Chapter 10 #2
And if she knows about that, what else does she know?
My father probably would have killed her as a message to her father to stay off his territory, but I’m sane enough to realize that murdering the krye’s daughter would send him on a warpath through Malus, right to my front door.
I’ll have to come up with some other way to deal with the Sokolis threatening my casinos.
The city thins out as I drive home. The neon and the noise fall away, replaced by quiet streets, dark houses, and the particular stillness of a city in the small hours.
I pass the corner where Mina used to catch the bus to school on rainy days.
The sidewalk where she tripped and sprained her ankle.
The street where she used to buy clothes using her meager allowance.
I know this city the way I know her. By heart. And I love this city. I’m not relinquishing one fucking square foot of what’s mine to the Sokolis.
I pull through the gates of the Montoni mansion as the moon shines overhead. The house is quiet and dark. I should go to bed. Get a few hours of rest before the day begins again.
But my mind is too restless. Too full of Zana’s smug smile and Andreas’s betrayal.
I push open the front door, and Tommaso appears at my elbow.
“Don Cristiano, can we please talk about Ariana Barone and your engage—”
“Not now.”
There’s nothing I’d like to talk about less than a woman who means nothing to me.
I close the front door and turn sharply away.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Tommaso grimace in frustration. He wants me to marry, and he and I are in complete agreement. The only difference is our choice of bride for me.
Nico and Paulo are flanking me.
“Anything else tonight, boss?” Nico asks.
“No. I’ll be upstairs.”
I climb the stairs. Past my bedroom. Past Adora’s old room, closed up and unused. Down the corridor toward the staff quarters at the top of the house.
Mrs. Santoro still lives in the same room. I hear her television murmuring behind her door, some evening game show, with canned applause and cheerful music.
And Mina’s room…
I stop in front of the door at the end of the hall.
The room where I carried her after she hurt her ankle. The room where I laid her on the bed and watched her unwrap my gift. The room where I touched her for the first time, certain that she was going to be mine forever.
The room where everything fell apart.
I haven’t been inside it since that day. The thought of Mina’s things boxed up and taken away makes the memory of Mrs. Santoro’s car disappearing out the gates rise vividly in my mind, and pain twists violently in my chest.
But I’m here anyway, standing in the dark hallway, my hand on the doorknob.
I open the door silently.
It’s smaller than I remembered. A single bed pushed against the wall.
A wardrobe with a mirror on the door, reflecting the dim light from the hallway.
A desk where she used to do her homework, an empty bookshelf, a window overlooking the garden where we used to lie in the grass together as children.
Her things are gone. Mrs. Santoro must have cleared them out.
I move through the room slowly, touching nothing. Breathing her in, or trying to. Five years is a long time. Any trace of her scent is long gone.
But in the bottom drawer of her desk, I find something.
A yellow ribbon.
I remember this ribbon. She used to tie her hair back with it, a bright streak of sunshine against her dark waves. I remember we were twelve and thirteen, sitting in the garden. She was consoling me because—
I clench my teeth and swallow hard. She was consoling me because earlier that day in the back rooms of one of his casinos, Dad had forced a gun into my hand, curled his finger around mine, and made me pull the trigger.
A woman. He’d made me kill a woman, because her husband had double-crossed Dad and gone into hiding. He couldn’t find the man, so he took his anger out on the man’s wife.
Dad had berated me for going catatonic with shock after, saying this was what it meant to be a Montoni, and I wasn’t worth anything if I couldn’t be a man and do what needed to be done.
But I couldn’t tell Mina about that. I don’t remember what I said to her, or even if I said anything.
She just understood that I was in pain. She stroked her fingers through my curls as I gazed up at her, my head in her lap.
The ribbon caught the light, and I thought, Oh, this is what it feels like.
Love.
I lift the ribbon to my face and close my eyes as I breathe in.
It doesn’t smell like her anymore. It smells like dust, old paper, forgotten things. But when I press the silk against my lips, I can almost feel the ghost of her hair slipping through my fingers.
I pocket the ribbon.
The bed is neatly made. I shouldn’t, but I sit on the edge of it anyway. Then I lie down.
The mattress creaks under my weight. I’m too big for this short, narrow bed, but I curl onto my side, facing the wall, and let myself imagine she’s here.
She’s right here beside me. Her warmth against my chest, her hair tickling my face, her breathing slow and steady in sleep.
I could reach out and pull her close. I could bury my face in her neck and breathe her in. I could hold her and never let go.
Mina.
Five years of sunny skies that were never blue because I didn’t have her. Five years of going through the motions of living while frozen on the inside. I did well in Italy. I earned my uncle’s respect. Ruthless, controlled, untouchable.
I stare at the wall, at the faded marks where more posters used to hang, and I wonder what happened to the snow globe. Puck with his mischievous smile. Give me your hands, if we be friends. Did she keep it? Did she throw it away? Did she break it?
Does she ever think about that afternoon, the way I think about it every single day?
How quickly she ran into another man’s arms and forgot me. A man she had a little boy with. The thought feels like shards of glass in my chest.
I never wanted her to move on. I wanted her to be unable to love anyone else. I wanted to come back and find her exactly as I left her.
Still mine, always mine.
As I’m hers.
I close my eyes and press my face into her pillow, searching for any lingering trace of her, finding nothing but dust and memory.
Mina.
Tomorrow I’ll be Don Cristiano again. A cold-blooded killer, controlled and untouchable. I’ll make deals and crush enemies and build up my empire brick by brick. But tonight, in this narrow bed in this empty room, I let myself be the man who loved her.
The man who lost her.
The man who will never, ever stop wanting her back.