23. Valeria
VALERIA
A shallow knock sounds at the front door.
I stare at the bedroom wall, not wanting to move from the bed to endure another awful speech from Giovanni.
Get pregnant, or your brother will be taken next.
I can still see Giovanni in the kitchen, my guard standing behind him with apathy. Stefano standing next to the door, eyes wide with animal terror. He wasn’t as scared when he took my phone hours before—he was confident then, but that was before he came back with Giovanni, smelling of gasoline.
Another knock brings me to the present, this one weaker than the first. It doesn’t sound like Giovanni or Stefano.
The mattress groans as I stand and tiptoe to the door.
The next knock is barely more than a whisper.
There’s no one through the peephole. I take a deep breath, grab the handle, and open the door.
I suck in a gasp.
It’s Nico.
He leans heavily against the doorframe, looking like he was mauled by a bear. His eyes are nearly swollen shut, and he’s covered in bruises and blood.
My brain short-circuits. Did Don Salvatore do this to him like he did my dad?
“Val,” Nico says and crumples to a heap on the ground.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
I look down the hallway to see if anyone’s after him, but it’s completely empty.
I crush the rising tide of panic and squat to drag Nico into the apartment.
He doesn’t even groan when the door slips and hits him in the leg.
He’s heavy—I’ve never dragged a body like this, and by the time I get most of him into the apartment, I’m sweating.
I push his legs to the side and lock the door.
I lean over him on the kitchen floor. He smells like smoke. “Nico.”
He doesn’t respond.
My heart slams against my ribs as I drop my ear down to his chest and listen for breathing.
He rattles an exhale.
Oh, thank god. I bite hard into my lower lip, fighting tears as my hands tremble to slip his shirt up and see the extent of his injuries. It must hurt when I touch his bruises, but he doesn’t react at all. From the little I can see, it’s bad.
“Nico, please wake up.” I need another sign of life from him. Just one, please, before I dissolve into hysteria.
He can’t die. I need him. I need him alive, with me.
“Nico.” I hesitate and then carefully whisper in his ear, “I love you, Nico.”
Nothing.
I scramble to the living room to grab my phone and call the Family doctor, who tells me he’s already on the way and to touch Nico as little as possible. He hangs up.
I go to curl up on the floor next to Nico’s body and watch his chest rise and fall in shallow movements.
Dr. Macaluso is somber as he comes into the apartment.
At his direction, we work together to carry Nico into the bedroom, push him onto the bed, and undress him.
I can barely breathe looking at his body—his beautiful body with his art gallery of tattoos and strong muscles, all covered with black and purple like a corpse in a stage of decomposition.
The doctor sets himself to washing and applying antibiotic ointment to Nico’s body and stitching some of the worse-looking cuts. Nico doesn’t even react as the needle pierces his skin. I’ve never been squeamish before, but I have to look away.
When he’s done, Nico is bandaged and sleeping under the covers.
I walk Dr. Macaluso to the door.
“He’s stable for now, but call me if anything changes. Get him lots of water and rest. He can come by my office when he’s able, to check for broken bones. His rib might be fractured, so don’t move him around too much until then.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
Once he leaves, I slide down the door and sob into my hands.
Nico gets hot through the night, sweating even though I have the fan running and pulled the blankets off of him.
I give up on any attempt at sleep and sit on the edge of the bed in the darkness to feel his forehead with the back of my hand like my nonna would do when we were young.
I haven’t thought about her in a long time.
We used to see her all the time while she lived in Chicago, and then Nonno died, and she moved.
Last I heard, she was by herself in a retirement home.
I wonder if she knows about dad, if Giovanni got word to her too, just to fuck with what’s left of my family.
It’s selfish, but I take Nico’s hand into mine and clutch it in both of mine. The rest of his body is burning hot, but his fingers are clammy. I smile a little. Always a contrarian.
“Nico, I need you to wake up now.” I don’t know if he can hear me. I’m probably disrupting his sleep. But I need him to know I’m here.
“So, your credit card stopped working.” That was a nice surprise when I tried ordering food for delivery.
“That’s probably not good. I don’t know what to do next.
We can’t stay here. They’re gonna ki—” I choke on the word.
Even for my scumbag brother, I can’t bear the thought.
He’s still my brother. “After Stefano, it’ll be me.
That’s what all this is for, isn’t it? To keep you in line. I’m expendable.”
It doesn’t hurt at all to say it out loud. I know that I’m not expendable to Nico. To him, I’m special, for better or for worse.
I laugh dryly. For worse, probably.
“I want to stay.” My voice drops to a murmur.
“I want to stay with you so badly, but this isn’t working.
They’ll take me out, eventually. And it’ll be worse for you the longer I stay.
I should leave now. You’ll get a wife who’s important enough to keep alive.
Just, please, do what they say. I can’t bear seeing you like this.
I don’t care what you have to do. I don’t ever want to see you get hurt again. ”
I stare at him, even the barest shadowy suggestion of his face breathtakingly beautiful.
How could I not tell how he’d be, even so long ago, at the party?
I could feel it, at least, feel the way he expressed his inner self in the darkness.
The curve of his mouth, his warm praise, his strong hands.
Even without the light, he’s so beautiful.
“Val.”
I sit up straight, clutching at his hand like a lifeline.
He’s motionless.
Did I imagine his voice, whispering my name?
“Val.”
That, I definitely didn’t imagine. I lean in.
“Val, don’t go. Don’t go… Water. I need water.”
I release his hand. “I’ll go get you—”
“Valeria!”
Nico bolts upright, snatching me in the dark. I shriek, and he clutches me to him.
“I need water,” Nico shouts, pinning me against his feverishly hot body.
“Let me go!”
“No!”
His body freezes. I keep still as he slowly loosens his grip to feel around my body, grabbing at my shoulder, my head, my mouth. I shiver.
“Why is it dark?” he asks in a weak voice.
“It’s nighttime.”
He relaxes against his pillow before reaching over with a groan and turning on the side lamp.
Light pours into the room.
It’s a shock to see his swollen eyes and cut mouth and the bandages over him all over again. In the dark, I had forgotten this was our new reality.
His eyes are glossy with fever. He’s not entirely in his right mind.
He touches my cheek with the tips of his fingers, before wincing and dropping his hand. It must hurt to move.
“Did you get burned?”
The question shocks me a little. “No. Stefano just took my phone. I was at the apartment the whole time.”
I’m not sure if Nico even registers what I said as he takes my hand in his. “But you’re okay?”
I squeeze his hand. “I’m okay. I’m doing a lot better than you.”
Amusement flickers over his face. “You should see the other guy.”
I want to ask him what the next steps are—what our next steps are—but I don’t want to pressure him while he’s delirious with fever and pain.
His face twists in something like pity. “Val, your dad…”
I brace myself as a wave of emotion crashes over me and tries to suck me under. “I know. Giovanni told me.”
He spared no detail as he described Nico knifing my father to death.
Nico grimaces as he pushes himself up a little. “What did he tell you?”
“He told me they’d forced you to do it.”
“No, that’s not what—”
“Nico, I don’t want to hear it. I trust you. And I didn’t want that to happen, but my dad chose to target Don Salvatore. He left me. He left the family. What did he think would happen?”
Nico squeezes my hand. “I don’t think he left you. I think Giovanni, or someone, made him leave. And I didn’t kill him. I tried to let him escape, but Giovanni shot him.” Nico meets my eye. “His last words were that he loves you.”
I smile, tears coming to my eyes. Dad never said he loved us. His parents never told him that either. I think it really fucked him up. “You’re a bad liar.”
He smiles lazily, brushing his thumb over my hand.
I lay next to him on the bed and curl up against his body, needing the security that comes from being near him, even if it’s a trick of the mind. I can tell it hurts him when I touch his chest, and I try to give him space, but Nico holds me close.
He twists slowly to turn off the lamp, plunging us into velvety darkness.
“I thought they’d left you in the fire,” he admits, after a long time.
“Your clothes smelled like smoke when you came home.”
“I tried to go in after you.” He squeezes my shoulders. “I felt like I was going insane.”
I don’t trust myself to speak for a moment.
Is there anyone else in my life who would go into a burning house to save me?
Lacey, maybe.
And now Nico has risked his life twice for mine.
I bury my face into his chest, and inhale the smell of smoke, medicinal cream, and that third layer of scent that is uniquely him and feels more like home with each passing day.
“I’m here. I’m okay,” I tell him, and eventually, we both pass into a fitful sleep.
I only leave Nico’s side for the next few days to go to the bathroom and bring him water.
He laughs when I tell him his credit cards aren’t working.
He tells me it’s a good thing I made him bring me more cash. We have plenty to get by.
We watch scary movies to pass the time. Nico winces every time I jump, but he never complains and only holds me tighter.
He likes to talk while we watch, commenting on the video effects used or gossiping about certain actors.
I like it. I like hearing his thoughts.
On the third day, a man I don’t recognize, with heavy facial scarring, comes by the apartment to give me a phone for Nico. I want to hurl it out of the apartment windows.
Nico laughs dryly and slides it into his pocket when I bring it to him.
On the fourth day, we take a long, slow walk to the parking deck, so we can meet Dr. Macaluso at his practice and get Nico scanned. He has a fractured rib.
On the fifth day, sick of the box of ramen noodles I got for us, Nico sits himself down at the kitchen table and tells me he’s going to show me how to make pasta.
“I’m really not a good cook. I burn water.”
Nico smiles. “I’m an excellent cook. We’ll meet in the middle.”
I can feel his eyes on me as he guides me through the formation of the dough, like this version of myself—unshowered, no makeup, and in the same pair of sweatpants I wore all week—is the most interesting thing in the world.
I bring the plates of freshly cooked pasta to the kitchen table and take my first bite—they’re chewy and too salty, tasting like kid’s playdough.
But Nico throws his head back and groans. “Oh my God, Valeria. This is absolutely perfect.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re just saying that because we’ve been eating ramen noodles for the past week.”
“No,” he says, a mischievous glint to his eye. “I’m saying it because I can taste all the love you put into it. The noodles don’t lie.”
I don’t say anything to that, but they do taste a little better on the second bite.
On the sixth day, I show him how to make a collage. It’s strangely attractive to see his face fixed in concentration as he carves out a tiny scrap of paper with the tip of his blade.
When he’s done, he pushes the paper to me.
One of the things I love about collage is that there’s no wrong way to do it. You take scraps and trash and you let yourself be guided by your heart to make something unique and beautiful, a snapshot of yourself in a certain place and time.
I bite into my bottom lip.
“What?” Nico asks. “It’s good, right?”
It looks like someone gave a toddler scissors and glue and let them run wild.
There’s no theme or composition, just a kaleidoscope splash of discordant colors. In the middle, an old man and woman kissing.
“It’s very creative,” I finally say.
Nico laughs, and then groans, clutching his side where his rib was fractured. “It’s us—you know, how it feels to be with you.”
I hold up the brightly colored fever dream. “This is how I make you feel?”
He leans back in the chair. “Pretty good, huh?”
It’s chaos.
That’s the first night we try to have sex. It’s nothing like any of the times before. We move gently, so I don’t hurt Nico, and when we both finish, I tumble off of him and we hold hands on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
On the seventh day, Nico gets a text from Salvatore.
That night, he dresses in the dim light of our bedroom, kisses my cheek while I sit on the edge of the mattress and clutch my hands on my lap, and leaves our apartment.
On the eighth day—in the morning, Nico still hasn’t come home.
But I wake up, and the first thing I do is go to the bathroom to throw up.