Chapter 29
Gina
It’s been three weeks, and Tommaso has kept his promise of coming inside me at least twice a day. At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m walking bow-legged.
He just left to go to a meeting with the leaders of the other strongest factions in the city. He’s been trying to implement peace among them—apparently, it was an idea I gave him—and they’re working through the details of how that would look.
The collective alliance is being called the Chamber. They’ll make decisions behind closed doors that will impact the rest of the criminal factions and be the core of power in this city.
They won’t rule together as one entity, but as allies with a common goal, and they’re negotiating which criminal activity they’ll each take the lead on, like a monopoly rather than stomping on each other’s toes.
The fact that Tommaso discusses this openly with me, and that I don’t seem to have qualms, tells me that I was definitely familiar with and desensitized to this world before my amnesia.
Of course, the other criminal factions in the city won’t be pleased that the top five are banding together for an alliance and collectively growing their power. So even though the tensions, especially with the Triads, have died down, Tommaso is still keeping me protected here. Isolated.
I understand he’s protecting me because he loves me, but it’s driving me insane. I tried to reason with him that seeing other people, being out in the world like a normal person, could help my memories come back. My therapist, Marie, agrees, but Tommaso won’t relent.
Na?ve, stupid girl, a man’s voice hisses in my head. My father’s. Not Babbo’s from when I was younger, but the cruel, calculating man he had turned into.
“You need to know, Tommaso was using you,” he says almost gently. “He never wanted you. Not the way you thought and hoped. He was using you…wanting you to be his whore.”
I shake my head in denial, even though it makes me almost vomit. “No. He…he…”
“Loves you?” he mocks. “See for yourself, na?ve, stupid girl.”
I look down at what my father is holding for me to look at. But all I see is blackness.
I blink rapidly as I come out of the memory, trying to recover more of it to see what I had been looking at back then.
But there’s only the blackness, along with shattering despair, as it feels like something had broken me back then.
Nausea fills me as it does whenever I have any fleeting memory of my father in later life. However, this time it’s more than just nausea. I make it to the trash can just in time, falling to my knees in the library and retch into it.
I can’t stop the waves of vomiting as I heave on my knees, holding the can to my face. I’m trembling when I finally stop, strands of hair that escaped my braid stick to my skin, and I realize Etta is kneeling beside me.
She takes the trash can from me and hands me a napkin. I see she’s brought the orange ricotta cake and cappuccinos for us on a tray that sits on the ottoman. We had just finished baking and were going to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
“Let me help you up.” She grips my elbow to help me to my feet. I feel shaky and weak. “Sit.”
“I need to clean the waste bucket.” I grimace.
“Nonsense,” she scolds. “Jerome will see to that. Don’t worry.”
I sit on the sofa and reach for some water. “I need to go brush my teeth.”
She takes one of the cappuccinos off the tray and puts it on the side table. Then she picks up the other and takes a sip, eyeing me.
I frown, staring at the cappuccino she put out of my reach. “Why did you do that?”
“No cappuccino or caffeine for you. And when you go brush your teeth, you take a pregnancy test, too.”
My heart skips a beat, thinking that I could be pregnant already, and the thought of little feet running through the house fills me with joy. But I shake my head.
“I had a memory break through. It was one of the ones that cause nausea and my head to hurt.” My head is aching with pain, and I sip the water again.
She studies me with a contemplative look. “Those memories don’t usually make you actually vomit.”
“They have a few times.”
She shoos me with her hand. “Go upstairs, and we’ll have cake when you return.”
“I want the cappuccino, too.”
“I’ll have a decaf one made for you.”
“Etta,” I warn, but smile as I stand. “Thank you for being such a good friend.”
Her eyes are warm as she stares up at me. “Tommaso has never treated his staff as anything other than family, and I knew you’d be the same. Now, go.” She shoos me again.
I leave the library, heading straight up to my bedroom, still feeling a bit shaky and weak.
When I reach the bedroom, I head straight for the ensuite and grab one of the pregnancy tests Tommaso bought because we’re both eager for a child.
I do that first, not wanting to wait any longer than I have to.
After I’m finished, I wash my hands, brush my teeth, and pace the bathroom, anxiously waiting for enough time to pass, chewing my thumbnail as I do.
When I go to the vanity and look down at the pregnancy test sitting on the counter, there’s only one line. But maybe I didn’t wait long enough? So I wait longer, staring down at it, not removing my eyes the entire time, but the second line never develops.
A wave of disappointed sadness washes over me, and I fight the urge to break into tears. But then I remind myself that Tommaso and I have just started trying, so it’s normal that I wouldn’t be pregnant after barely a month of trying. Right?
“You need to know, Tommaso was using you,” my father’s voice says in my head again. “He never wanted you…not the way you thought and hoped. He was using you… wanting you to be his whore.”
His whore? Why…why would my father even say that to me?
I try to focus on the end of the memory, where he showed something to me, but still, there’s only blackness, that part of the memory refusing to come.
Why would a father ever say that to their daughter?
And why does it feel like whatever my father had shown me had broken me?
Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been about Tommaso.
Tommaso promised he’d never break me. You have my word or my life. Everything I know and intuitively remember about my husband is that he’s an honorable man. Yes, he’s a criminal leader, but he’s still honorable.
So either this is my mind twisting and recreating events as they drift up from the fog, or my father was wrong.
Tommaso would never use me.
He wants me; I’ve seen it with my own eyes and can feel it.
And I know he’d never harm me, let alone break me.