Chapter 23 Domenico
Domenico
Ileave her in the bedroom, watching the space between us grow and grow until I cannot stand it any longer. I pretend I can stay away, even as the empty rooms begin to close in around me.
I breathe through the noise in my head. Slow.
Calculated. It's not like me to lose my temper, to let someone else make me act before I think.
Especially not a woman. I make my way past cold marble and cavernous rooms. All this space, and she's the only thing filling it.
Guilt gnaws at me. I shouldn't have punished her.
She was at her father's house. I should have never let her be there in the first place.
When I found out, I saw red. When I found out, I hurt her before she could hurt me.
The kitchen is a cold, metallic monster, but it's the only thing to hide in.
The clink of the whiskey bottle and the sound of the pour feel too loud, but I let them drown me out for a while.
I lean against the surgical steel countertops and wait.
Wait for the guilt to pass. Wait for the footsteps I hope are coming.
Wait for anything. But she's not here. She doesn't come.
I can't sit still, can't keep this anger inside.
Not anger at her, but at myself. I left her upstairs, in the bed, her skin marked with my own weakness.
It's there in the red, hot prints. I run a hand through my hair and grip it tight, hoping it will take my mind off this woman who should not be under my skin.
I pace again, feeling the chill of the mansion settle over me.
The whiskey burns. Maybe it will dull this ache. I listen. I wait for her to join me downstairs. Nothing but silence.
There is a click, the sound of the front door.
"Jesus, it's like a fucking crypt in here," Leonardo says as he comes in.
He cracks his knuckles, and Eleanor, his new wife, follows behind him. They just got back from a weekend in Paris, and I'm in no mood to listen to him run his mouth about it.
He notices. He always notices. "Someone's in a mood," he says. "Where's your ice queen?"
"She's busy."
Eleanor watches me closely. Her eyes are too sharp. I don't want her reading me, don't want anyone reading me right now. She has a knowing look on her face. Like she's been through this with my brother.
Leo grins. "Want me to fetch her for you, brother? I'm sure I could cheer her up."
I let out a breath. "Don't."
His smile gets bigger. He thinks I'm joking.
"You're an asshole," I say, but my mind is far from here.
Eleanor takes his arm and says, "Come on, Leonardo. Domenico has things on his mind."
"Right," Leo says. He winks at me. "See you at dinner."
I don't answer. I watch the two of them disappear into one of the many cold, lifeless rooms. I'm hoping Eleanor can keep him occupied so he won't be all over me tonight, but I don't count on it. Leo never stays away when there's trouble.
I take a drink. I wait. I'm still waiting for the footsteps I need to hear.
When Carmela gets home, with my mother in tow, clearly home from an afternoon of shopping, the silence I've been living in shatters completely. I want to breathe a sigh of relief, but the feeling stays stuck somewhere in my chest.
Carmela hugs me tight. "Dom!" she says. "Look what Mamma and I bought!"
I try to keep up with her chatter, try to keep up with her at all. "More abstract crap to decorate this place?"
She holds up a lamp that's all angles and metal. "Nice, right?"
I don't want to talk about lamps. I want to talk about a woman who should be down here by now. "Nice," I say anyway.
She runs a finger over the cool countertop. "You should really turn on some lights in here, hon. It's depressing."
"I'm fine."
She tilts her head at me. I don't like what she sees, so I pour another drink to distract her.
Gianna, my mother, watches us both, sipping a cup of coffee she already managed to find. "Besiana's not with you?" she asks.
"She'll be down later."
Carmela's eyes go wide. "Did you guys have a fight?"
"Don't," I say, too sharp. My mother arches an eyebrow at me.
"It's fine," I add, softer. “I’m just tired.”
"Already?" Mamma laughs and claps me on the shoulder. "Wait till you have six children like I did."
"I'm sure Besiana will be more than happy to make that happen," Carmela calls from across the room, pouring herself a glass of water. I grit my teeth. I wait for the laugh that comes too easily.
"If she's not angry with you, anyway," she adds.
I don't realize I'm crushing the glass in my hand until it shatters. The sound echoes. I am too close to the edge. I am slipping, slipping. Mamma gives me a nod.
"Go see to her," she says. Her voice is warm, but I can tell an order when I hear it.
I do.
I take the stairs two at a time, my mind on Besiana and nothing else. She's what matters now, even if it makes me a man I don't recognize. Even if it makes me the kind of man who loses control. The space between us shrinks, but not fast enough.
I'm outside the bedroom. I open the door.
She's still where I left her. The bedsheets are a white tangle, and she's curled in them, naked.
Her shoulders are shaking. Her long dark hair spills over her face, but I know what I'll see if I brush it back.
Her eyes. Red, but not the way I thought.
Hurt. The sound of it gets me where I live. It's the sound of a sob.
"Besiana," I say, and this time the weakness of my own voice is evident.
I sit beside her and lift her from the bed. She's warm against my chest, and I carry her to the sofa, holding her close. I say nothing. I don’t want to break more than I have already.
She won't look at me, won't meet my eyes, and my heart is tearing into something that's nothing but red and raw. Her shoulders are bare. Her skin is bare. All of her is bare. I pull her tight against me, and I don't know how to do this right.
She is shaking in my arms.
I ask what happened at her father's house. What I should have asked in the first place.
"It doesn't matter." Her voice is too small for the Besiana I know. She buries her face in my shoulder, and it makes the world stop.
"It does." I stroke her hair. Soft, dark strands. "It matters to me."
She doesn't answer, and I don't push her. Not this time. Not when I can't see her break any more than she has. I hold her. I wait. I hold her.
"It was about my mother," she says finally, and I don't dare move.
I stay silent. She speaks. It hurts like hell to hear, but I let it rip through me.
"I always suspected my father had her killed." She shudders, the truth unraveling between us. The only way it doesn't destroy her is to give it to me, so I take it. I take all of it.
"Suspected, but never knew for sure. He said it was an illness. He said so many things." Her voice cracks, and I tighten my arms around her.
I try to keep it measured. I try not to make this worse for her. "And now?"
Her breathing is unsteady. I count the rise and fall of her chest. "Now I know," she whispers, and her tears wet my shirt. "She was going to run. Take me and Dritan and run."
Her brother. "Oh, Besa."
She shakes her head. She won't let me stop her now. "She was going to run," she repeats. "And he killed her for it."
"Besi—"
She won't let me stop her now. She clutches my arms like I'm the only thing keeping her in one piece, like I'm the only one who can. "A few months later, Dritan was gone too. My father always said broken bones mend more easily than broken loyalty."
"And now?" My own voice is a wound, raw and bleeding.
"And now I know," she sobs. "Now I know he was the one who killed my brother. Killed them both."
I don't say anything, not until I can find the right words, the kind that won't hurt her the way I already have. I hold her tighter than I should, tighter than I ever thought I'd hold anyone. I run a hand down her back, gently, and I'm losing myself in the only thing I want right now. Her.
I whisper it, soft, softer than I've ever been. "I'm sorry."
My skin is on fire where it touches hers, and I wish I could take all the hurt from her and keep it for myself.
"You don't have to be," she says.
But I am.
"I was going to make you suffer. I thought you ran to him. I accused you of spying for him."
She shakes when I say that, and I know I’ve hit a nerve.
It's the kind of tremor that gets under my skin and stays there.
Her body trembles, and I can't hold her close enough to stop it.
I know it isn't anger this time, but something so much worse.
She lets out a breath that sounds like it's been trapped inside her for years.
I am the one who breaks the silence.
“I’m sorry.”
Her eyes meet mine, and it's all I can do to not let her see me break for her.
I don't want to be the man she needs. I don't want to be this man who cares, this man who cannot let go.
But here I am, doing exactly that. I cup her face and kiss her, tasting the salt of her tears, and I make her a promise I should have made from the start.
"I'm going to kill him."
She stiffens at the words, and my gut twists, because I've misread her. But I see it then, the flicker of relief in her eyes before the tears return.
"You can't," she says. "He's too powerful. He's too—"
"I will."
"Domenico."
"I will." And I mean it more than I have ever meant anything.
Her eyes close. The tension eases out of her like she's just finished the longest fight of her life. She melts against me, no longer shaking.
"You have to be careful," she murmurs, soft as a lullaby, and it wrecks me to hear her thinking of me after all that's happened. "Promise me."
"I promise you," I say. I hope it's enough, enough to fill the emptiness between us, enough to not let her see the lie in it. I will never be careful. Not with her. Not with anything.
I slip my shirt off over my head and drape it over her naked body. I tuck her close, tighter, and she curls against me, her limbs against my chest, like I'm her shelter from this storm. I am. I'll make damn sure of it.
I sit with her until her breathing grows slow and even. I sit with her until she is asleep, her hand still clutching at my chest like she thinks I'll be gone if she lets go. But I won't. I'm hers to keep.
The guilt digs deeper than anything has a right to. I was ready to make her suffer. Instead, she got under my skin. Instead, she's become the only thing that matters, and now I am the one suffering.
I'm letting her distract me. I'm letting her blind me.
She's a punishment I should never have let myself love, but here I am, loving her more with each breath she takes.
I should give her space, give her the distance to recover from her childhood, to be her own person and not just another man’s accessory. She needs it, deserves it. I will give her the space. Even if it kills me.