27. Senza Fine
Chapter 27
Senza Fine
J uly Seventh—the year does not matter.
The day of our wedding, the day of the first day of my life, the rest of my life with the woman who owned the lion inside of my chest. I was not late but standing next to a tree not far from the church. I did not wish to be too close to her, but my heart refused to allow even this much space between us.
After my Amora had appeared in my life, my heart began its rule over my feet. The only part of me that agreed to the space between she and I was my mind.
Ssshe is ssssafer away from you , it chanted.
My heart roared wildly back, prepared to defend her to the death, overtaking the chanting voice, but it always slithered back in.
Her life will become yours. Ssshe cannot handle the dangers that come with the name Fausti.
How many times had my family and I gone to war over the sister of my heart?
How many times did the sister of my heart almost lose her mind and heart over the danger my brother had been put in?
If our lives continued to entangle, it would mean that my love was not strong enough to save her by releasing her .
My fighting heart countered back—if we release her, we are dead, and so is she. Her breath is ours, and our breath is hers. Her blood is ours, as our blood is hers. It is a love dependent on two. He and she. You and her. All those years without her almost sent us to the grave, buried alive, without the taste of her love on our lips.
My head was logical and practical. My heart was selvaggio (wild) and drammatico —there were no rules when it came to us, except for one: only her, only me. It was not a conscious rule either. My heart would not allow me to touch another out of desire. My Amora had consumed me, body and soul, with whatever word meant beyond love. Perhaps none existed. It was too powerful to be named.
I felt manic, out of fucking control, not sure which direction to go in, forward or backward, but I kept as still as a deeply rooted tree. I looked down at my feet. I had moved forward without conscious thought. Perhaps I had been moving all along and did not even realize it.
My older brother appeared in my line of sight. His eyes were narrowed in my direction. Brando fixed his suit, then started forward. My sons surrounded him as they came toward me.
I faced off with them, a son on each side of my brother.
“I have one question to ask you from the smartest and most beautiful woman, in my eyes, who’s ever graced this earth,” Brando said.
I nodded.
“What is a wedding without a bride?”
My eyes narrowed against his.
What is a wedding without a bride?
My fratello cleared his throat. “Since you seem to have lost your fucking mind, just like I did all those years ago, I’m going to answer the question for you. A wedding without a bride is an eternal fucking bachelor party.” He turned and left me alone with my sons.
I met their eyes .
Amadeo stood taller, fixing his suit. “What I believe Zio Brando is telling you is this, Papà. You are fucking this up—a love that was created in heaven after you suffered through hell to be blessed with it—because you are allowing your mind to rule you and not your heart.”
“Your mind should rule you in battles, Papà.” Ludovico fixed his suit. “Not in love.”
Amadeo took Ludovico by the shoulder and directed him toward the church.
It was as if their words had turned into blades, slicing the snake wrapped around my mind, releasing me from its hold. I shook my head, and my feet commanded me to move fully forward. Each frantic beat of my heart pushed my feet faster and faster.
“My wife,” I said to Romeo as he milled around with the rest of my family.
“In the storage building,” he said.
My wife was waiting in a building that housed the equivalent of fucking trash on the island—trash that people could not part with.
She was a clever one with the symbolism, my Amora.
My eyes met Brando’s, and he nodded at me. Scarlett squeezed his hand, her eyes watery, but her smile was bright.
My father stepped in front of me, and without a word, handed me a knife. I took it from him, slipping it into my pocket. The door to the storage building was locked. It sent a rush of panic over me, my heart beating wildly in my chest.
With one massive hit of my shoulder, one of the doors cracked down the center, and the flimsy lock gave. I did not even have to open the door. It swung open by itself.
“Oh,” she breathed, looking away from me. “You’re here.”
“You do not fucking belong here.” My voice was as crushed and rough as sand.
“Where do I belong, Rocco?” she whispered.
I hit my chest. “With me. ”
“I’m not a part of your past. I’m here now. Your future.”
“You have become my entire life, my Amora.”
“You’re mine too,” she whispered.
“I was early,” I said, feeling it was important for her to know. I needed her eyes on mine, more than I needed air. “I was waiting.”
My entire life. I waited for her.
For the moment she would come into my life.
For this moment.
For the moments yet to come.
For eternity.
She nodded, swallowing hard. “Don’t you think we’ve waited long enough?” she whispered, standing, giving me a full view of the true beauty that was all mine.
Her eyes came to mine.
My hand went to my heart with no conscious thought. Perhaps to make sure it was still beating. Perhaps it was to hold this moment close, allowing it time to become the center of my world. Perhaps it was for both reasons. For all fucking reasons.
The heart did not always share its reasons. But she was the only reason.
The only reason my heart beat.
The only reason my heart stopped.
The only reason my lungs took in air.
The only reason I felt strangled.
The only reason the blood rushed through my heart.
The only reason I would bleed myself dry.
The only reason I would fall to my knees—to rest at her feet.
The only reason I would rise to them, accepting whatever challenges life had in store for us.
She.
This woman.
Aria Amora Bella.
She was my only reason.
My Amora .
Her eyes turned down some before she met mine straight on again. “Say something,” she whispered.
My heart went forward, and I followed it, my arms wrapping around her, pulling her so tightly to me she gasped. There were no words good enough for her. True enough for her.
She was the romantic vision my passionate heart had dreamt up but never thought it would be able to claim. I held my dream in my arms.
“That good, ah?” she whispered, smiling at me, her eyes glistening.
She gasped when I swept her off her feet, carrying her to the church.
The world glowed with a fire that felt as if it was stolen from my chest. A physical representation of our love surrounding us. The air was thick with it. The water in the distance rushed in and out to shore, as if it were beckoning us forward, to take the final steps before we repeated ancient and new vows to one another.
Her eyes were on mine, and mine were on hers.
It was in that moment that I realized: she saw me, and she saw through me.
I was the man I was born to be, a man made of hard lines and laws, but, first and foremost, I would be this woman’s husband. The word would take on a new meaning between us. It was not only for paper, but in the heart, in the lungs, in the blood. With her, I felt a freedom I had never experienced before, though if she moved, I moved.
I set her down gently on her feet, and we faced each other, the fiery blush glow of the world caught between our bodies. I removed the knife from my pocket, and without hesitation, I marked my palm, blood rushing down my right hand.
“I owe you blood, Aria Amora Bella,” I whispered. “My beautiful love song.”
The beautiful love song that set me free of all others.
“Never,” she whispered, her hazel eyes intense on mine. “But.” She took the knife and made a small cut on her left hand. “ This is proof, Rocco Fausti. If you bleed, I bleed. My body is yours, and yours is mine.”
“Where you go, I will follow,” I said in Italian.
“And where you go, I will follow,” she repeated in the same language.
Taking her hand, I kissed it, sealing our private vows, before we turned toward the church, prepared to repeat them on sacred ground. Her body and mine locked together in symbolism—we would share this life together, and if she bled, I bled, and if I bled, she bled, but together, we would staunch each other’s wounds.
One could not exist without the other.
My father and a woman who sang opposite him announced our arrival by duet, lyrics in Italian and English.
“The Prayer.”
In the dim glow of a candlelit church on a secluded island in the Mediterranean, while the sea outside rushed to shore, healing all wounds with its salt water, I married the woman who walked out of my heart, leaving behind a lioness who would nurture her king for the rest of his life, while he sheltered and protected his queen for the rest of hers.