Chapter 64
CARMELA
L ater that day, Christian is discharged from the hospital. I feel he needs to stay longer. He doesn’t want to, and I can tell from Dante’s tight expression that he doesn’t want him there, either.
I’ve started a war. The Russians have taken Ettore. Amid this backdrop of danger and uncertainty, even a private hospital like this one is a vulnerable location.
I expect them to take us back to Dante’s apartment. So I’m surprised when instead we pull into the grounds of a sprawling Georgian home hidden behind high walls.
“It was my parents’ home,” Dante tells me. “Now it’s mine.”
Soldiers patrol the grounds. The sight of them is familiar, even if the setting is different, and these soldiers belong to Dante and Leon… I’ve not seen Leon since we left the warehouse. I can only presume he’s busy dealing with the consequences of my actions.
The guilt is stifling.
Our car pulling up to a stop offers a source of distraction. Dante helps Christian out of the vehicle. A housekeeper greets us at the door. Moments later another arrives, greeting Christian and Dante like long-lost sons.
Dante speaks quietly with them before he instructs Christian in the way only an older brother can, to get his ass upstairs before he collapses.
The conversation feels normal, natural, and after the last twenty-four hours, I definitely need some of that.
He hands me the plastic zip-lock bag containing Christian’s prescription medication. I take it.
Christian is surly and curses all the way up the stairs.
“Fuck. I can’t believe I’m back in my old room,” he mutters as I follow him in. He goes to the nightstand, empties his pockets, and drops his cell phone on the huge California king bed.
The room is spacious and modern, and he has his own adjoining bathroom. A flat-screen TV is positioned on one wall, where it can be viewed from the bed or the low couch facing a console with a PlayStation.
I can’t imagine a younger version of Christian growing up here—I can’t imagine any version of him playing games like a regular teenager might. He only moved out after his father passed away and has been living in Dante’s city apartment ever since.
It strikes me as strange how much I know him, but also how I don’t.
His cursing draws my attention from my perusal of his room.
“Fuck, I need a pain pill.” His T-shirt lies discarded on the floor, and he is kicking off his shoes.
I should be helping him, not gawking at his room. “I’ll get you some water.”
“There should be a glass in the bathroom.”
When I return, he’s stripped down to his boxer briefs and is getting into bed. I pop out two of the pain pills and pass them to him with the water.
He takes them without a word and settles back with a grimace.
“Just going to rest my eyes for a bit.”
I want to laugh.
I want to cry.
This meek version of Christian won’t last for long, but he’s adorable.
And doesn’t that make me a bitch thinking him cute when he’s in terrible pain, and it’s all my fault.
He falls asleep almost instantly.
“I need to leave,” Dante says, appearing in the doorway. “Are you good to stay with him?”
“Of course,” I say. Where else would I go? He told me bluntly only yesterday that if I ever left him, he would hunt me down.
“The doctor will come by and see him later this evening. I’ll be back before then… hopefully.”
His phone rings in his pocket. He takes it out and lifts it to his ear. “I’ll come down now.” He slips it back into his pocket. “Your father and sister are here.”
“Here? Now?”
“Yes. They’ll be staying for a while. Just until things settle down.”
Until it’s safe, he means.
My eyes go to Christian. He hasn’t even stirred during our conversation.
“He’ll be fine. The pain medication is pretty strong. He’s better off sleeping if he can. Go on ahead. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
A shot of nerves and yet more guilt assail me as I head downstairs. I hear their voices before I reach the bottom and turn, following the sounds into an informal lounge area. My father’s wheelchair is between an overstuffed armchair and a couch where my sister is sitting.
I rush over to them. My sister meets me halfway, flinging her arms around me. “God, we’ve been so worried.”
I’m shaking; she’s shaking. Just holding her feels impossibly good.
I hear the creak as my father wheels his chair over, and I break away to take his hand.
“Mela, my baby. I have made such a terrible hash of things.”
“Not now, Papa,” I whisper. “Not now.”
“Did Eileen show you where you’ll be staying?” Dante says, interrupting a moment.
“Yes,” Cedro says. “You are leaving?”
“I am. Leon needs me, but I’ll return later tonight if I can.”
“Please keep me informed, Dante,” my father says.
With those words, I’m acutely aware of the changed dynamics. There was a time when my father would have demanded an update with a polite air of entitlement rather than polite entreaty.
I squeeze my father’s hand and then turn and go to Dante.
“Of course,” Dante says, only he’s looking at me approaching, not my father.
He barely spoke to me at the hospital. Why does he suddenly feel like a stranger?
Is it him or me?
He’s tired. I’ve broken things between us with my lack of trust. His expression is so guarded that it makes me want to cry.
He lifts his hand and traces his fingertips down my cheek before capturing my chin. Then he leans down and plants his lips over mine.
My eyes feel unnaturally wide at his public display of affection.
“I’ll see you later, Carmela.” His words, for my ears only, wrap a sense of intimacy around us. He reaches into his jacket pocket and takes something out that I can’t yet see, clutched within his fist. “You left something behind. Something you promised never to take off.”
My breath catches as he turns my hand over and drops a familiar heart-shaped pendant into my palm.
“I expect to see it where it belongs when I get back.” His voice drops to a whisper. “Or there will be hell to pay.”
He winks and then turns and strides away.
The necklace feels like it singes my palm. I shove it deep into my pocket. When I turn back, I find my father and sister poorly disguising their interest.
“It was always Dante,” I say, my empty hand instinctively reaching for my throat, and the place where a necklace should be.
We sit down and we talk. My sister sits beside me, her hand in mine, and my father opposite.
“I failed you, Carmela,” my father says. “And now I have to live with that.”
“I forgive you,” I say.
“I don’t deserve it. My mistakes cost you both your mother, and me my wife. Then I let you marry him. Worse, I was the one who told you to.”
I swipe the fresh tears that spill down my cheeks. “What is done is done. I can’t go back and fix it. I’ve enough guilt from my own mistakes.”
“Your mistakes are nothing,” he says bitterly.
“They nearly cost me Christian,” I say softly, then look away, realizing that I’ve said too much.
“You care about him,” my father says.
I nod. He can’t possibly realize to what extent. “He looked after me.”
“I suspected as much,” he says.
My sister is quiet. Her hand still clutches mine.
It dawns upon me then, as I sit with my father and sister, as we’re reunited in this tentative peace, and amid a backdrop of heightened danger, that my dreams of two lovers don’t fit into this world.
Nobody would approve.
I love them both. I have loved them both for some time. They are wildly different, yet they are both imperfectly, perfect to me.
“We have all made mistakes,” I say.
“Hey, I don’t remember making any,” Jessica says dryly.
I smile. “No? Give yourself some time.”
“Perhaps the world has turned a full circle,” my father says. “Perhaps the future you should have had will be yours again… He still has feelings for you. He told me they never went away. The way he was with you just now, and all he has done, gives me hope.”
His words taunt me with what I once wanted, what I prayed for, but now recognize is nowhere near enough. I’m greedy. And now I must live half a life that has nothing to do with the terrible experiences in my past, beyond that they changed me.
I want something impossible.
I want it so much it hurts.
Things have come to pass that I shall never forget.
But I don’t want to linger on the bad things.
I can’t. I’ll lose my mind if I do. “There have been times when I’ve hated you, Papa.
Hated you and loved you still. I will never stop loving you.
As for my future, I need to take it one day at a time.
Please. No pressure. And don’t talk to Dante about me, or us. ”
“Of course,” my father says.
“I’m going to spend some time with Christian,” I say. “He's probably asleep. But I’d like to sit with him.”
“Take whatever time you need. Take care of him.” Jessica’s smile is a little wobbly. But she winks at me and leans in to hug me. “I always liked Christian best,” she whispers. “Don’t tell Dante that. And don’t tell Christian, either. I don’t want it to go to his head.”
I leave them.
Christian is fast asleep when I return to his room. I take a seat that gives me a view of the bed, and out of the window where I can see manicured lawns.
Their family home is lovely.
I sit in quiet contemplation.
I breathe.
Ettore is gone. I’m free. Only, now, a different prison awaits me. One that exists inside my mind.
A prison full of hopes and dreams for a future that can never be mine.