Chapter 30 Angelo
Angelo
Concern for my sister has me grabbing my phone the minute Doctor Cliff’s name pops up on my screen.
After exchanging pointless pleasantries, our family doctor hems and haws for several seconds before he gets to the point.
“Serafina is perfectly healthy, if slightly anemic, for which I’ll prescribe some iron supplements,” he tells me.
“So why did she faint?” Fina’s never fainted in her life. I get she’s stressed, but she’s not the sort of woman to keel over when the going gets tough.
“Hmm, well.” There’s a long pause, and I know instantly I’m not going to like what the doctor has to say. Doctor Cliff coughs nervously. “Um…”
“Just tell me,” I bark.
“Your sister is pregnant. Without doing a proper exam, I can’t say how far along she is, but at a guess, I’d estimate around eight to ten weeks. If you like, I can recommend a discreet OB/GYN, depending on how you want to handle this, um, development.”
I’m not stupid. Doctor Cliff has been our family’s physician for years, and he knows my father well. Cliff is well aware Fina isn’t married or even betrothed. Not officially, anyway. So he’s added two and two together and ended up with five.
The man assumes my father and I won’t want Fina to give birth to a bastard because bastards are shameful. Luka understands better than anyone what my father thinks of unwanted children born out of wedlock - he made his feelings on the subject abundantly clear when Luka first showed up.
Fuck.
I squeeze my phone so tight the glass screen cracks, but thankfully, it doesn’t die completely. Doctor Cliff is still waiting for an answer. Only I don’t know what the fuck to say.
“How long do we have before she shows?” He’ll assume I’m asking because I need to know how much time I have before people guess. But that’s not the reason. No, I’m asking how long I have before my father figures out the marriage contract he’s painstakingly negotiated is dead in the water.
“Not long. Another month, perhaps. Ideally, we take care of this, um, problem before she reaches twelve weeks, but of course that’s up to you.”
I hear papers rustling in the background while my brain spins at a thousand miles an hour. The bottle of whiskey I opened last night sits on the filing cabinet taunting me. I desperately need a drink right now, only it’s not even midday.
Something scratches at my office door. An animal. Probably the bastard cat. He seems to have decided that my office is part of his territory.
While Cliff mutters something about state laws on pregnancy termination and how we don’t need to worry about the legalities, I rise from my chair in a trance and let the cat in. He strolls over he owns the place and hops onto my desk, happily rubbing his head on my hand.
Felix’s rattly purr helps ease the tightness in my chest.
I can fix this. I don’t know how yet, but I’ll find a way.
Fina is my baby sister, and that means it’s my job to protect her. Even if I have to go up against my father.
It’s late morning but Fina is still in bed when I knock and enter her room, which is not like her.
“Not working today?” She shrugs and then rolls her eyes before resuming doom-scrolling.
“Not much point. Francesca does my job now.” Francesca does fuck-all so far as I can tell, but that’s a problem for another day.
“Doctor Cliff called,” I say in a conversational tone. “With your blood test results.”
Fina stiffens. “Yeah?”
“He’s going to send a script over for iron tablets; he says you’re anemic.”
She relaxes a fraction, clearly assuming she’s in the clear. I wait a few seconds, but she doesn’t say a word about the pregnancy.
“You’ve never fainted before, Fina. Not even when I threw frogs at you when you were seven, and you had a massive panic attack.”
She swipes something on her phone, and then shrugs.
“I guess it was shock,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting Dad to finalize the marriage contract yet.” Even though she still refuses to look at me, there are tears sparkling on her lashes, and from the way she’s gripping her phone, she’s close to breaking down.
“I didn’t expect it either,” I admit. I move closer and perch on the edge of her bed. Whereas my room is spartan, with very little in the way of personality, Fina’s added all kinds of things to her room over the last few years.
There’s a soft green cashmere throw, and photos in frames of us when we were younger. I note the collection of stuffed toys she loved as a kid, and the piles of books. There are a few paintings too. One I recognize from Dad’s house, and two more I don’t.
They remind me that my sister loved to make art when she was younger. She always had a pencil or paintbrush in her hand. When did she stop painting? I can’t recall.
I just know it’s been a long time since I’ve seen her in anything other than designer suits and dresses. The paint-covered smock she lived in as a teen is long gone. Knowing our father, he probably burned it, along with all her art stuff.
He considered creative pursuits a waste of time. As far as he was concerned, she was much better off learning how to please her future husband.
“You know you can talk to me, right?” I say when her mouth remains tightly shut.
“Can I?” The coldness throws me. “You married Chiara against her will, so it strikes me you’re probably on Dad’s side.”
“I had no choice!” My fist clenches at my side as the venom in her words bites deep.
I always assumed she understood my reasons for marrying Chiara, but it’s clear she doesn’t.
“If I didn’t marry her, he threatened to strip away my control of the business.
I couldn’t let that happen because then he’d implement all the vile plans I’ve been working so hard to move us away from. ”
“You could have found a way round it,” she scoffs. “I know you, Angelo. You’re very resourceful.”
She’s right, of course. With time, I would have found a way out, but when he presented Chiara as an option, there was no way I could say no. But I’m not about to admit that.
“Don’t you think I tried?” Her sneer tells me that no, she doesn’t believe I tried to fix it. How have we ended up here? It feels like there’s an ever-widening chasm between us, one that’s never been there before.
Fina and I have always been close. Our dysfunctional childhood meant we had no choice but to lean on each other when things got bad. And as the eldest, it was my job to protect her from the worst of my father’s excesses.
She must read something on my face because she sighs.
“I get it, Angelo, I really do. Dad can be persuasive. But even though I adore Chiara - hell, she’s the sister I always wanted - I don’t love seeing how trapped she feels.
You know that expression? The one that says when you love something, set it free, and if it loves you back, it will return?
Or something like that. You should try it. ”
“I don’t love her,” I scoff loudly. “And as you know, she hates me, so I’d have to spend another year tracking her down, at great expense, while enduring our father’s endless bullshit.”
“Maybe she has good reason to hate you, but I doubt she’d leave, not when she’s in love with Luka.” She smirks. “And also pretty hot for Kane, too.”
I don’t like the direction this conversation has taken. Yes, I’m well aware Luka and Chiara have grown close, but love? No, I refuse to accept they’re in love. And as for Kane, he’s an asshole. He’s relying on a conversation we had while we were drunk to muscle in on my wife.
It’s unforgivable, honestly, and if he weren’t my best friend, and one of the few people I trust with my life, I’d shoot the bastard.
“She’s lucky I haven’t thrown Luka out,” I seethe.
Fina sighs. “You won’t do that. Luka is vulnerable. He needs his family around him.”
She makes a point. While he seems to have recovered from his experience, I’m not stupid. It wouldn’t take much to tip him over the edge again. My half brother has many issues, most of which our father is to blame for.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out. Fina turns away from me and closes her eyes, letting me know without words that our conversation is over. It hurts that she won’t confide in me, but I’ll give her a few more days.
“Yes?” It’s our father. I step out of Fina’s room and close the door. Matteo hovers but I stride away without acknowledging him. No doubt he’ll go to Fina the moment my back’s turned. If I had any sense, I’d send him away before he gets himself killed, but I’m too soft.
Fina needs him right now.
“Where is she?” my father barks. I assume he means Fina, unless Francesca has cleared off. No chance of that happening, sadly.
“She’s here. Why?” Felix appears from a side room and meows at me. He’s after treats again.
“The damn girl treats my house like a fucking hotel,” Dad grumbles. I almost laugh before clamping my lips together. He doesn’t care about Fina, so the fact he’s worrying now means he’s concerned she might run like Chiara did.
“Was that all?” I should have been in the office today, but with Fina collapsing last night, I told Cecelia to clear my diary. I’ll work from here and go in tomorrow.
“She needs to get her ass into the office. Francesca has questions.”
“Oh? Is she struggling to work out how to use the photocopier?”
“Just tell her,” he snarls before ending the call.