Chapter 4
Xavier
His breaths are short, stunted.
Shallow gasps, each one fainter than the last.
With my jacket gone, tie loosened, I hover over my father, damp clothes clinging to my skin. Bloody sleeves are rolled to my elbows, streaked in carnage. The door’s been struck twice, but no one dares to enter. Not without consent.
Arturo’s eyes actually shake, his gaze far beyond this place.
He’s been near death for over an hour.
The blind rage that possessed my hands has faded in the time I’ve spent watching him struggle to breathe. Darkness is in my blood, in my lineage, but this was beyond that.
My hands tremble, the blade slipping from my stiff fingers, clanging onto the cold slab. Too weak to stand, I hold myself up with the edge of the table.
The longer I watch him fight for oxygen, the more I want to switch places with him.
There was a moment. Just one ear-shattering scream that told me it would be the last he would ever utter and my fluid hands slowed to a stop, my vision clearing the crimson fury I was unleashing .
Like a possessed creature, I resurfaced, horrified by what I’d done.
He deserved it.
Every torturous second.
He waged war upon my body. It was fitting I returned it.
Everything he did to Sophie…
He deserved this end.
As much as I try to justify the horrors I just waged upon the man who made me, there’s a new vacancy inside my chest, a hollowness that wasn’t there before. I'm petrified but frozen, staring down at him, waiting for his last breath.
Just die. Just give up.
He wheezes, his pale mouth parting to inhale. I shake my head, looking away, unable to stand it.
What have you done?
Xavier, what have you done?
“X—”
My eyes close. No.
He tries again. “X?—”
Snatching up the blade in an act of mercy, I slam it into his heart. My name dies upon his lips, his gaze forever locked with the ceiling. I watch his chest cave in gruesomely, his mangled body laid out for me to observe.
I thought I’d feel better.
I thought this would be justice.
But I’ve dragged myself to hell. There’s no going back.
Sinking to my knees, trauma cripples my limbs. A special kind of suffering that can destroy a mind, a body, a soul.
There’s no telling how much time passes before the clearance alarm sounds and the door opens. Enough time for his body to begin to reek. My eyes are stuck on my quivering hands covered in blood. His blood. My father’s blood.
I hear a sharp intake of air at the iron bars.
Hands seize my arms, spinning me around. It’s Bo .
I’m gone. Too far gone. He knows it. I know it.
The guards who heard my father shrieking for hours know it.
Emotion is as difficult for him as it is for me, so when he gives my shoulder a firm grip before his arms eventually drive me to him, I’m not sure how to respond.
For a moment, there’s no correlation between my brain and my body.
I’m shell-shocked, completely frozen despite his embrace, staring at nothing.
Just as easily as I lost my mind, it returns to me.
My arms wind around him. My chest heaves as I lose the war with myself. I break .
Months of torture.
And more before that knowing she was enduring worse.
Everything has led to this moment.
“Bo.” The name rips out of me. “ Bo .”
“This doesn’t define you. You can come back from this.”
My screams tell me I can’t.
“You… You need rest.” The family physician blows out a sharp breath while assessing the damage.
Piero Angioletti has always presented himself as a discreet man equipped to deal with injuries of an unnatural nature.
And yet he’s here, gaping at what’s left of my mutilated body, sputtering his words.
“I’m sure you know this will be a long recovery. ”
My uninterested gaze remains on the drawn curtains.
Bo escorts the Doc out, exuding all the courtesy I fail to summon.
My body is patched up, covered in bandages, but the scars inside are still raw…
bloody… excruciating . There aren’t anesthetics strong enough to dull this ache.
As soon as their voices fade, I'm climbing out of the bed, walking to the closet.
Grabbing a pair of slacks and a black sweater, I dress in silence, hating these walls.
I need to leave .
“Where are you going?”
“I need to see my mother.”
“Visit her tomorrow?—”
I turn to him, my eyes wide enough to reveal that waiting isn’t an option. “Let me go, Bo.”
The lines on his forehead deepen as he blocks my path, lacing his arms over his chest. “You can’t let this break you, man.
You’ve got an empire to run. Hundreds of men from both families, thousands of associates.
Vito was just run out. People are saying he took off to Miami.
His men are also flocking to you as Sophie’s husband. ”
Buckling my belt, ignoring how it hangs, now a size too large, I nod, no fool to this game. “I know what I have to do. I went into this knowing what would be expected.”
He breathes in, transparent in his relief.
Walking to the ottoman, I sit, sliding on polished shoes. “We need to talk about something.”
“What?”
“You aren’t getting a title. Not Dante or Zeke either. Not only would the family never allow it, but I won’t. I will not let you damn yourselves for me.”
“Xavier—”
“No, listen. You guys have kept my head above water since we were kids. When my father pushed me past my limits, you brought me back.”
“It wasn’t just us, X. When Ma died, you did everything for us. The funeral. You watched us drink ourselves to death that night. You helped us out when we had nothing.”
“I gave you money.”
“No, you did more, and you know it. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t brothers. We —me, Bo, Zeke, Sophie —are your family. Not these fuckers all around you. You expect me to sit back while they turn on you? ”
Time drags on as we sear holes through each other, neither one of us willing to concede.
“You saw what I did,” I grind out through clenched teeth.
“You saw how low I’ve fallen. As much as you all have tried, I’m beyond help now.
I’ll be forced to do worse to keep this position, to keep my head on my shoulders.
If you think for a second I’ll let you or Zeke or Dante see that, you’re out of your fucking mind. ”
“Then just get on a plane. Get out of here.”
I stand, turning, hands on my hips. “And go where ?”
“Spain!”
He shouts the word passionately enough that my mouth snaps closed.
My heart . God, it breaks.
“Bo.”
“You would go to Spain.”
My eyes close. Damn him for telling me . “Stop.”
He deflates into a chair, letting me know those words were a burden he’s been struggling to hold. “She chose Madrid. She begged me to tell you. She wants you to follow her.”
Silence consumes the air between us. His words make me want to sprint for the door, board the first plane out. They also make me want to destroy everything in sight.
“Sophie is gone. I sent her away for a reason.” I step to the window, gazing out at the soldiers guarding the gate despite the rain. “Tonight, I became everything she hated.”
“She’d understand.”
No one could understand this. “I thought I had a chance. I ran with her because I tricked myself into thinking I deserved it. The life I imagined? It’s never gonna happen. She would always be tied to what happened to her, to the family if she were with me.”
“That’s not true?—”
“Bo, I have a child. ”
He’s right off that chair in a rush. “ What ?”
“Isabella.” Even uttering the girl’s name unsettles my stomach. “My father knew. She’s Rosie’s kid. Sophie would…”
I don’t even know what Sophie would do, how she’d react. I never imagined children with anyone else.
“Jesus,” Bo says.
I remember a time when my eyes were painfully dry, when tears wouldn’t reproduce. Now, I feel I’ll never stop.
“Everything has changed. She is better off without me, Bo, and you cannot argue that. I know you can’t… not after everything you just saw.”
The door attendant stands to attention when he sees me.
My father owned this building. By now, word has spread that I am the sole heir of his fortune. That this building is now mine and all of his possessions. He bows his head, adjusting his posture, addressing me with the respect that is due to a man who just won an impossible war.
Don Marcello.
I’m bone weary, but I nod to him, knowing more than ever that I have to make these men trust me. Admire me. Fear me. They cannot see weakness. I wait until the elevator doors close before I lean against the railing, just trying to make it.
The wide hallway leading to Arturo Marcello’s Manhattan apartment hasn’t changed, a stretch of red carpet that never seems to end.
Tucking my wife’s wedding ring under my shirt, hanging by a chain on my neck, I acknowledge the soldiers at the doorway as I enter.
My feet pause at the entrance, seeing my past in gleaming technicolor.
The coatroom I confessed my love to Sophie in.
The back rooms I watched my father interrogate men in.
The chair by the windows where my mother would knit mittens for the newborns of the family. Walking to that chair, I see a pair in the basket. Lifting it, I take a strike to the chest, reading the embroidered signature at the bottom.
For when you become a father.
Con tutto il mio cuore,
Mamma
Unable to stand any longer, I drop into the chair, setting down the handmade mittens. I know the exact moment I'm not alone. My eyes lift to the bedroom, finding my mother still wearing her beige minx coat. Her eyes are swollen from crying, but they expand at the sight of me, even in the dark.
She doesn’t say anything right away. Braving a few steps, one foot after the other, she doesn’t come to a complete stop until she enters the living room, observing me closely. Taking in the destruction, sobs begin to roll out of her. She falls to her knees, seizing my shoulders.
“My son !” Her arms aren’t long enough to surround me completely, but she tries.
She grasps at my sweater, pausing only when she senses me tense in pain and resorts to cradling my face, just like she would have done twenty years ago.
Her eyes trace my wounds, her mouth falling open in despair. “Mio figilo!”
I’m bone-weary, but I needed to see her. I needed this. To face someone who doesn’t know what I’m capable of. “I’m okay, Ma. I'm fine.”
“I thought you were never coming back. Your father?—”
“Is dead.”
She stills.
Her body freezes as mine did when I entered this room. I don’t know what to expect. She was conditioned to love him. Perhaps she actually did. On my way over, I prepared myself for her wrath, to be shunned away, even disowned. I hold her wrists, waiting for her disgust.
His ghost exists between us. I know it always will.
She pets my face. “ He did this to you?”
I stare at her, knowing I’ll never share the truth. She wouldn’t be able to handle it. Still, silence speaks volumes.
She crushes her fragile frame to mine, forgetting my injuries. She clings on desperately, and I take it, burying my face in her shoulder, pulling her closer.
“I’m here, Mama. I'm not going anywhere.”