Chapter 17 – Sara
Isipped the ginger tea and slowed the car as the turnoff approached.
The queasy feeling didn’t go away, but I hadn’t let it interfere with my writing, and I certainly wasn’t going to let a little thing like a stomach bug stop me from making a trip to Don Ravello’s house.
Halloween was next weekend, and I was behind on my word count goal.
I needed to see him.
Work kept Cam away. Which was good! Earlier in the week, I hadn’t wanted the enforcer to catch the bug I had.
Turned out, he couldn’t.
Now, I really needed to talk to him, and there was no telling when he would sneak back to the lake house.
My stomach flipped as the trees crooked their skeletal branches in greeting.
Raven Manor loomed before me as the car slowed to park.
The doctor’s words from this morning rang in my head.
It wasn’t the flu, and my cancer wasn’t back.
I should have felt relief. But for once, my inner squirrel was quiet as the diagnosis pulsed through my mind.
Thick grey clouds blanketed the sky.
Cam hadn’t been at his house. And I didn’t have the patience to wait in his driveway for him to appear. So, I’d hunted him down.
I cracked the door and stepped out. A gust of wind sent a shiver of foreboding through my body. The urge to puke spiked, and I bent over the door, breathing carefully through my nose.
I will not be sick!
Not here. Not in front of the don.
When I managed to make it to the front door, my chapped lips were bleeding from picking the skin. This was not how I imagined unmasking the monster who’d been my constant companion these last seven weeks.
In the distance, I swore Fate cackled at me. Here I thought I was the writer of my destiny, when in reality I was just a character.
I shook myself, lifted my fist, and knocked. Silence echoed the broken clatter. Chewing on my tender lip, I pressed the doorbell.
“I was coming—” the don barked as he threw open the door.
The king of the killers opening his own front door was almost comical. Didn’t he have servants? I smiled, almost relieved by my squirrel brain. There had been too much on my mind, and I was glad that quirk wasn’t broken.
“Sara.” Don Ravello looked me up and down. “What can I do for you?”
I squared my shoulders. “Where’s Cam?”
The don’s jaw ticked. “Upstairs.”
Oh, good! He was here.
“Can I see him? It’s important.” Something eerie pulsed in the hall beyond. I told myself it was just my imagination and the gothic mansion.
“It’s not a good time.”
The don tried to shut the door. I launched forward, leaning against the thick wood slab.
“Look, I know you don’t approve of Cam and me,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “But I have to see him.”
Lucian let out a tight sigh. “He won’t want you to see him. Not like this.”
A shudder rolled down my spine. “What do you mean?”
“He’s hurt,” Lucian sighed.
My heart shot to my throat. A muted roar filled my ears. I was blind. The stairs loomed before me, and somehow, without realizing it, I was climbing.
“First door on the left,” Lucian called out, but his voice was underwater.
I stumbled. The step bit into my shin, and I crashed on the first landing. The flash of pain was a welcome distraction before I began tearing up the rest of the steps.
At the partially open door, I took a ragged breath. Something had happened! It could be anything. The criminal underworld had a currency of guns and knives.
And from the looks of the man hooked to an IV, wrapped in bandages, and completely unconscious, Cam had paid.
“It was a hit and run,” Lucian said quietly behind me.
I gripped the slim post of the old-fashioned bedframe. “Why didn’t you call?”
The don reared back at the venom in my voice, and I would have smiled. If it wasn’t for the bruised and battered prince of darkness lying in the middle of the four-poster bed.
“My apologies,” he bit out. “I was preoccupied with my friend in the hospital.”
“You don’t have to sound so bloody condescending,” I snapped.
Lucian rolled his eyes. “Camillo means the world to me.”
“Oh, does he?” I scoffed, choosing anger over tears.
This asshat crime king had done nothing but meddle. It should have been nice to see him filled with remorse—if it wasn’t Cam who’d paid the price.
“Yes!” Lucian hissed. “He deserves to be happy.”
He is….
“I even tried to set him up with a wife this summer. Maria is the prettiest girl in town, and she’s very connected to the family.
She’s the picture of health and vitality, and I thought they would be happy.
So yes, I do care about him. I just want him happy.
” Lucian stopped talking and pursed his lips.
A happy, pretty mafia princess.
A healthy one.
Since the moment the don opened the door, the nausea had settled. It came roaring back with spite.
O, dio! I was going to be sick.
“Is he…is he going to live?” I croaked, pressing my fingers to my mouth.
Lucian snapped his black gaze to me. “Well, of course he’s going to live. They only sedated him because he wouldn’t stay in bed. He needs to rest.”
“Good.” I wheezed. “That’s…good.”
“They wouldn’t have released him from Our Lady of Mercy if he wasn’t stable,” Lucian mocked. “He didn’t even spend the night in the hospital.”
Fuck off…. “Okay, well, thanks for letting me see him.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” the don muttered.
I should have felt triumphant at that. I was too busy trying to breathe past the urge to puke tea over the plush rug that probably cost more than an economy car.
“Don’t tell him I was here.” I took one last look at the slumbering beast, turned, and began to trot back downstairs.
I couldn’t see reason. I didn’t have logic.
The don had tried to arrange a marriage between his right hand and the most eligible mafia princess in town.
Cam never said anything, which left me feeling hollow.
Broken. And oh, so confused. I knew what we had was real enough, but the pieces didn’t fit the puzzle in my head.
I rushed to my car, dropped beside the driver’s door, and, with the vehicle sheltering me from the house, spilled my guts in the gravel.
This had to be why Cam refused to unmask in front of me.
It was all just a fun couple of filler chapters in his life.
“No….” I croaked. “Don’t make assumptions until he can explain himself.”
I hated miscommunication with a passion. The don said it happened over the summer, and Maria showed no interest at any autumn social events. It was just Lucian running his mouth. Since he couldn’t interfere with my relationship, he chose to hurt me.
But, cavolo, it freaking stung.
***
The next few days were pure hell. Even the chemo hadn’t made me this sick.
I camped in the bathroom, crying when I wasn’t throwing up.
I knew I was being ridiculous. Cam wouldn’t string me along if he was in an active marriage negotiation with another family.
But my hormones refused to be swayed by logical arguments.
I wanted my monster.
But the masked devil was too injured to come and take care of me.
By Friday night, I broke down and called my mother. She was there with a care package an hour later.
“You have to tell him, cara mia,” she said, smoothly my hair back.
I sipped the electrolyte drink. “I know.”
“We’re here for you, whatever you need!” Mamma leaned into the mirror, lifting her cheeks to pull the wrinkles taut. “I don’t look that old.”
I rolled my eyes. “I think I’m going to spend the winter out here. Stay at the lake and keep writing.”
My mother spun round in horror. “You’ll freeze!”
“The cabin is insulated,” I drawled. “Without Wi-Fi to distract me, I’m able to get words on the page. I want to get these books ready to publish before the summer solstice changes…everything.”
Mamma looked at me as though I’d grown a second head. “But who’s going to look after you?”
“Not that this is a good representation, but I’m fine.” I gestured to myself. “I just needed a bit of help getting through a rough patch.”
Looking out the small window to the lake beyond, Mamma pulled a face. “I can stay here. Maybe I’ll draw something melancholy. In charcoal. The winter goddess ascending from the lake—yes! Just like Botticelli’s Venus!”
“You don’t use charcoal,” I muttered. “It’s too bland.”
“I can adapt,” she countered.
The thought of having my mother here was scarier than the uncertainty of the future. Her energy was vivacious. Even if she was holed up in another room, I would feel her. No…for this plan to work, I needed absolute quiet.
“I’ll be fine. But you can come check on me whenever you want,” I promised and squeezed her hand.
Mamma sat on the edge of the tub, kissed my knuckles, and smiled. “So! The writer comes to town. Falls for the boy next door. But after a few plot twists, she has to decide how their story will end.”
That was up to forces beyond my ken.
I knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want to write him out of the story.
Not now that the romantic subplot had thickened.
But there was still the business of him hiding behind masks and shadows, and the teeny, tiny bomb the don dropped.
Those might take a bit of groveling. Of course, I was one to talk.
I had a life-changing secret growing inside me.