Chapter 30
THIRTY
IGOR
PRESENT DAY
“Hey babe,” Giulia rasps as I enter her hospital room almost three weeks after we got back from Moscow.
She got out of her coma four days ago but the doctors refuse to discharge her yet, which has everyone in the family on edge.
She presses on her arms with a wince to sit up straighter. I avert my gaze.
It’s my fault she’s rotting here in a room that’s too bright, dressed in a hospital-issued medical gown that must scratch her skin, and unable to do anything by herself. For someone as independent and opinionated as Giulia Capaldi, this is her version of Hell.
“Easy there,” Andrea tells her, fluffing her pillow. “I’ll be down at the café. Call me if you need me.”
He kisses her temple and she leans into her husband’s lips.
Before he leaves the room, he stops in front of me, shifting from one foot to the next.
I don’t know him well, but I don’t peg him for anything but a confident man.
His nervous energy washes over me. I swallow, unsure what to say.
‘Sorry’ is too little. I force myself to notice how tired he looks, the bags under his eyes deep and purple, his cheeks emaciated with the lack of sleep.
“I’m glad you’re here. She’s been asking for you.”
We nod at each other awkwardly.
“Hey Giulia.”
“None of that. Come here.”
I approach on unsteady feet. The constant swooshing sound in the room and buzzing of whatever machine she is hooked up on has ants crawling up my entire body.
It’s my fault.
When I reach the side of her bed, Giulia opens her arms, inviting me to take the comfort she offers.
I refused her back in Moscow. I didn’t know if I could take touching someone I love, knowing even being close to me was tainting their souls.
I didn’t think I was worthy of it, back then.
I still don’t most days, but it has become a little easier.
Lana and Julian give me no choice, though Julian has stopped trying to touch me at every turn, letting me come to him instead.
Not that I do. Out of all of my family members, he’s the one I can’t allow myself to sully.
Giulia keeps offering that choice. Letting me decide if I’m strong enough to accept love.
I don’t deserve it but I want it all the same.
My eyes tingle and I clamp my lips shut as I lean down and take that comfort.
Her arms, thinner after weeks hooked on fluids, wrap around me in that tight embrace of hers.
She has a way of giving the best hugs. Giulia doesn’t simply hug; she holds me to her, squeezing my body tight.
A choked sob makes its way past my lips.
“It’s okay,” she soothes. “I got you. We got you.”
Another pained cry escapes my throat and before I can control myself, my shoulders shake with how much I cry in the arms of my friend. My face is pressed onto the pillow next to her head, the thick, scratchy cotton absorbing the salt.
Giulia rubs my back and holds the back of my head, not allowing me to step away when I try to pull back while still racked with uncontrollable sobs.
I feel like an absolute mess. My rational brain knows this is three years of pain all escaping the confines of my mind and that it’s a much needed release.
But the voices of my father and brother echo inside it, reminding me how weak and wretched I am.
My friend’s arms refuse to let me go so I tell myself she holds me captive and let it all fall apart.
When I breathe a little easier again, I step back. Giulia lets me go this time. I slump on the chair by the bed and wipe my cheeks and eyes with the back of my hands.
“Wow, you’re even more of an ugly crier than I am,” Giulia says and I lift my eyes to meet her green ones. Her face is red and blotchy, and she has to blow her nose loudly.
I chuckle.
My mind wants to scream that we almost lost her, but I refuse to go there, focusing on how alive she looks despite how thin she appears, ignoring the room around us.
Giulia has a way of dispelling heaviness Lana and Julian aren’t capable of.
Maybe that’s why I let myself go in her arms and not my best friend or my…
. I don’t want to use the word ‘husband’, even in the secrecy of my mind.
What Julian and I are is complicated. I glance down at my naked ring finger.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur.
“Don’t—”
“No, please, Giulia. Let me. I’m so sorry you got hurt because of me. I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you and the future pain I’m sure I will cause in the future. I never wanted this to happen. That’s why I told Julian to let me go all those years ago.”
“In Amsterdam?”
I nod. I never want to step foot in that blasted city ever again. Too many bad memories.
“I… If you had died, Giulia—”
“I didn’t,” she declares, all that fierceness back in full force in her vibrant green eyes. She straightens even more despite the clear discomfort on her face and body. “I didn’t die. Listen to me, Igor.”
My eyes are still riveted to the top of my shoes until she snaps. “Look at me.”
I obey, eyes widening at her vehemence.
“We love you. You’re a part of this family, Igor Bartoli.
Yeah, I know all about your secret marriage to Julian.
He told me everything one drunken night when you were just taken.
You are loved. By him, by me, by Lana. Fuck, by everyone in the family.
The only reason Andrea might be reticent is because he doesn’t know you yet, but my point is you’re family.
We would all die for family, do you understand. ”
“Yes, but—”
“No ‘but’. We went to Hell and back to get you. Don’t you fucking dare say sorry.
You would have done the same for me. For anyone.
Now if you do want to make amends, though…
” I look up at her with the hope of a kid being told Christmas came early.
“Go get me a stiff drink. I don’t care if it’s wine or gin or Mammona’s limoncello.
Actually, that’s what I want. Andrea refuses to give me alcohol on the silly notion that it won’t help my recovery. ”
“Mammona’s limoncello could save the world,” I say tentatively.
“You get it.”
“Iswear, if the musicians ask me one more time what amplifier we got, I’m not going to be held responsible for throwing their dead bodies off the cliff,” Giulia complains a week later when the hustle and bustle of Mammona’s birthday party organisation is in full swing.
For someone who was half dead a week ago and really really close to the grave two weeks before that, she’s surprisingly efficient and dynamic as she orchestrates the whole event with Colomba and Bea.
All three women bicker, amongst themselves and with the catering company, and I wonder how I got roped into this.
Julian, of course, thought it was a great idea for me to take over the security team for the event.
And I’ll admit it, though reluctantly, it felt good to have something to do other than ruminate or train until my body collapsed of exhaustion.
I feel almost normal as I give orders to the men Pietro hired from his team for this high-profile event.
He handpicked only the best, men I’ve known for years. Before.
I take an invigorating inhale and though it doesn’t dispel the memories fully, if I keep my eyes open and on the task in front of me, I can almost believe the past will remain in the past.
In front of me, the men and women are all dressed in custom-made black suits, sans tie, and armed to the teeth, ready to scan their surroundings with hawk eyes for any threats.
They’ll be patrolling the grounds, controlling all exits and weak points of the Moretti Gardens, and check each guest upon entry.
The list is small but Pietro insisted since the entire family is gathering. And I agree with him.
Protecting the Moretti matriarch, and all the members of the Moretti and Bartoli families and their guests gives me purpose. It’s something I’m proud to do, a feeling so foreign I thought I could never experience anything like it ever again.
We round up the briefing with the security team when Lana arrives, a couple with a little girl trailing behind her and Lisandru.
“Hey, Igor.” She kisses my cheeks in greetings. “How’s everything with the staff?”
“Everyone knows their role and will be ready for tonight.”
“I have no doubt of that.” Lower, so only I can hear, she asks, “Did you contact Dr Sharifa Chatti?”
I swallow at the mention of Lana’s therapist. As much as I adore my friend for wanting to get me help, I’m not ready.
And certainly not to talk to the same person she does.
I have enough of a hard time looking at her, at Julian, and feeling undeserving of their attention to also talk to someone who knows them.
I smile tersely, and before I can tell her that I’d rather find someone else, the little girl peeks from behind her mother’s leg.
Her eyes are as green as the deepest part of the forest on the hills of Sant Armellu in spring and her straight raven-black hair covers her chubby face. I look up to finally notice who was behind Lana all along.
Her sister Marie smiles at her daughter kindly, before meeting my gaze. The melancholy written in the Moretti green hits me square in the jaw. The bright yellow wrap dress she wears doesn’t hide how grief seems written on her skin like a tattoo.
She lost her twin. And I wasn’t there. I grew up with Lisa and Marie. They were so young, but they still were like little sisters to me. And I never got to say goodbye to Lisa. I didn’t even know Marie had a daughter. She looks so much like her mother it’s uncanny.
“I’ll let you get acquainted,” Lana says before stepping towards her mother.
“Hi,” I say, throat raw with grief.
“Hey Igor.”
“Mummy, who’s this?”
“That’s your uncle Igor, peanut.”
“He’s so big.”
Everyone chuckles at that and the heaviness in the air dissipates.
I crouch down to the little girl’s level.
The only children I have been around recently were on Misha’s compound, and definitely didn’t look as healthy or cared for as this charming child.
A vision of another child, that little boy I couldn’t save, assaults me but I almost cry right there in front of the girl.
“I’m Ember,” she says with a little wave, drawing a smile from me.
My cheeks hurt as though they’ve been glued like this by a surgeon.
When I find myself smiling these days, I can barely believe my body’s reaction.
The contrast between the fleeting moments of pure joy and the days I want nothing but to die shakes me to my core.
I’m not sure which side of myself to believe anymore.
But the joy, it spreads warmth into my ribcage and after so many years in the cold and despair, I hold onto it with both hands.
Still behind her mother’s legs, Ember frowns and looks up when I don’t answer. Marie clears her throat.
“Hi Ember,” I say. “I’m Igor. And I’m really big because of Mammona’s cooking.” I wink, another foreign facial expression. Ember giggles and I know I did something right.
I straighten up, kissing Marie’s cheeks and whispering in her ear. “She looks so much like you.”
“Daddy!”
Ember runs away from her mother’s legs and towards the entrance of the mansion, straight into the arms of a brown-haired man with tattoos entering alongside Andrea.
“Who’s that?” I ask Marie.
“That’s Nico, Andrea’s brother.”
“And he’s Ember’s dad?”
“In a way,” Marie answers and a darker shadow crosses over her expression. “Ember is Lisa’s daughter. I adopted her when Lisa died. Then I met Nico. She’s everything to him.”
“I’m so sorry, Marie. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry about your brother.”
She’s the first one to say the words and they hit me hard.
Julian said he was sorry everything came down the way it did, but no one voiced words of sorrow and grief for my loss.
I lost my brother long before he died, and I know, in their own way, all the Morettis hurt for me, but Marie says it like she knows what I feel.
Lana may have lost Lisa as well, but Marie lost her twin, the woman who was her other half.
I’m not sure I considered Misha like that.
We weren’t ones for feelings with the way we were brought up, but the pain is there nonetheless.
“Thank you,” I breathe and glance back at Ember with her adoptive dad. She pulls him by the hand, probably convincing him to follow a little shenanigans only a child could come up with. He follows willingly, fondness written all over his severe face.
“Lisa and I, we had a saying. ‘Arcu di sera, bellu tempu di spera’. After the rain, the rainbow.”
“Did it help? When you lost her?”
“It took me a long time, but Ember and Nico, they’re my rainbow. I’ll stand in the rain for a glimpse of their happiness.”
I sigh. “You Morettis need to stop hitting me with all that profound shit. I can’t stop crying and it’s not very serious in front of the men.”
My attempt at a self-deprecating joke works the way I intended. Marie smirks “We do tend to favour melodramatic statements, don’t we? Come on, love, Mammona will be here soon and we don’t want to miss her fake surprise.”
Two hours later, when the woman of the hour arrives, her face contorts with exaggerated surprise and exclamations of how we shouldn’t have done anything. Marie elbows me. Giulia snickers.
Our Mammona could have never been an actress. Or maybe she’s the best, giving us all exactly what we expected.