Chapter 25
Gina
The warm water envelops me as I sit between Tommaso’s legs with my back to his front inside a massive tub. He hasn’t given me space to be away from him, constantly touching me, as if stopping me from spiraling as my mind whirls.
I stare down at his hand resting over my belly and his other on my thigh. Of course, I’ve noticed the scars on his hands since I woke up with amnesia. A ragged one between his thumb and forefinger. A diagonal one across each hand, plus a few smaller ones.
Why didn’t I ask questions before, when I had seen them?
Is it because my subconscious knew how he had gotten them, those memories just an automatic part of the fabric of the trust I innately seem to have when it comes to him, so my mind never thought to question it? Just like it hadn’t questioned that I felt that I was his and he was mine?
Or is my injured brain just limiting what I can process while I recover, and knew that I wouldn’t like this conversation and the discovery it would reveal?
No matter what I do or what happens. No matter what you discover, you will never leave me.
His words then had made my heart damn near burst. But now? They feel ominous. Foreboding.
Red flags warning—no, screaming—that I should get the hell out of here.
But I don’t.
Not because he’s holding me tight and I could never overpower him, let alone make it out of the enormous house and the guarded gate before he stopped me. But because I know I want to be here; that I wanted to be with him prior to my amnesia. That I desperately want him as my husband.
“Talk to me, Gina.” His low, deep voice fills the ensuite.
It, like the sight of his large, powerful body, does things to my insides that make me melt and squirm.
“Are you afraid of me now?”
I try to turn in his embrace to look at him, but he holds me in place. So I relax against him and stare down at his hands—hands that must have done things to get those scars. They aren’t the hands of a CEO in the business world.
“Are you afraid of me now, il mio sole?” he asks again, softer.
“No,” I answer honestly. “But I’m…wondering why I haven’t questioned it before now. Wondering what you actually do, and what you are instead of a powerful, successful businessman. I feel foolish…na?ve and stupid.” The last words come out as a whisper.
His hands shift to my waist, and he turns me, letting me see him now. I straddle him, but the position isn’t sexual. He keeps one hand on my hip and the other cradles my nape, his thumbs drawing circles in both spots. “You’re not any of those things, Gina.”
I bit my lip, trying to hold back the tears that want to push forward. “I knew, then? Before I lost my memories?” He nods, and I ask, “Who are you, Tommaso?”
“I am a powerful, successful businessman. I haven’t lied to you about that or any of the businesses I run.”
“But?”
His tongue runs over his lip as he regards me. “But I’m…more than that.” His expression is open, yet I can’t read him. “My family is a mafia family.”
The air suspends in my lungs for a moment as I process his revelation. I wait, but fear and panic don’t press in. “I knew this,” I confirm rather than question.
He nods. “We’re part of the ‘Ndrangheta, and my family’s main territory is back in Italy. I came here a decade ago to take over this territory when my zio died.”
“And you’re the Don?” I ask, but I’m still not panicking.
“In a way, yes.” When he sees my confusion, he continues, “My father, Stefano, is the head of our family, and even though I’m in charge of all the territory here in California, and all the people here answer to me, ultimately, my father still has control at the moment.”
A shiver courses through me. “At the moment?”
“Yes.”
“Are you at war? Is that why you won’t let me go anywhere or have anyone here?”
He glances away before looking back at me. “We’re not technically at war… But yes, I’m avoiding having you exposed to any risk.”
“Was my head injury because of… Were we attacked right after our first wedding?”
Neither Tommaso nor the doctors have discussed with me the actual circumstances of my injury, or what ‘my accident’ actually entailed.
Up to this point, I haven’t pushed it because whenever I tried to remember, that nausea and phantom throbbing pain would appear, and alarm bells would clang in my head, warning me that I don’t want to remember.
I start to shake as that nausea and throbbing pain make an appearance now, like it’s a perfectly choreographed dance.
“Gina?” Tommaso sounds far away even though I straddle his lap.
“Babbo, no,” I cry, watching something horrifying. I can’t make out what it is, though. My head and face are filled with pain. “I’ll do it! I’ll do it. Just please stop!”
“Gina!” Tommaso’s shout shatters the memory, and I’m back in the ensuite with him.
Tears coat my face, and I shake uncontrollably. The pain of my past injuries is excruciating, and the nausea is overwhelming. I try to get off Tommaso, knowing that I’m going to be sick.
He lifts me out of the water and gets me to the toilet in time as I expel the contents of our dinner. I’m crying as I do, not able to stop, feeling like I need to purge a sadness I can’t understand or remember.
I’m still crying once I finish retching. Tommaso cleans me up, rinses my mouth out with mouthwash, dries us both off, and then bundles me in his arms to lie with me in our bed.
He holds me as the last of my tears finally subsides, my face cradled against his chest.
“I’m having flashes of memory…” I pause because my throat closes. Pain and confusion overwhelm me. “I’m certain they’re of my father… I called him Babbo when I was a little girl. But…”
Tommaso’s hand runs up and down my back while his other is buried in my hair, keeping me pressed close to him.
“But I think he did something…something that doesn’t fit. It’s like he was two men. One, horrendous. And the other is what the little girl in me desperately wants and needs him to be.” I sniffle, trying to get closer to Tommaso.
“Your memories of him…Babbo… If they bring you comfort and peace, then hold onto those, Gina.”
I pull back to look at him. “But he wasn’t that man anymore, was he? He wasn’t my Babbo anymore.”
“No, il mio sole, he wasn’t.”
“And he was part of your world? Part of your mafia family?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what made him into the monster? Whenever those memories of him push in, it fills me with physical pain and nausea.”
Pain flashes across Tommaso’s face. “I’m not sure.”
“What did he do?” My voice cracks.
He kisses my forehead. “Rest now, wife.”
I don’t have the energy to demand that he tells me, nor do I want to know. My mind is protecting itself, not letting me remember, keeping my memories at bay for a reason.
“Focus on remembering the man he was, Gina.” Tommaso wraps me even tighter against him. “Of when he was your Babbo. If those bring you peace and happiness, focus on those.”
So I do. I focus on trying to remember Babbo and not Father.
Trying to remember the version of the man who smiled down at me with love and tenderness, holding my hand while we walked and ate ice cream, not the version he had become and had done something so horrifying that my mind refused to let me remember.