seconds that stretch like an eternity, we manage to have an unspoken conversation. One that states no matter what, we’ll do our best to allow our child the opportunities to dream as long as they can.
Even in our fucked up realities.
Damiano is the first to break the stare. He pulls his hand away and sits back. “Tell me about Sean.”
“Sean?” I ask.
I had expected him to ask about Blaine before Sean, but this is new. Now, when I think of Sean, nothing comes to mind except regret. I regret pulling him into my life, regret enveloping him into my dreams of a normal life when I knew it would always be much worse.
“Sean was the man of my hopes.”
I offer when Damiano says nothing. “He wasn’t perfect by far but sweet and gentle. He held me when I woke up crying from my nightmares. He would wait patiently, wipe my tears, and then make me get up and run.”
Damiano scoffs. “He claimed that running would help clear my thoughts and exhaust me so I could sleep. He was tall. Maybe six foot five, but he hated basketball and football. His father was a coach, and tried to sway him to play either of those sports, but Sean loved track– Thus the running.”
I chuckle softly at the memory of Sean forcing me to run with him even when I didn’t want to. When I look up at Damiano, I realize that I was looking down at my glass of ice that’s starting to melt, the condensation causing water droplets to zigzag down and hit the table.
The heavy look of jealousy in his eyes amuses me. If he’s jealous just hearing about Sean, he would flip shit about Blaine and the things we did when we were together. Then again, Blaine is still a thorn in our side.
I should have killed him.
“Were you in love with him?”
Love?
I scoff. “No, I was in comfort with Sean.”
I shrug because the more I think about it, the more I’m sure I would have grown to resent him for being so emotionally available and accepting. “I was happy to live the life I wanted at that time. I was convinced I could have happiness. I’m sure in the end he regretted knowing me.”
Damiano’s gaze doesn’t avert from mine. “He didn’t know the real you. Didn’t even know your real name. There’s no way that he could have loved you fully.”
He’s right, but it bothers me. No matter how I felt for Sean, he deserved a better life – A better death. “Doesn’t change anything.”
“What was his favorite thing about you?”
Confused, I frown. “What was Sean’s favorite thing about me?”
Damiano nods. “He said that he loved my ability to adapt. If you mean features, he loved my ass.”
“My ass.”
My eyebrows quirk up at Damiano’s blunt correction. I bite back the laugh by capturing my bottom lip between my teeth. “You have one more question.”
“How many children did he want?”
“Why?”
I respond instead of answering right away.
Damiano remains silent. His expression reads calm, but the energy I’ve learned to read vibrates enough jealousy and rage to engulf this condo in flames. His jaw ticks a moment later. “How many children did he want, Bellissimma?”
His tone is even calm, but I know otherwise.
To stretch out my prolonged answer, I get a piece of ice. As usual, I take my time swirling the ice around until it’s small enough for me to crunch. “We joked about having five, but I doubt it would have happened.”
He frowns. “Why?”
I know he doesn’t have any more questions to ask, but since this one is technically about me, I give him an answer. “I doubt that my body will carry five babies after what it’s been through– Or that it would have.”
I consider the current pregnancy I’ve barely acknowledged. “I’m surprised that I got pregnant so quickly.”
“It’s because this baby is Bianchi.”
We both know that it’s just luck of the draw, or that we fucked like starved hyenas the night that I burst into his office. According to Benicio, it was either around that time or right before the wedding that I got pregnant. I just recall the incessant need that had coursed through my body the entire day and how disappointed I’d felt that he had been gone when I woke up. If he hadn’t promised me great sex that night, I would have possibly fucked him in front of Gio.
“You can’t really think that’s why.”
Damiano shrugs dismissively. “Your turn.”
A yawn creeps out of me that zaps my energy quicker than I realize. I push my chair back and stand, then pick up our plates. “Um-”
“Are you tired?”
I look up at Damiano from the sink. “I’m always tired now.”
I quickly wash the dishes in the sink, drying them and returning them to their place.
We don’t speak as he checks his phone, drinking from his glass in an unbothered fashion. I make myself take in the condo easily. I can tell by looking around that it’s very low maintenance and clean. Even though he’s been staying here the last few weeks since we’ve returned, I see that the place is cleaned regularly - Most likely by housekeeping. Everything seems too pristine and professional for it to have been done by a regular maid or a woman who performed the acts out of the kindness within her.
I can’t imagine that Damiano knows many kind women.
I also can’t imagine he would have a woman here that wouldn’t leave some clue, intentionally or not. There isn’t even the vague scent of a woman’s perfume wafting through the condo. Not that I don’t believe him when he says that he isn’t interested in anyone else…. But I was with Aldo, who also had a fiancée while he made me believe I was his sole purpose to live, and fucked me until I got pregnant.
“What are you thinking?”
I return my gaze to Damiano’s, realizing I’m leaning on the counter, my elbows braced while my hands are clasped together. “I see the gears in your brain going.
I stand to my full height. “Amelia.”
Whatever softness in his eyes dissipates instantly, and his face hardens. Though he knows precisely what I’m demanding, he asks, “What about her?”
“Tell me about her.”
His face remains the same. A stern expression of unmoving emotion makes it clear he’s unhappy about my choice. His jaw ticks again as he grinds his teeth together. “Why?”
“Because I have been nothing but honest with everything you’ve asked me.”
“Have you been, Bellissima?”
He asks me.
From where he’s standing, Damiano stares at me, and I ignore the beat of my heart that quickens.
He looks ready to attack or say something cruel to me. Eventually, I recognize his expression and what it means.
He’s debating if he can tell me anything about her.
We both know I haven’t been honest with him the entire time we’ve been together, and I’m surprised he hasn’t tried other tactics. So, it would only be natural for him not to trust me.
I barely trust myself.
“I told you something before, and you chose to mock me.”
I straighten my back that somehow already aches. “You’re not ready to accept my honest answers, Damiano. When you are, I will tell you everything.”
An annoyed expression is my response. “Pfft.”
The words are meant to bruise my feelings. “Because you are an assassin, right, Bellissima? You’ve killed men? You’ve watched the life drain from their eyes, seen that cold distance that takes over once they’re no longer fighting?”
Smoothly, he inches toward me until he’s right in front of me. His demeanor seems calm, but his energy radiates a mouthwatering intensity. It feels like he’s persuading me to forget what we’re discussing. As if he’s trying to scare me, but is turning me on instead. His palms fall flat on the counter, his arms trapping me between him and the counter behind me.
The memory of each life I’ve taken as justice has been exhilarating. Each one felt better, more orgasmic than the last one. Watching the life drain from them had been precisely what I’d needed each and every time. It made me feel invigorated and want to exact revenge for anything.
Divulging that now will only make me more of a monster in his eyes. Something I won’t become just yet. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I manage. “I get it. There will always be secrets between us, but don’t tell me what I can and can’t handle.”
A second later, he exhales deeply, and the harsh breath pushes hair strands from my face. “I won’t offer you anything about Amelia.”
When he steps back from me, I ignore the warmth that goes with him.
“What don’t you want to tell me? What are you hiding about her death?”
The questions are out before I can think about them. “What are you so ashamed of?”
In another fucked up universe, I would make him tell me. I’ve extracted less information from more men than he will ever know. It was the only way to eliminate as many Rossi men as possible.
“There’s nothing to hide. The man I was then isn’t the man that I am now. I should have handled it differently, but I didn’t.”
Every fiber in me understands how he feels, and I want to comfort him desperately. Our pasts, though ugly, have defined and led us to one another. In this moment, while he’s trying to hide from himself, I know that if I forcefully push him for a response, it will get us nowhere.
He’s Damiano Bianchi, and I’m Echo Wren Johannsen. We’re two opposite natural disasters that are orbiting in the same space.
That means that I know him just as well as I know myself.
Swallowing my pride, I release a breath, ducking my head. After I regain control, I look back up at him and gently place my hands on his chest. The silence betrays everything he’s feeling but not saying to me. Tension radiates off both of us, intensifying our emotions instead of calming whatever catastrophe lies beneath. I inhale deeply, then exhale from my mouth, encouraging him to follow suit, and he does. My hands stay planted firmly on his chest, our eyes on one another, and we continue until we’re breathing in sync.
I finally speak. “Whatever you did– Whatever happened to Amelia Rossi, I’m more than positive she brought it upon herself.”
He looks away from me, and a brief look of shame crosses his face. “Guardami.”
I take his chin between my fingers and turn him to look back at me.
He smirks at my use of Italian. “Si, Bellissima?”
My hands cup his face, and my fingers caress his beard, enjoying the smooth scruffiness. I run my nails through it and welcome the goosebumps from our contact. “No matter what you blame yourself for, the Rossis are an evil family. If you had to handle Amelia Rossi, you saved the world from one less problem.”
Seconds tick by while Damiano stares at me. I see he’s trying to figure out if I’m lying to get him to tell me something or if it’s the truth. Despite wanting to stop, I continue to massage his chin, forcing him to stay looking at me, breathing with me in unison.
He scoffs but doesn’t pull away. “Amelia Rossi was the worst of her siblings, and she knew it. Truthfully, she should have been in charge of the family instead of Tommaso. We were married for three months, and I never touched her– I couldn’t stomach the idea sober. In that time, she convinced Carmine’s son that overthrowing my uncle and me to become Don was something he could do. She was cold, calculated, and heartless. She came into this knowing exactly what she wanted. Her plan from the moment she was promised to me was to take over.”
He sighs into my touch, no longer bothered by what he’s revealing. “When she realized she couldn’t control me, she found someone she could.”
I nod. “Why Carmine’s son, though? Why not Gio? He’s closer to you and has more loyalty among your men.”
Damiano laughs. “Gio is more perceptive to male advances.”
I chuckle. I’d had the feeling but hadn’t bothered asking until now. “He’s gay?”
The correct term I should use deserts me.
“He likes who he likes, most often that is men. It does take a special kind of woman to capture Gio’s attention, and Amelia wasn’t it, which she knew.”
I nod again, releasing him, and my hands fall on his shoulders. Something dawns on me a moment later. “You said you were married to Amelia but never slept with her?”
I remember Aldo mentioning his sister being engaged, but not that she got married. I’m sure that would have been something I wouldn’t forget. He’d made it very clear all those years ago that he hated Damiano then, and I know he would have brought up a wedding in one of his rants.
But then…..
Their wedding could have happened after the incident with my family. Aldo first mentioned Damiano around the beginning of my pregnancy.
Before Damiano even says it, I figure out what happened. I’m not surprised or angry. I feel nothing, to be exact. “I compromised her virtue.”
Disgust exudes from every word he says in a calm voice, and even if I wanted to, I can’t be angry with him.
It’s something that he hasn’t forgiven himself for yet. And I haven’t been a saint since the eighth grade when I gave DeMarcus Joyner a hand-job under a coat in an auditorium packed with people watching a basketball game.
Two disasters in a fucked up world.
“Of course you did. If there was any virtue to compromise.”
I shrug, hoping to look nonchalant. “At least I can say with confidence that we’ve all fucked a Rossi.”
He frowns at my words. “What was it you were on? Or were you just drunk out of your mind because they wouldn’t let you get out of your engagement so you could be with your girlfriend?”
Damiano straightens as if I slapped him. He sighs. “I’m pretty sure that short of alcohol poisoning, I was gone three winds from the sun.”
“Quite the tantrum.”
I look up at him, studying his face. “Glad you’re not that person anymore.”
He smirks. “I used my money, power, and life as an excuse to be a leech. When I recognized the truth about myself, I changed.”
A part of me wants to know what changed him, but I don’t care either. None of that matters. We’re here because of our lives, choices, and the inevitable stalking I did. Since I accepted that he would be my token to get to the Rossis, no matter how long it takes, I’ve known he’s mine.
Admittedly, I’ve tried to play myself into thinking that I would walk away from this, could walk away from him, but that’s not an option anymore. Not that it ever really was. I would always find my way back to him.
We’re in this until death forces us to part.
Whether that means we go out together due to this civil war or live until a plague like old age takes us out, I don’t care.
I look at my husband, realizing that this chaotic love I feel for him is far worse than what I felt for Aldo and that nothing he does will push me away.
I smile. My body moves into him more, my hands that were on his shoulders smoothly slide down his arms until I clasp our hands together. Lifting his left hand, I kiss his wedding ring, our eyes still locked.
“I’m glad you killed her.”