Chapter 38 #3
“Oh, my God!” she yells, uncaring with who might hear her. Not that anyone is close enough to hear her scream. “Just like that… yes, Matteo… oh, my God… hmmm… like that. Yes!”
Anna’s words spur me on as my fingers join in on the fun, working in tandem with my tongue, desperate to draw every broken sound from her lips.
When her back arches off the bed, I press a hand to her stomach and force her down, not letting her escape the myriads of sensations I’m unleashing on her.
“Matteo!” she cries, her orgasm crashing over her.
My cock throbs, leaking, aching for release, but I don’t touch it. Not when I can watch the most exquisite sight in the world—my wife unraveling in front of me, coming undone on my tongue and fingers.
When she looks at me, beneath long lashes and a sated smile, all the ghosts of the past melt into the background, her loving gaze leaving no room for them.
“Come here,” she coos, looking beautifully spent.
I crawl up the bed, my body hovering over hers, my lips quickly returning to their home. She wraps her arms around me, kissing me with a quiet tenderness that has my heart weeping.
No matter how many times I can make my wife come, I will never deserve a kiss like this.
I break our kiss, albeit reluctantly, and pull her into me, her head instinctively cradling on my chest. However, when her fingers trace slow paths across my skin, I know her mind is no longer on the earthshattering orgasm I just gave her.
I can feel the question burning inside her, straining to be let out, but she doesn’t say a word. She just waits for me to be ready to tell her everything she so desperately wants to know.
“Most of these were done by my stepmother when I was a kid,” I confess after a fortifying breath.
“I’m not sure when the abuse started, but it must’ve been early on, because I don’t remember a day that woman didn’t terrorize me.
It always got worse whenever my father brought one of my brothers home.
She loved tormenting Nico, too. I was too young back then to stop her from hurting him.
Rafe was different. I was five when he came along, old enough to make sure that I always got in her way before she could try anything with him. ”
“She did this to you?” Anna whispers, her voice heavy with sorrow.
“Mm,” I murmur.
“Where was your father in all of this?”
“He didn’t care. Sometimes he even instigated her wrath.
But most of the time, he just watched and said that a real man would breathe through the pain.
That I was weak when I cried. Weaker when I fell to the ground.
She would abuse me, and he would belittle me afterward.
Saying a real man wouldn’t let a waif of a woman hurt him so.
But he didn’t want me to defend myself against her either.
If I raised a hand against Ginevra, I’m positive he’d have killed me right there and then.
He might’ve cheated on her every chance he got, but there was no mistaking that she was his soulmate.
They both had black hearts and corrupt souls. All they cared about was themselves.”
“How… how long did the… abuse…last?” Anna stammers, trying her best not to cry for me.
“She died from lung cancer when I was fifteen. But she had stopped a few years earlier than that. She was too weak from all the chemo to torment me.”
“And what about your brother, Carlo? Why didn’t he stop his mother from hurting you?”
I let out a slow breath. “Ginevra always made sure to hurt Nico and me when he wasn’t around.
But Carlo saw the marks his mother left on us.
He knew. If he ever said anything to her, he never told me about it.
He was our champion when it came to the Cosa Nostra.
He demanded that every capo saw and respected us as his full-fledged brothers, even when we weren’t.
But when it came to all the horrors we had to endure in that house, he couldn’t do much. ”
“Yes, he could have,” Anna says, propping herself up on her elbow to look deep into my eyes. “If anything like that ever happened to me, none of my siblings would have allowed it to continue. Not for a second.”
“You think that now,” I reply quietly, “but you don’t know for sure. People say that they will stand by you when the chips are down, say that they will defend you when you need them to… but you never know. People say a lot of things and rarely mean any of it.”
Anna’s lips press into a thin line, displeased with my rationalization.
“Marcello and Stella would’ve protected me. I know that for sure.”
A memory surfaces with the certainty in her voice.
A message she had sent to my brother when the two were thick as thieves, and I was nothing to her.
A message that talked about two classmates who had tried to take what wasn’t theirs.
To tarnish what they should have never even touched.
Stella and Marcello made sure they paid for that mistake with their lives.
One day, when hell welcomes me, they will be the first faces I’ll visit.
I’ll make their eternity a nightmare they will never wake up from.
“Family protects family, Matteo. Carlo should have done more for you,” she adds, bringing me back to her.
Anna’s right. Her siblings would’ve done anything to protect her. They are about to start a war just for her. Mine, however, couldn’t be bothered. No, not mine. Mine implies my whole family. Just Carlo. Carlo didn’t lift a finger to help me.
I can’t fault Niccolò. Not only was he younger than me, but he was too busy fending off his own monsters.
And as for Raffaele, he was just a kid. We made sure to always protect him, and that all the shit Niccolò and I had to endure never touched him.
However, Carlo—who was twelve years older than me and already respected as a young soldier within the famiglia—could have ended it. He could have ended all of it.
The realization sits heavy in my chest. Especially since I always idolized him.
“There lies the difference between you and I, sweetheart. Your family loves you,” I say after a moment. “Most of mine tolerate me at best.”
Anna’s expression softens as she settles back against my chest, the words hanging above us like a cruel joke.
Maybe, when it comes down to it, she does too. Perhaps all I can hope for is my wife tolerating me. Just as the thought starts to take hold of my heart, she presses a kiss to my chest.
“You are loved, Matteo. I’m sorry if you’ve lived your life thinking otherwise. But you are loved.”
My heart cracks open at her words, praying she’s right, that maybe, just maybe, she’s the one who loves me most.
The next time I open my eyes, it’s night.
Somewhere between making my wife come and telling her all about my sordid past, exhaustion finally claimed me.
But as I take in the room, something feels off.
Something important is missing. Someone I can’t live without.
Anna’s gone. She’s not in bed. Not anywhere in the room.
Panic surges through me as I jump out of bed, grab the first pair of pants I can find, and race downstairs.
Maybe she woke up hungry. Maybe she’s in the kitchen, fixing herself something to eat.
Or maybe she left you.
I try to shake the thought, but it keeps hammering at me. And when I reach the kitchen and find it empty, I can’t deny it anymore. She’s gone. I poured my heart out to her, and in the middle of the night, she just left.
Something raw tears through my chest when I catch the faint smell of smoke.
I follow the scent, my thoughts spiraling to Anna setting the house ablaze with me still inside, making sure I could never steal her away again.
However, as I trace the smell to the back patio, I find my wife standing alone, hugging herself beneath the stars, their light catching on her skin and blonde hair, making her seem almost unreal.
She looks like she’s glowing. As if she were something the gods put on this earth to light my way to absolution.
She must hear me slide the glass door open and step outside, because she looks over her shoulder and smiles.
“You’re awake.” Unable to form words, I just nod.
My broken heart is still mending itself when the flicker of flames catches my eye.
They’re coming from the built-in stone barbecue stretching across one side of the patio.
I step closer to it and find ash and soot smearing the surface, while flames still chew through whatever is left of the photographs of my father and stepmother.
“I didn’t burn Carlo’s pictures, but I did take them down from the walls,” Anna explains, coming to stand beside me.
“If I had it my way, his pictures would have been burning with his parents. But you love him, so I didn’t have the heart to do that to you.
I stored them away in a drawer in an upstairs bedroom that I’m sure must have belonged to him. They are there whenever you want them.”
My throat constricts at her explanation. She burned all the pictures in this house because she couldn’t bear me being forced to see them lining the walls, mantels, and shelves of every room. She did this for me.
“You look upset,” she says, searching my eyes.
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying…
Matteo, talk to me. Please. I didn’t mean to overstep, but I couldn’t stay here.
Not with those devils staring back at you from every wall.
I couldn’t, Matteo. I just couldn’t.” I’m unable to say anything since I’m still trying to find my words.
Anna didn’t leave. She could have. She had plenty of opportunities to do so.
My car keys are on the table in the foyer, my wallet right beside them.
She could have even used my phone if she wanted to.
But with all the freedom she had while I was knocked out from exhaustion, she preferred to spend her time slaying all the demons that hurt me in the past.
Before she says anything else, I’m on her, one hand at her waist, the other on her chin, and say, “I love you, Annamaria Donato. With all my heart. I love you.”
I don’t give her the chance to respond, because my lips are already on hers, pulling her into my arms.
If there were any doubts that Anna loved me, they’re gone now. Eviscerated along with those fucking pictures.
I am loved. More than I ever thought possible. Because my Anna loves me.