21. Between me, my father, and God
Chapter 21
Between me, my father, and God
I t was as if I were walking in a dream.
Nothing seemed real.
The entire island seemed as if it had become a live oil painting around me.
It was as if my own amore charged death and was fighting for my soul. The colors of the world were swirling and blurry as my eyes opened and I took a new breath, but my feet were still on the other side. I was being pulled left by the grave, and she was pulling me right, back to life. However, when she pulled, it did not feel as if she were attempting to split me into two. It simply felt as if she might walk away, and I would never be whole again if I did not follow.
What is half a man worth?
Niente.
I would be better off in the grave.
However, my amore was fighting for me in the only way love could. And she did not wish to destroy me in the process, putting her own feelings above my own.
It hurt her that I had a past I could not change or forget, a wife and a life that had been as real as this one. Including my sons. Though when she looked at them, it was with curiosity, as if she wished to get to know them. I do not even remember a time when Rosaria wished to know her sons. Their existences since birth were tethered to their last name.
You are a Fausti , she had taught them since before they could even form a thought.
I was not innocent in this. I taught them the same. My sons were raised in the blood and learned to live by our laws. My sons were men. My men. Born to rule if the situation ever presented itself. However, the sins of the father shall fall upon the son.
My first-born son.
My Massimo.
He had followed in my father’s footsteps and condemned himself to a cage in honor of love. The same cage my father had been freed from—love holding the key. That key was lost to my son, as it was to me until amore had finally found me.
I considered this as I stepped out of Amora’s apartment, my destination Castello Sul Mare . My father had requested my presence.
Massimo was cut off from the outside world by choice after the news of Rosaria’s death. He had sentenced himself in the name of love, and in the name of grief. Rosaria had bled for him, was a part of him, and she had turned on him in the end. Love had been a blasphemous word to her when it came to honoring the family. And Chloe was not worth that honor in her eyes. She was not worthy of carrying the Fausti name or a child of its blood. Even when Rosaria had carried the sons of my blood, she did not want to raise them. The only reason she even looked at them was because my father had been disappointed in their care compared to the way Brando and Scarlett had decided to raise their children—giving them the choice of how active their roles would be in the Fausti famiglia .
My upbringing was similar to the way Rosaria had raised our sons. My brothers and I were there—an important part of the family, since we were Luca’s sons and Marzio’s grandsons—but we were treated as royal decrees would be, sitting in golden frames on an ancient mahogany desk, prepared at any moment to serve. Nonno had trained my brothers and I to ride horses and sword fight, as he did all his sons and grandsons, but one of us would rule someday as he had, as our father had been expected to, and we were treated accordingly.
I had always served accordingly, but for the first time in my life, lines were blurring.
My feet stopped right outside of her building, refusing to go any further. Laughter echoed from above me. My brothers had all gathered to keep Amora company while I met with my father. Romeo had brought one of his games over for them to play.
Amora and Scarlett had hugged, rocking back and forth, when Scarlett and Brando had arrived. They both cried. I had looked at my brothers, and the four of us shrugged at the same time. It seemed as if Carmen and Juliette fell in love with Amora at first sight. My brothers all approved of her as well. She had that powerful way about her.
I had never felt the power leave my body, going directly to my second heart, but it was ruling my feet and the directions in which they stepped—all because of the power she held. She was magnetic, and wherever she went, I longed to follow. I did not think it was even a choice.
My fratello , Brando, came directly to mind. All the times he could not bear to turn his back to his wife. She had been pulling him. I did not understand this until that moment. The strength in it.
Rosaria would throw back her head and laugh at it. “You would think he was a puppy!” She’d make a childish noise. “Not a deadly cat claiming the Fausti name! A beast follows behind a spinning doll as if he has been leashed! How does this make sense?”
My eyes lifted and found Brando standing in the window. He was staring down at me. He’d watched me this way before. When I would leave in the past. I had never stopped before and acknowledged him. I was standing where he had many days and nights of his life. Not willing to move—not willing to feel the distance between him and his wife as though each mile away from her equaled a step toward the hangman for him.
My hand slid over my chest.
He grinned at me.
Fucking grinned at me.
However, I did feel my older brother’s concern for me. He seemed to empathize with my struggle, even though he had never experienced the same. I was still grieving for the loss of Rosaria Caffi. We did not share love, we did not even remember what our understanding had been in the beginning during our end, but I felt her loss was in vain. No matter how far she separated herself from my sons, a part of her heart belonged to them. That part was gone and would never return.
A soft figure stepped in front of my brother, not even caring that he was a monster compared to her, lifting her hand to me in greeting. From behind her, it seemed like candlelight lit her, outlining her in a hazy glow, and she was the most stunning vision my eyes had ever seen—a romantic painting I demanded to live in.
To die in.
Right in the heart of it—her arms.
I lifted my hand in return, and after she kissed her palm, she closed one eye, adjusting her hand against the window so it would look like it was pressed against mine.
Dream a little dream…
The romantic music coming from the apartment seemed to float out before the door shut and Margherita stepped toward me.
“Hiya, handsome.” She stood on her toes, ruffling my hair. “Whatcha looking at?” She narrowed her eyes before she turned, then laughed quietly. “I love her for you, Rocco, and you for her. I know…I know the timing is…almost… vicious, but Ari is…she’s your Scarlett. Your everything that everyone else has had and you’ve a lways deserved.” She hesitated before she continued. “You, out of all of these men, know better than anyone else that the Fausti family is not an ordinary family. It’s loyal, but it’s also vicious. If it were a man, his red flags would be made of blood. And as romantic as it is, it still wasn’t made to love you back. You need love, Rocco. You deserve love. Everyone does, even the men who carry the Fausti name.”
When she turned back to me, her eyes had welled, and a few tears ran down her cheeks. I curled my knuckle up and dried them. She laughed, but I couldn’t find the humor in it. Something was plaguing this woman, and that was not normal. She was as wild and carefree as the flowers that grew on the Tuscan hillsides.
“Walk me home?” she whispered.
I gave her my arm and she took it. Before we walked away, I caught sight of Scarlett next to Amora at the window. I did not like the look in her eyes. I held tighter to Margherita’s arm, and she held tighter to me, sighing.
“I will carry you up the steps,” I said.
She laughed. “Even though that would be fun, it’s not necessary. We’ll just take them slow so we can talk?”
I nodded.
It was not until we reached the top of the island that she found her breath to speak to me. She looked into my eyes.
“You, Dario, and Romeo have accepted me with nothing short of true acceptance and respect. I know it’s instilled in all of you, but I’ve always felt the truth behind it. Even if the…situation between me and Luca was not always easy on you. Your father’s marriage was arranged and…. there I came, ruffling it all up. I truly have no regrets about doing that. It’s what love does. It ruffles us. Makes us forget the rules and live in the direction of our own happiness. I’m pretty sure I started a ruffle in this family, too, followed by Scarlett—we’re not exactly the type to fit in, and neither is Ari. I prefer to call us trailblazers though.” She winked.
“But as Brando would say, if he ever spoke of it, I was not always present as a mamma. It’s been my honor to relive that part of my life with all my sons and grandchildren. I consider you the son of my heart, Rocco, and your sons the grandsons of my heart.”
Leaning down, I kissed her softly on the cheek. Her eyes were still closed when I rose to my full height. Two more tears ran from her eyes, but this time she hastily wiped them away.
“Thank you,” she whispered, understanding my response was in the tender kiss.
I had fallen in love with Margherita, though she was right. She was a warm figure, but not a particularly motherly one, but she tried, and in her trying, my heart had accepted her in the role she molded for herself in our lives.
We walked toward the castello together, still arm in arm, but I noticed how she made sure to dry her tears, even setting her face up to the wind to be sure no trace of them was left for my father to find. However, we were Fausti men. We could smell the salt leftover on a woman’s skin, whether from exertion, desire, or tears.
My father kissed her on the cheek after we entered the castello , and even though neither his face nor his posture had changed, I sensed it—he knew something was off about her mood as well.
“I will not be long,” he whispered in her ear.
Her eyes were closed, and she nodded.
We would discuss business in the office. The wall was made of glass behind the desk and the sea spread out as far as the eye could see from behind him. Right after sunset, there were times when the air outside seemed a dark blue that matched the deepest parts of the sea, before darkness consumed it and the stars came out plentiful. That was the mood in the room, dark blue, except the world behind my father had gone completely dark.
He sat, and after he offered me a seat, I took mine.
“Francesco is going to be a problem,” he said in Italian.
“He will, but he did not challenge me—today.”
“Today,” my father echoed. “But he will. ”
“I am prepared.”
He stared at my face, but it was as if his mind was elsewhere. He nodded, as if he were answering my thought a second too late. “Vincenzo tells me Francesco made a public offer for Aria Bella.”
My chest constricted at the thought, my hands balling into fists. If it would not have put Amora under duress, I would have split his throat open and allowed him to bleed out on the street as a pig would. That was how much his blood was worth to me. The same blood I shared. Considering my blood, I would drain my own if it meant she would be safe. However, a scene came back to me from years ago, when I had tested my own brother and his love for his wife when I made a public offer for her. Brando had charged me, bringing me against the wall, bringing cold steel to my throat, spilling my blood as if it had belonged to a pig, even though we shared the same father.
What Brando had done to me was symbolic.
What I had done to Francesco was symbolic.
It was a kiss of poetic justice that I was the one being tested.
“ Sì ,” I answered, not expanding.
His eyes met mine. “The family did not scent a hostile situation with Rosaria Caffi before her death, only when Massimo followed in my footsteps and became imprisoned in Louisiana, but they are sniffing around us now. They smell blood—old and new. It is not uncommon for a man to take another wife after he has been widowed. However, Rosaria’s death is still new, and the island has concluded you are in love with Aria Bella. Son of mine or no, this situation will be questioned. The family will question the circumstances of Rosaria’s death and the timing of your new love.”
“They might believe I killed Rosaria to replace her.”
He nodded. “Arrangements in our family are not often broken.”
“Only annulled,” I said.
My father narrowed his eyes at me. I had not been disrespectful, but I had never spoken my true thoughts to him. His arranged marriage had been annulled to marry his wildflower by his own power.
“I gave you the choice.” His jaw tightened, giving his face a sharper edge. “Free will in regard to the situation with your then wife.”
Free will? He had created me for a purpose, not as he had my brother, out of love. My place in the world was to rule this family. And though it came with freedom, it was still a loveless cage, if love did not find us and slip us the key. My key had come late, after years of starving in silence, and it would come at a time when my crown was on the line. Which meant more danger for my Amora.
“You made your choice,” he continued. “You will deal with the consequences as the king you were born to be. However, this family will not question our truth. You love Aria Bella; you will marry her.”
My eyes froze on his.
“You will respect her, our family will respect her,” he concluded.
He was right, but something came over me then—something that had never come over me before. The power of choice.
“Who is above God in this room to make the decision of fate?” I asked.
His eyes instantly hardened on mine. Though I was not outright challenging the decision he had made for me, my marriage to Rosaria Caffi, I was challenging his role in it. Again, even if the love I felt for my Amora was beyond the feeling of love, he was taking the choice from me again. Though he had chosen for himself all those years ago.
Brando had inherited our father’s skilled way of respecting our family laws while skirting around them. I had never done it before, though I knew the rule book as well as any man who belonged to the family. I could watch my brother do it, as if he were acting skits from my own mind. But I had never acted on them myself or challenged my grandfather or father when either man ordered me to move.
My father stood. I stood.
He was so quick, I barely caught him move around the desk, his hand coming to my throat, forcing me against the glass wall. We hit so hard, it cracked. From behind me, it probably looked as if lighting was forking through my body from the slit in the glass, allowing the watery darkness to leak inside Castello Sul Mare and shock us both.
My eyes refused to move from his and his from mine.
Father and son locked in a bloody battle that spanned generations.
A few seconds before he got his point across—son or no, he would meet me in the arena if I ever outright challenged him—a figure appeared in the office behind us.
My Amora.
She stared at me, a panic-stricken look on her face, but her stance was the opposite—she would attack him from behind if he did not release me. He set me to my feet, turning to meet her stare.
Amora cleared her throat, though no words followed. But the look in her eyes seemed to be piercing through him as tears ran down her cheeks.
Moving from the wall, fixing my suit, I took her by the shoulders and led her out of the office. Scarlett and Brando waited outside of it, and after I nodded, Scarlett took her by the shoulders and moved her away from it. Her glistening eyes refused to leave mine until she turned the corner. Brando nodded at me, pride in his eyes, following behind them.
The door to the office was cracked, and I waited for permission again before I entered. My father stood with his back to me, eyes searching the darkness for whatever he wished to find, a glass of whiskey in his powerful hand. The feel of it was still around my throat, though being close to the grave all these years had numbed me to the reverberating sting of it .
He lifted the glass closer to his mouth, cleared the roughness from his throat, though it still lingered when he spoke. “The island will be cleared of visitors by next weekend. You will take the time for yourselves, but at the end of your time, you, me, or God will decide, ah?”
With that decree as an ending to our meeting, he dismissed me.