Chapter 7 #2
She steps in, flanked by the nurses, damp hair coiled beneath her veil, the faint scent of soap trailing in her wake.
The habit is clean, freshly pressed, but the fabric stretches tight over her tits just enough for me to imagine what she looks like without it.
To remind me what she looks like underneath.
Has her body changed as spectacularly as her face? Have her hips filled out more? Her ass plumper?
Fuck, does her pussy taste like the wild honey I remember? Or wilder still now she’s older?
Her cheeks are flushed from the shower, lips pink from biting them. There’s water still clinging to the edge of her wimple like tiny drops of dew.
And just like that, my blood surges south and I fight and lose a battle with a groan.
She catches the change in my breathing, the way my eyes linger too long, the way my cock surges under the sheets, and colour blooms up her throat. She stares… and stares, then she jerks away, makes the sign of the cross in mid-air like she’s warding off a demon.
I can’t help it. I laugh.
‘God won’t listen to that prayer, baby,’ I say, low and rough. ‘I got in first with mine.’
Her brows knit as she eyes me warily through her lashes. ‘And what, exactly, did a man like you pray for?’
I lick my lips, slow and deliberate, almost wishing I could reach under the sheet, stroke myself.
But all it’ll take is one stroke for me to blow like a damn fire hydrant.
And as much as I’m dying to, I’m not wasting that load on hospital sheets.
Not when the memory of unloading inside Giada Mancinelli has me in a fever grip.
‘Didn’t use words. But I sent a whole load of visual aids so He’s got the picture, I’m sure, nice and clear. ’
She sputters, takes a step back, colliding with the junior doctor who’s come in behind her. He catches her by the elbow to steady her.
A dark, feral growl rolls out of me before I can stop it. ‘Take your fucking hands off her.’
The doctor blanches, drops his hands and takes several steps aside.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ I snap. ‘It’s beginning to feel like Grand Central Station around here.’
She looks from me to the older physician, then to the chair he’s indicating, before returning to me. ‘You’re staying?’
‘For the tenth time, I’m not letting you out of my sight.’ I glance at the doctor. ‘With your permission, of course, I’ve got all the information she needs.’
The man hesitates, clearly unsure what that means, then clears his throat. ‘Of course, Signore.’
Giada – Benedetta, whatever she wants to call herself – sits stiffly in the chair beside my bed. The habit rustles softly. Her pretty hands fold in her lap like folded wings.
The doctor pulls another chair around, tablet at the ready. ‘Sister Benedetta, we’re going to begin gently, yes? We’ll start with basic biographical data. If anything feels overwhelming, tell me.’
She nods, still pale.
‘Do you know how old you are?’ he asks.
A wave of sorrow rushes over her face and she shakes her head. ‘All I know is I’m in my twenties.’
The doctor looks at me. Nods.
‘Your date of birth is the thirteenth of April 2000. That makes you twenty-five.’
She frowns faintly at me, mouthing the numbers like a prayer. ‘Twenty-five.’
‘You were born in New York City.’
Her gaze flicks to me. ‘America?’
I nod once. ‘Manhattan. Haven’t you wondered why you have an American accent?’
She frowns. ‘I also speak Italian so I assumed maybe I grew up there?’
‘You’re Sicilian.’
Her eyes widen. Then she takes a deep breath. ‘Do I… have family?’ she asks hesitantly.
The doctor glances at me before answering. ‘Yes. A large one. Three sisters, you’re the fourth. One younger brother.’
Her eyes widen. ‘Four siblings?’ she whispers in awe.
And dammit, at every point since she appeared like an angel at my side, I’ve yearned for all of this bullshit to be an elaborate ruse.
But watching her reaction to the information she should’ve had years ago so she could remember, I know she’s not faking it.
She’s truly lost all memory of her childhood.
‘Alive and well,’ I say quietly. ‘Two of your sisters – Maddelena and Sofiya – are married to my brothers.’
Her lips part in shock. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Hell of a thing that came with literal fireworks, believe me.’ I let the corner of my mouth curl. ‘So it looks like you and I…’ I shrug, deliberately lazy. ‘…we were meant to be.’
Her jaw tightens. ‘I don’t think so.’
I sigh, then nod towards the doctor before she can tell me once again that she belongs to the Man Upstairs. I’m fast losing patience with that bullshit too. ‘Keep going.’
He clears his throat, pretending not to notice the storm brewing between us. ‘Your parents are alive,’ he says, reading from the chart. ‘We’re still confirming current residence.’
I smile to myself and let that slide.
As a Salvatore, destined it seems with the task of keeping the Mancinellis in line, I know where both her snivelling excuse for a father and her so-docile-she-might-as-well-be-comatose mother is too. And they’re coming nowhere near her in the foreseeable future. If ever.
But she doesn’t need to know that. Yet.
Her gaze returns to me, then the doctor. ‘And what do they do?’
My expression hardens. ‘You don’t need that answer yet.’
She leans forward slightly. ‘You know, don’t you? You know everything.’
‘Not everything,’ I say. ‘But enough to know they’ve got blood on their hands.’
Her jaw drops. ‘What? What does that mean?’
I curse under my breath. ‘Nothing you need to be concerned about.’
‘Then why did you say that? Are you implying they’re some sort of crimin—’
‘Perhaps we move to something else?’ the doctor interjects, looking uneasy.
Her gaze probes mine harder, but not finding what she wants, she purses plump lips I want to bite and lick more than I want my own breath. ‘Fine.’ She exhales sharply. ‘How did we meet?’
I look at her for a long time, letting the silence drag until she fidgets. ‘In church,’ I say finally. ‘But not in the way you think.’
Her eyes flicker – confusion, curiosity, a flick of fear. ‘Church?’ she echoes.
‘Yeah.’ I lean back, watching her reaction like a scientist studying combustion. ‘Let’s just say it wasn’t the kind of prayer that saves souls.’
The doctor coughs into his hand, scribbling something on his clipboard. She stares at me like she’s trying to decide whether I’m insane or dangerous.
Probably both.
And for the first time since I woke up, I feel ruthlessly alive.
* * *
Sister Benedetta
The room keeps shifting under my feet, even though I’m seated. It’s the strangest sensation, like the floor has turned to water and I’m sitting in a boat the sea isn’t in the mood to stabilise.
Three sisters. One brother. Alive. Somewhere out there, walking under the same sun that finds its way through these shutters.
And two of those sisters… married to his brothers. Men who look like him, probably command a room like him? I push that thought away, concentrate on the important ones.
‘My siblings. Tell me their names again.’
He repeats them slowly.
Maddelena. Sofiya. Jacinta. Narciso.
The names fit oddly in my mouth, like shoes that aren’t mine but have worn my shape in secret. I mouth them anyway, under my breath.
Maddelena. Sofiya. Jacinta. Narciso.
I try to imagine their faces, their voices. Sofiya sounds sharp and bright; Maddelena sounds softer, heavier with thought. Perhaps I’m inventing them. Perhaps I’m right.
‘Breathe,’ the doctor murmurs from somewhere to my left, like he’s reminding himself too.
And from the man in the bed, the last thing I want to hear.
‘As much as it gives me no joy to say it, all your Madre needed to do was point you to an internet search engine. Your family and mine, we don’t seek the limelight but it finds us anyway.
She knew exactly who you were. And she kept it from you by giving you a bullshit name so you’d never learn the truth. ’
The words land like cracking thunder.
So this is what it feels like when faith shakes and splinters. It’s not a clean break. It’s lightning in the far distance, a hairline crack you can’t see until you put weight on it, and then it races across the surface and the cup you’ve treasured for years lies in your hands as dust.
Divine design… or damnation?
I search for the part of me that would know the difference, and find only salt and tide filling my throat.
Renzo watches me the way storms watch ships. Patient. Certain. Ready to decide whether to spare or swallow. I hate that he looks beautiful while he does it, that the line of his mouth invites hunger even as it promises ruin.
‘Tell me something true,’ he says softly, like we’ve been trading untruths as a game and he’s tired of winning.
‘What would you like to know?’ I manage.
‘Anything you can’t pray yourself out of. What are you feeling right now?’
That earns him a look. His mouth quirks, and I look away first.
I force my hands to unclench. ‘I’m… afraid,’ I say at last. The confession comes raw. ‘Not for my soul; for my mind. If all this is true… if I’ve built a life on this emptiness and I fill it too quickly, I’m afraid of what will break.’
He nods once, as if he truly understands. ‘That’s why I asked for the doctor’s advice, not your Madre’s.’
The word Madre strikes something sore. ‘Don’t speak of her like—’
‘Like a woman who kept a lost girl pliant with obedience?’ His voice stays level, but I feel the iron under it. ‘I will. Until I know why.’
Because I had nothing else, I want to say. Because when your head is all white noise and your heart is all black water, you cling to the first hand that offers you a rope. Even if it burns.
The doctor clears his throat, drawing my attention gratefully away from him. ‘Sister, would you be willing to answer a few more questions? We’ll keep to gentle prompts.’