Chapter 35
Emilia
After Giorgio left me at the restaurant, I was in an extremely dark place.
A thousand terrible thoughts swirled through my mind as I stood there at the bar, trying to drink a glass of brandy to calm my nerves.
What if Maurizio hurts Giorgio?
What if Maurizio KILLS him?!
That would destroy me. It would literally kill ME.
Giorgio was everything good in my life. He was kind, and sweet, and gentle, and funny – not to mention incredibly hot –
While that piece-of-shit mafia asshole had terrorized me for months.
Maurizio had driven me away from my home – my job – my friends.
He’d stolen my life from me.
The cops hadn’t done shit about it.
Nobody had done anything about it. Nobody could –
Until Giorgio stepped in.
As terrified as I was of his job… as much as I wished he wasn’t in the mafia…
Part of me thought, You have to fight fire with fire.
Maybe the only way for a mafia asshole to leave me alone was for another mafioso to take care of him.
That led to other dark places.
Part of me hoped Giorgio killed the bastard.
But that led me to think, Is that what you are now?
Is that what Maurizio made you –
Somebody who wants people murdered?
What was even scarier was that I specifically wanted Giorgio to do it.
Not some nameless, faceless mafioso –
But Giorgio.
Sweet, kind, lovable Giorgio.
Was that the horrible person I’d become?
That I wanted the man who was so good to me –
To murder someone?
So when he came into the restaurant and stood next to me, I was in shock.
He didn’t look any different than when I’d seen him last.
“Hey,” he said, like nothing was out of the ordinary.
I stared at him.
Did he DO it?
Or did he NOT do it?
Ice-cold fear swelled up inside me.
He chickened out.
Maurizio is going to terrorize me for the rest of my life.
Then Giorgio said, “It’s over. He’ll never bother you again.”
At that, a new kind of terror overtook me.
OH MY GOD –
He really DID kill him!
I made this wonderful man into a murderer!
Giorgio looked alarmed by my expression and whispered, “I didn’t do anything permanent. Nothing he’ll have to go to the hospital for.” Then he paused. “Well… actually, he probably will have to go to the emergency room for his hand. But he won’t stay overnight.”
Then the reality of it dawned on me.
“You beat him up?” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
“Bad?”
“Bad enough to make sure he’ll never follow you again.”
I can’t describe the feelings that flooded through me.
Disbelief that it really was all over –
Shame that I couldn’t take care of it myself –
And an overwhelming sense of all the things I’d lost… all the time I’d spent living in fear… because of one horrible, fucked-up man.
I stared at the bottles across from me and wondered what would have happened to me if I’d never met Giorgio.
Someone might have found my body in my apartment a few nights from now.
I might’ve died.
“Let’s get you home,” Giorgio said. He sounded worried. “Why don’t you finish that up and – ”
I slammed the rest of the brandy and set down the glass.
“…okay…” he said like he was impressed. And maybe a little worried.
He gently took my arm and guided me out of the restaurant.
Once we were out on the street and away from the noise, I whispered, “What did you do to him?”
“I beat him up.”
“Yes, but what specifically did you do to him?”
I had to know.
I had to make sure it was bad enough that Maurizio would leave me alone forever.
“Well…” Giorgio said hesitantly, “I broke his nose… I probably broke at least a few of his ribs… and I snapped the fingers on his right hand.”
I looked at him in shock. “All of them?”
“Yup.”
That sounded pretty bad.
It would’ve convinced anybody I knew not to come back to Florence…
But I wasn’t sure about a mafioso.
Maybe that wasn’t a terrifying warning for Maurizio. Maybe it was just a bad Tuesday.
“You think that’s enough to scare him away forever?” I asked fearfully.
Giorgio winced, like he didn’t want to tell me the next part. “Well… there was one other thing.”
“What?”
He cleared his throat. “I, uh… I put a gun in his mouth and told him I’d blow out his brains if he ever came back.”
I turned my head back to the street and stared off into the distance.
I was filled with conflicting feelings.
Fear that the man I was in love with was capable of such a thing.
But also, strangely, I was super turned on.
That the man I was in love with was capable of such a thing.
That he would do something like that for me.
But most of all, I felt relief.
That it was finally over.
Despite being scared of him, I knew Maurizio was just a bully and a coward. He only terrorized me because I couldn’t fight back.
Now that Giorgio had stepped in, I knew beyond a doubt that Maurizio would never bother me again.
As we walked towards my apartment, Giorgio kept talking nervously, like he was afraid of what I might be thinking.
I barely heard him because I was so lost in my own thoughts…
And because of the odd mixture of feelings I had.
Fear…
Relief…
And desire.
When we stopped in front of my apartment building, Giorgio asked in a concerned voice, “Are you okay?”
I stared up at him in silence.
I didn’t know how to answer the question.
Because of what Maurizio had done to me – because of everything he’d taken from me – I’d never be entirely okay again.
But now that Giorgio was here…
I felt better than okay.
I felt safe.
When I didn’t answer, he looked slightly alarmed. “Look… you know I’m different from that guy, right? I would never hurt you. I would never do anything to scare you.”
I knew that.
I knew he was completely different from Maurizio.
In fact, Giorgio was completely different from any man I’d ever met.
He was powerful…
And strong…
And he had protected me when no one else could.
“I want you to be happy,” he said.
He was so earnest –
I believed him more than I’d ever believed another person in my entire life.
“I did what I did so you would feel safe,” he continued, a worried crease in his brow. “You don’t owe me anything, ever.”
At that moment, I saw him – really saw how much he cared for me –
And all the fear I’d felt about Giorgio was gone.
Only relief and desire remained.
“If what I did was too much, I apologize,” he said.
It wasn’t too much.
In fact, it was the single most wonderful thing any man had ever done for me.
Because of him, I was free –
And alive –
And I knew what I wanted.
Without thinking, I stood up on my tiptoes –
And kissed him as hard as I could.
Giorgio seemed shocked –
And then he kissed me back even more passionately.
I drank in the taste of him like wine.
Breathed in his cologne – warm, masculine, subtle.
I felt his arms encircling me… the safest feeling I’d ever had…
And a warmth spread from between my legs up to my nipples.
Oh my god, I wanted him.
I wanted him so much.
I suddenly pulled away from him
“You talk too much,” I said, trying to be funny.
“We don’t have to talk,” he said in a husky voice, then bent down and kissed me again.