Chapter 12 Constantine
Constantine
After I dropped Aurelia off at work, I headed to Isabella’s apartment. She lived in the same place as far as I knew, and when I got to the front door, I pounded on it so hard I felt the hinges strain from the force.
She might be at work right now, and if she was, then I’d head there next. Put her on blast in the back room just the way she put Aurelia on blast in the middle of the fucking kitchen.
But then she unlocked the door and stepped aside, wearing athleisure with her hair in a high ponytail, like it was her day off. Her family ran a couple of gelato places in the village, and she intended to take over when they were ready to retire.
Looking at her face somehow pissed me off even more.
Her eyes were wider than usual, like she felt sheer panic at the sight of me. She showed no confusion about why I was there, so she knew exactly what she’d fucking done.
I let myself inside and stepped into her living room. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” I didn’t intend to yell at her when I got here, but holy hell, I was fucking mad. I’d never yelled at her like this, ever. Never yelled at a woman like this in my life.
She flinched when I raised my voice, like she was fucking scared.
Good.
“You come into my family’s restaurant. Mine.” I slammed my hand into my chest. “And you have the nerve to insult my family. So, let me ask you this again—who the fuck do you think you are?”
She was paralyzed in fear, like a cornered deer that was too scared to try to run.
Her eyes were frantic like she wanted to find an escape from this terror, but there was no way out of this.
Out of this fucking hole she’d dug with her own shovel.
“Hearing the news from other people was a shitty way to find out—”
“So that justifies you coming into my family’s restaurant and insulting the mother of my child? Please, explain that to me. Explain to me why that justifies calling my future wife a bitch.” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited.
“I—I didn’t mean for it to go that way.”
“I think you fucking did. Aurelia tried to make peace with you, tried to break bread, extend a goddamn olive branch, because she’s twice the woman you’ll ever be, and you tear her down and call her a bitch.
She’s known about our twisted, never-ending drama since the beginning, and she’s never once cared about it because she actually feels sorry for you.
She thinks I overreacted to the whole thing.
She was able to humanize you and see the good in you, and you can’t even be polite to her. So what the fuck is wrong with you?”
Her eyes started to water.
I didn’t give a damn. “I’m actually asking you, Isabella. Because you’re clearly irrevocably fucked in the head.”
Tears immediately streaked down her cheeks, and she started to sob.
Okay . . . maybe I took it too far. “Look, I don’t owe you anything. I don’t owe you an explanation. I’m not going to text you about my personal life like you’re still a part of it, because you aren’t. And if that really pisses you off, then you take it out on me and not her.”
She continued to sob in front of me, covering her face with her hands and turning toward the wall.
I should have felt worse about what I’d done, but I was still ripe with anger from how she’d treated Aurelia. Cross my girl, and I was the least compassionate motherfucker in the world.
“I’m—I’m sorry. Okay?” She breathed between her sobs.
“This has just been really hard for me. Life didn’t work out the way I wanted, and I always believed at some point we would find our way back to each other.
But knowing you’re going to have a baby .
. . when I always thought we would have kids together .
. . it just hurts. It hurts more than I can even describe.
” She kept her back to me as she cried. She tried to calm herself a couple times, but after a short pause, she would just cry hard again.
I listened to her and continued to feel nothing.
“I hope you can find peace. I hope you can move on. Because our families are very much united, and I don’t want to change that.
I don’t want to cut you out of my life. But treat Aurelia with anything other than respect, and I’m done with you—and my mother will stand with me on that.
” I would hate to put my mother in that situation, but she’d taught me the meaning of loyalty, and if I told her how Isabella had treated Aurelia, she’d cut Isabella out of our lives with a pair of meat scissors.
Would burn that bridge with her best friend because blood was thicker than wine.
She took several deep breaths as she brought herself to a sense of calm.
“I wish we hadn’t slept together—biggest mistake of my life.” I didn’t mean to hurt her more, just wanted to take responsibility for my error in judgment. “I’m sorry I let that happen. Maybe all of this wouldn’t have gone down the way it did otherwise.”
She slowly turned to face me, her face red and puffy and splotchy. “Then why did it happen in the first place?”
I felt my heart drop in unease.
“If there wasn’t something here, then why did it happen at all?”
My arms remained tight over my chest, and I could feel the beat of my heart against my flesh.
I felt the discomfort of the pending conversation, but also felt the relief of the closure I was about to obtain.
“For a long time, I’d wondered if I made the right choice with us.
Years passed, and I didn’t meet anyone who meant anything to me.
There was nothing wrong with the women in my life, so I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me.
If I’d been too harsh with you, if maybe you were the person I was supposed to be with and I was too stubborn to admit that. ”
Her glossy eyes stared at me, her arms tightening around her body like armor.
“But I knew . . .” I swallowed in guilt, afraid to put this weight on her shoulders.
“I knew the real reason I couldn’t be with you again was because .
. . of how much I resented you. Resented you for what happened with Edric.
Because if that had been handled differently, I wouldn’t have cut him out of my life, and he wouldn’t have joined Cosa Nostra in Palermo and then the Skull King in Florence . . . and he’d still be alive.”
Her eyes started to water again.
“I know it’s unfair, but that’s how I felt.”
She dropped her chin and placed her hand over her mouth as she sucked in a harsh breath through her nose.
“It was wrong to feel that way, and I’m sorry I blamed you all these years.
Truth is, that kiss happened because Edric tricked you.
That’s how it all started. And then he was killed for having an affair, because he was still the same asshole.
He was a fuckup his whole life, and he died a fuckup.
I’ve cleaned up his messes and taken the fall for him so many fucking times—and it still got him nowhere. ”
She dropped her hand and inhaled another breath, her eyes still watery.
“I’m sorry.” I’d come here to rip her into a million pieces, but instead, I found the closure I’d been searching for all my adult life.
Not closure for our relationship, but closure for my brother’s death.
My life’s purpose had been to get revenge against Darius for murdering him, but I realized now that would accomplish nothing.
My whole life, I’d been looking after my brother and making excuses for him. Vouching for him to Tommaso, covering his tracks to my parents, letting him copy my homework, everything you could think of.
But he wasn’t my responsibility.
He’d never been my responsibility.
And I was finally ready to accept that. To move on with my life. To focus on Aurelia and the family we were going to have together. To let the past go . . . and embrace the life I should have had all along. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes flicked away and stayed focused on the wall instead of me. “I would do anything to go back in time and change what happened. For us to still be together, for your brother to still be here. Anything.”
I gave a slight nod in understanding, even though she couldn’t see me. “I know.”
I headed to Palermo after my conversation with Isabella. I had to go through the security checks like any other visitor since I was no longer part of Cosa Nostra. I made it to Tommaso’s study, where he spent most of his time if he wasn’t out on the town.
“You’re back.” Tommaso greeted me with a smile and a stiff handshake before he clapped me on the shoulder. “Sit and have a drink.” He moved to the couch and motioned for one of his men to make a couple drinks at the bar. He sat in the corner of the leather couch and crossed his legs.
I sat across from him.
He pulled a cigar out of the front pocket of his vest and lit up. He held up another, silently offering it to me.
I shook my head. I hadn’t smoked much since I’d been home. Stopped altogether when I realized Aurelia was pregnant. When I got back home, I’d have to undress in the garage so I wouldn’t bring the secondhand smoke into the house.
He smoked on his own and watched the men bring the two old-fashioneds. “How’s Taormina?”
I skipped the question he didn’t even want an answer to. “I decided to open a restaurant in Taormina. That’s how I’ll fill my time from now on.”
He took in a deep drag before he released the cloud between us. “A restaurant.”
“Yes.” I waited for him to mock me so I could lunge at his throat.
“And that will keep you entertained more than Cosa Nostra?”
“The restaurant itself, no. But I just found out I’m going to be a father.
” I hadn’t been thinking about fatherhood before I’d noticed Aurelia hadn’t touched her wine.
Hadn’t had any distinct plans for the future, because I was living in the past. But the second I heard the news, I was happier than I ever could have expected.
A smile moved over my lips at the memory.