Chapter 16 Serafina
SERAFINA
After the third ignored phone call from Alessio, I switch off my phone, preferring not to deal with him, especially at two in the morning, when I have a nine a.m. class. Nothing he’ll say will make it better, and I’m done with his ass, so answering the call will only stress me out.
Sleep’s been rough—tossing and turning, only to be interrupted by my cell phone. I nearly answered the second call only to tell him to fuck off, but it’d mean talking to him.
A few tears have been shed since going to bed, but for the most part, they’ve dried up.
At some point in the shower, I decided a man like that doesn’t deserve my tears, not when being with him caused me more stress than anything positive.
The gaslighting was exhausting, and although being abandoned in the middle of nowhere in the dark could have led to numerous bad consequences, my sadness shifted entirely into anger.
The signs were there. Why the hell didn’t I pay attention to what was obvious?
By two-thirty, I give up on sleep and slide out of bed, figuring a change of scenery is best. Get some water. Go pee. Do anything but this.
When I leave my room, there’s the familiar image of Lev with his laptop, only for once, he’s not working. Rather, his head is tipped back, eyes shut, arms loose by his side.
At least one of us is asleep.
I take a moment to study him, trying to decipher the conundrum of Lev Petrov. He conducts himself with so much ease while also somehow being rigid. He’s a mystery, an unsolvable puzzle.
On my way to the bathroom, the stupid floor creaks, and Lev lifts his head, gaze locking on me with a strange intensity, though it could also be because my exhausted brain can’t focus.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.” His words are gruff, and he rubs a hand down his face. “I wasn’t asleep.”
“Looked like you were.”
“Only resting. I don’t often sleep well.”
“Oh.” Funny, since my initial interaction with him was an entire day of sleeping. “Any reason?”
He shrugs one shoulder before shutting his laptop and resting it on the floor.
“It’s been a struggle my entire life. At home, I often pass out in the basement because the sound of my servers helps quiet my mind.
Here”—he glances toward the window overlooking the school’s grounds—“it’s too quiet.
I’ll go to bed soon and hope exhaustion takes me out, but it’ll only be for a few hours. ”
I have to call Zeno and release him. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
He’s serious? Based on his tone, I assume he is. “You’d be at home if I didn’t ask for you. You’d be able to focus on your other duties without babysitting.”
It’s a cruel twist of irony that leaving Ostia and getting away from Madre and Zeno’s watchfulness, away from the burden I am to them—the fact that neither has a complete family home because of my conception—made me someone else’s burden.
“I agreed. Let me worry about my sleep. Don’t stress.”
“For Vanessa,” I counter.
His tongue sweeps his bottom lip, making my insides warm as he readjusts to sit lower. “For you, Fina. You asked; that’s why I’m here. Vanessa took your brother’s side, certainly, but the choice was ultimately mine.”
Fina. When he first called me that, I could have sworn I misheard him—that he said my full name, and I only caught the tail end. No one ever has referred to me as Fina. It’s unique. A name associated with only Lev.
I like that.
Around the daze his nickname tossed me into again, his words register, confirming what I’ve guessed from the beginning: I’m at fault. At least, if he was here for Vanessa, it’d make me feel like I was another job. But no, he’s literally here because I asked him.
“Why are you up?” he asks, cutting through my self-deprecating thoughts.
“Can’t sleep either. My phone’s gone off three times before I finally shut it off.
” A shadow passes over his face, reminding me what this guy actually does for a living, and I add, “Also, think my brain’s going too much.
Which, I guess, makes sense, considering the night and what happened…
what could have happened if you weren’t there.
It’s irritating, because now, I’ll probably be tired for class. ”
“If he’s bothering you, block his number.”
“Maybe,” I quickly mutter before escaping to the bathroom for a few minutes. I splash cool water on my face, aware the temperature won’t help my sleep issues.
When I return, Lev is in the same place, glaring out the window. I settle on the opposite end of the couch, back against the arm, knees drawn up to my chest and head tipping to the side to rest.
We’re both silent. So silent, our neighbours’ snores come through the thin walls.
Still staring out the window, his deep voice fills the space with a different kind of warmth. “You said earlier, you’re hurt. How are you now? You didn’t clarify physically or emotionally.”
“Fine now. Earlier, both, but I don’t want to get into it.” To tell Lev, of all people, what Alessio did seems…like a step our strange non-friendship isn’t ready for. These kinds of conversations are saved for people like Amara, who I’ll message in the morning.
He doesn’t press the subject but angles himself my way, arm crooked on the back of the couch. His hand slides into his hair, propping his head up. A mixture of blond and brown feather-like wisps grip my attention.
“How’s your first week of school going?”
“Not the way I expected, but the classes are fun.”
“Fun,” he snorts. “To some, I suppose.”
I laugh, feeling good to find some amusement out of tonight. A smile after an evening of misery, tears, and cursing. “Fun isn’t what I’m here for. The degree is. Being able to do whatever I want when finished.”
“Which is still unknown.” He comments are slightly teasing, telling me he recalls our conversation the other night.
“It’s admirable, to forge your own path.
Reminds me of someone I know.” Who he’s speaking about is obvious even without naming her.
“Would you have wanted to be raised as a Mancini daughter, or are you happy with the choices made?”
No one’s ever asked so outright. Then again, no one in my past has been as direct as Lev. At first, I hesitate responding, considering I don’t know him very well, but on my next exhale, the truth starts seeping. Maybe it’s his calming demeanour, but he makes me want to discuss this.
But only with him, no one else.
“Those questions are too different to give only one answer. Happy with the choices made—no, even if I get where Zeno’s father was coming from. Who’d want to raise a bastard? Worse, the bastard of the man who kidnapped and raped your wife?”
I hadn’t meant to say it like that. This is more Madre and Zeno’s history; I’m merely the result.
Because of that, no one’s ever asked how I feel about it.
Those questions are saved for Zeno, who witnessed his family torn apart, and Madre, who lived the horrors of Ursin Volkov’s kidnapping.
Never me, who was born as a physical reminder of that, of her husband casting me aside before my birth because I wasn’t his blood.
Lev makes a noise in the back of his throat, almost like a cough. “Don’t call yourself a bastard. You’re much more than that.”
“But it’s true,” I reply on a near-whisper, emotion filling me to the brim.
Tears threaten to appear again. “It’s something I’ve known and accepted a while ago.
Sometimes, I’m happy being raised outside the Cosa Nostra, but other times, I look at my brother and imagine living in the mansion, attending mob events, having my life mapped out.
Expectations would be for me to follow what they demand.
Instead, freedom has trapped me in unknown ways.
I feel expected to do so much more, to live the fullest I can, knowing I’m the lucky one.
But sometimes, I wonder what it’d be like to have that life.
If I was a proper Cosa Nostra daughter—a princess, as you like to call me—maybe I wouldn’t be such a burden on everyone. ”
“A burden?” His tone his chilly when his head jerks up from his hand, the very hand that lowers across the back of the couch before a finger starts tapping. “Who the fuck calls you that?”
“No one.” My quick response seems to calm his flaring rage.
“It’s how I feel, though. Think about it…
if I was a Mancini woman in the traditional sense, there’d be expectations.
People couldn’t be disappointed because my role would be defined, like Zeno, Nero, even you.
You all know your place while I flounder to discover mine.
It’s one of many reasons I’m here, getting a degree, so I can find a job and make money that’s all mine and not from the organization—not that I don’t appreciate Zeno funding my life, especially now.
Still, it’ll be done on my terms. Since my birth, Madre’s been living in Ostia, away from everything she held dear, for me.
Moving away repays her; it lets her be the woman she used to be.
I’ve known for years, at the earliest chance, I wanted out.
Not to get away from her, but to stop being a burden on them. ”
Madre’s never treated me as anything less than the best person in her life, so saying this aloud, outside my own troubled thoughts, makes my stomach knot, the pressure a heavy cloud settling over me.
When dark thoughts consume, they devour.
It feels like an endless length of time passes while Lev is staring silently.
Enough that my skin prickles, and I readjust off my arm.
It’s strange to unload all that on him without any extra thought.
There’s something about him that makes him easy to talk to.
Which is funny, since he’s also very closed off.
Maybe that’s why I kept rambling—to see at what point he’d shut me up.
His tapping slows. “You’re very far from being a burden, Fina.”
“Thanks, but hard to believe the guy I basically begged to be here. Now you’re not sleeping, doing all your work on a laptop; when you could be helping your organization, you’re attending class. So yeah, I’m a burden to you as well.”
“You’re not a burden,” he repeats, eyes flashing.
“You’re doing what you believe you need to, but I guarantee, your brother never viewed you as such.
Your mother chose to live in Ostia for herself as well.
There was nothing restricting her from staying inside Rome.
As for me, I came here of my own doing. The choice Zeno’s father made…
well, fuck him if he didn’t want someone as amazing as you in his life. He missed out.”
“Bold to say when you’ve only known me a short time. A matter of days? Besides, these are all what-ifs. What if I was raised inside the Cosa Nostra?”
“You wouldn’t be you. And I, for one, happen to like who you are.”
My heart thumps a bit faster. I’d like to point out—again—that he’s known me for too short a time to claim that. “You really speak your mind, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You hold nothing back.”
“Is that a bad thing?” His brow furrows.
“It’s a thing. Most people do.”
He shrugs and readjusts his legs, stretching them out. “I’m not most people.”
That, he isn’t.
“Thanks.”
“For?”
“The talk.” I shrug, downplaying what tonight truly meant to me to not make things weird between us.
“Listening to me. You’re the only one I ever told any of that to.
I don’t even know why it came out—to you, of all people, now of all times.
Plus, for everything tonight. It could have gone worse, so in a way, you’ve saved me again. ”
His lips pull up at the corners. “Don’t thank me for saving you. Such an act doesn’t require gratitude. As for you telling me all that, I’m glad you got it out, that you’re coming to trust me.” Playfully, he makes an X over his heart. “Whatever you tell me stays between us.”
“Seriously?”
“I vow it.” Other people would say I promise, but of course, Lev isn’t like them. He’s unique and talks so strange. Abruptly, he reaches for the TV remote, bringing it between us. “Maybe a show will help wind us both down, something to distract you from tonight.”
“Good idea.” Still thrown by the suddenness with which he moved on from the previous topic, I let him switch the TV and flip through the channels until landing on some rerun of an old Italian show Madre used to watch.
My mother tongue fills the room, yet Lev never turns on the subtitles. He stares at the screen with a strange intensity, like he’s not really seeing.
After a few seconds of watching him, my head rests on my crooked elbow on the back of the couch.
And after a few minutes, I fall asleep.