Chapter 40
Mikhail
“Cecilia, sweetheart…” I say calmly, but my fucking voice breaks. “Hold on tight to that wall for me, okay?”
Her beautiful face turns to me, her eyes bloodshot. My entire body goes taut.
I’ve never seen someone in so much pain. Grown men fell to their knees and prayed for mercy while blood was coming out of their eyes, and still, the sight didn’t rattle me as much as seeing my wife try to take her own life.
I slowly reach out my hand to her, begging whoever’s watching my mindless existence to transfer her pain to me. I can carry it for her—forever, if I have to. I just need her in my arms.
Attentive to every twitch, I inch closer until her fingers tighten on the corner of the wall.
I stop.
“You came back…” she mumbles.
“I promised you I would,” I say carefully. “Will you please come down? I’m dying to hold you.”
She closes her eyes before turning her face back to the open window. “I did s-something terrible, Mikhail.” Her voice is broken, defeated, as if she spent all day screaming at herself. “If only you knew…you’d step back, and you’d let me do this.”
“Never. I can never hate you.”
“You have n-no idea…” She sniffs.
“I do. I know everything about you, Lastochka. And I’m still here.”
Her chest flutters with whispers of shock. She turns to look at me, just slightly, and I hold her gaze, needing her to know I’m not going anywhere, no matter how much she begs.
“All this time, you knew…?”
“I love you, Cecilia,” I confess, each word rolling off my tongue with a force I didn’t know I possessed.
“I knew about what happened, and I still wanted you—from the very first time I saw you on the streets of that coastal town. All my life, I’ve been alone, shackled by guilt and drowning in apathy.
I thought I was going to die that way, and God knows it’s what I deserved.
But then you came along, and you pulled me out of that place when no one else could.
I love you; I’ve always known it, but I was too much of a coward to say those words back to you.
” My jaw clenches as a tear runs down her cheek.
With trembling breath, I tell her, “I know you’re hurting, but you showed me there’s more to life than suffering, and now, I want to do the same for you.
Please…let me hold you. I’m begging you, Lastochka. ”
A sob chokes her, and my chest aches, eyes wide as I see the tremor in her limbs. If she slips from that window frame…
“It hurts… It hurts so bad.”
“Cecilia.” Again, my voice cracks despite my effort. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t.
“Whatever you think you are, you’re mine, and you are not allowed to leave this room without me.”
“I can’t stay, Mikhail. Not after that. I—”
I step closer. “You can and you will. Because if you take that step, you don’t just punish yourself. You destroy me. There’s no point without you.”
That makes her gaze slide over to me. She knows I mean it. I was prepared to die in that basement cell if her father had declined to marry her to me, and I’m prepared to die right here, tonight, if she decides her life isn’t worth living anymore. Because neither would mine.
“Just say the word,” I say, taking out my gun and pressing it against my temple with a smile. “Tell me to die, and I’ll do it.”
“Mikhail…”
“I’ll go first if you want.” I look up at her small frame up on that windowsill, on her short hair flowing in the wind, and close my eyes.
My life flashes before them. The first time she saw me in the crowd of her recital.
The first time she came to me in that basement.
The first time I touched her, kissed her, inhaled that tantalizing orange blossom scent.
I wish we had more time, but life doesn’t give a fuck about what I want—it never has, and it’s not going to start tonight.
At least I got to meet her. And what a kindness that has been to my barren heart.
“N-no,” she mumbles. “Please…please, stop!”
I touch my finger to the trigger, inhaling. I don’t care what I have to do to make her come down. Either she does it, or we both die.
“Please! Please, put it down!”
I open my eyes, and slowly, as if she’s waking from a sleepwalking episode, her free hand hesitantly stretches out to me.
I’ve never reached for anything so fast. My fingers curl around her frigid wrist, and as soon as her cold skin touches mine, I pull her into me, wrapping both arms around her.
I grip her so tight, there’s no more space between us.
As I bury my face into her hair, her perfect scent floods me, telling me she’s here, that she’s alive.
“Fuck, sweetheart. Oh my fucking God,” I mumble, my eyes burning with repressed tears I haven’t shed since I was a child. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Her delicate fingers clutch my shirt, tugging as she surrenders to me, her body wanting to collapse.
I lower us to the floor, breathing in and out like I’ve just finished running a marathon.
She’s crying uncontrollably, and I hold her with all my strength, like she could teleport back to that window frame any moment.
“I love you so fucking much,” I mumble into the top of her head. “I’ve got you now.”
A few hours later, after I’ve convinced her to take a sleeping pill, my wife is lying on my chest, breathing softly, free of her mental anguish.
Her hair is splayed out on the white bandage wrapped around my chest, soft and velvety.
I brush it with my palm, not daring to stop—nor wanting to—for fear she might wake up before she’s rested.
Beyond the closed windows, the night is quiet, the air freezing everything over. In here, the fireplace is on, bathing us both in warmth and comfort. I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying the event in my mind for the thousandth time.
I could have lost her.
If I’d been one second too late, that window frame could’ve been empty.
My hand tightens around her waist, making sure she’s still pulsing with life above me—and she is. Thank fuck, she is. In the amalgam of war, and power, and debt and rage, it’s the only thing that still matters.
How the hell am I going to make this go away for her?
Therapy, maybe. But as soon as I consider it, I immediately recoil. Antonio forced her to go for years, intruding on her most intimate thoughts by discussing them with her shrink. I’d be surprised if Cecilia trusted another again.
If it were anything else, any physical threat I could oppose, I’d fucking do it in a heartbeat, at the cost of my own life. But the one thing I’m good at isn’t going to help her right now. I can only watch her suffer and keep her from hurting herself even more.
God fucking dammit.
It’s not enough. I don’t care what I have to do to make her smile again, or how long it will take, but I’ll find out. And I’ll do it. She deserves a man who will fight for her, who she can count on. Because I may be a monster and a lowlife, but this woman…she made my hollow heart her fucking home.
She brought warmth, joy, and laughter—things I was never supposed to enjoy. Not after everything I’ve done, everything I am. But she loves me—for some reason beyond my comprehension, she fucking loves me the way I am.
She could kill her mother, her father, and her entire fucking clan for all I care—it still wouldn’t change how I feel about her. There is nothing she could do, in fact, that would make me not love this woman.
Tangling my hand in her hair, I bring my mouth to the top of her head with a groan. She stirs a little, but only to bring her hand closer to the hem of my t-shirt. It makes my fucking chest implode. It’s this simple, intimate gesture that points the fire burning inside me in a clear direction.
I need to know what the hell happened the night everything changed for her.
Was her mother abusive? Did she kill her by accident?
How the fuck does a child plunge a knife into someone’s heart?
Where would she even get one? And why hasn’t she displayed any signs of malice since? It’s been months, and she had plenty of reasons and opportunities to at least attempt something on my life. Yet, she hasn’t.
As gently as I can, I slide from under her, covering her with the sheets. Before I go, I leave the door open, instructing Svetlana to keep an eye on her until I’m back. Then, I pull out my phone and dial Antonio on the way to the office I rarely use a few doors down.
No answer.
I call again.
By the time I enter the room, I’m prepared to dial his consigliere, but the Don picks up at last.
“Pronto,” he answers, annoyance lacing his voice. “You’ve got some nerve to be calling at this hour, son.”
I check the time, and it’s barely eleven.
“My bad. I forget you’re old,” I rasp. “But this is an emergency, so you’re going to sit the fuck down and answer my questions.”
“Figlio di puttana—”
“What the fuck happened the night Cecilia killed her mother?” I drawl.
A long pause. “If you think I’m going to discuss that with you…”
“Tell me!” I shout, slapping my palm against the desk. With the other, I’m gripping my phone so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t crack. “Because my wife tried to kill herself tonight, and I need answers.”
“I take it she finally remembered... Cazzo! The shrink said this could happen. Are you sure you want to have this conversation over the phone?”
“Unless you’re able to teleport, yeah, we’re having it right fucking now. Start talking, Antonio, if you care about your daughter at all.”
“If I care?” He snorts. “You have no fucking idea how hard it was to...” A heavy sigh. “Va bene. Where do I even start?” The sound of sheets being moved around tells me he’s getting up.
I put him on speaker and look out the window into the dark, my focused expression staring back at me.
Then, he begins.
“The day Giada died, everything changed for us. My baby girl—la mia picolla—ruined me. She was going to be a star. Giada played the piano, you see, and Cecilia picked it up quickly. That terrible evening, they had a fight. My wife was busy hosting a party for the business—we had just landed a big hit against the Irish—and Cecilia had one of those tantrums because Giada didn’t have time to play with her.
The party ended, and we both put her to bed.
She seemed fine, then. Like any kid, crying one minute, then laughing the next. ”
He continues, “I had to take a phone call, and Giada fell asleep in the master bedroom. When Lucia screamed from the second floor, everyone heard her—”
My jaw clenches. “Lucia Donatello was there?”
“Yes, yes, we had just hired her a year prior to help Cecilia with her piano practice. She came to the party, then stayed for…I can’t remember the reason.” I can practically picture him waving a hand in the air.
“So she’s the one who found Cecilia over her mother’s corpse,” I confirm.
His voice turns rougher. “Si. I went upstairs, and when I entered our bedroom, Lucia was shaking in a corner, afraid of my little girl. Can you imagine? She was only six years old. There was blood everywhere, and she stood by Giada’s bed with that knife in her small hands.
She was so pale, so childish, but the mess around her made her look a thousand times older.
The only word she could say was ‘sorry’. ”
“And you believed the piano teacher over a fucking child? What if she’d staged it? In fact, it’s very fucking plausible she did.”
“You weren’t there, son. Lucia was horrified! Cecilia was calm—I’d never seen her so calm before. A child doesn’t look like that unless something’s wrong with her. Plus, Lucia had no reason to lie. She loved my wife. They were friends, met each other at the Conservatory years prior.”
Calm, he says. I’ve seen killers calm. But I’ve also seen people go numb after witnessing something traumatic.
“What did Cecilia say when you talked to her?” I demand.
“Niente. She acted like nothing happened. Kept asking for her mammina, as if she had no idea what she did the night before. When I took her to the shrink, the woman told me she had…what the fuck is the word? Dissociated. Dissociative amnesia, she called it. From then on, I tried to manage it as best I could, but I knew nothing about raising a daughter. So, I called Lucia. She agreed to come back and look after her.”
I perch my arms on the window frame, and when I realize where I am, I step back, wiping my hands and drawing the curtains.
“Has Cecilia ever attempted anything like that another time?” I ask.
“I kept a very close eye on her. Tightened her leash, so to speak. I didn’t have it in me to send her to a correctional facility, but I also knew I had to be wary around her.
Not that she could kill me…but just…I had to be careful with her.
If you hadn’t learned her secret and asked to marry her, I don’t know if I would’ve let her out of this house. Ever.”
“Then why the fuck did you try to marry her off to some Capo’s son?”
“Because you forced my fucking hand. I don’t like being strong-armed,” he drawls. “How is she now? What did she tell you?”
His words make a vein in my forehead pulse. I know exactly how he treated her—like a prisoner in her own home. Now, we have a lot of her people pleasing tendencies to undo. But I’m nothing if not patient when it comes to my wife. Anything she needs, I’ll make sure she has it.
“That’s between me and my wife,” I say. “Thank you for the bedtime story. That will be all.”
I hang up and pour myself two knuckles of whiskey, downing it in one go. I take Cecilia’s coin from my pocket, flipping it in the air then slapping my hand with it on the desk.
Something’s missing.
I can’t put my finger on what exactly, but some of the things Antonio said struck me as odd. I never knew Lucia Donatello was in the room with Cecilia, or that Cecilia and her mother had a fight that night—though I’m not sure how much it matters. Six-year-olds aren’t exactly known to be reasonable.
Both could mean something.
Or not.
All I know is I need more answers, and I’m not going to get them from Antonio.