Chapter 28
Sebastian
Gianna stares at me expectantly. We had put away the food and moved back to the living room, across from each other on the couch. Both of us ignore the tension being so close to the chair and ottoman, a reminder of what had just passed a few hours before.
“I promised not to leave you, Sebastian.” She sighs, crossing her arms across her chest as she leans against the armrest. “But we can’t move forward without some truth.”
“I know.” I nod, swallowing and looking away from her. “I haven’t talked about this with anyone else. It’s not easy.”
“Not even Nico?”
I shake my head, dropping my head into my hands and leaning on my knees. “No. Only my father.”
My chest aches, and I clear my throat, straightening up to stare at her. “They call my father The Butcher within our world. Not only because of his torture techniques, but because every wife he’s ever had, he’s killed.”
Gianna’s eyebrows furrow and her fingers dig into her arms. Her eyes are wary as she nods for me to continue with thinned lips.
“Right,” I mutter, exhaling a long breath. “My mother was his first wife. She died in childbirth.”
She inhales sharply. “I’m sorry, Sebastian.”
I shrug, turning away from her. “You can’t miss someone you never knew and was never talked about. I have a journal she wrote me, but it’s words on paper.”
My chest aches thinking about the next part of what I have to tell her, it isn’t something anyone could hear lightly. I close my eyes and shake my head. “My father… He’s not a bad man. He’s told me he’s never bothered to fix his reputation because it protected me.”
I stop bouncing my knee, and my hands are twisted together as I squeeze them tightly. “My mother was his first wife. He quickly remarried before I was two, and my stepmother got pregnant when I was three.”
I could feel her shifting to move closer to me, her thigh resting against mine. Her hand comes up and strokes the back of my head. “Sebastian…”
The softness in her tone tells me she’s already jumped to the worst of conclusions.
I laugh softly, considering the truth is worse than that.
“My brother…” I clear my throat at the crack.
“I was twelve when we figured out what she was doing to him. To her own child.” My stomach clenches and I look at her.
“Never to me, but it didn’t matter. I was supposed to protect him. ”
She shakes her head, scooting closer. “No—”
“The night my father caught her… I can still hear his yelling and her shouting. My father’s guard kept me locked in my room, but over the years I’ve pieced together what happened.
She kept a loaded gun near the bed. My brother didn’t know any better, he grabbed it and aimed it at our father. He was just protecting his mom.”
Gianna squeezes her eyes shut. “Jesus.”
“Yeah,” I agree softly. “She grabbed it from him in a rush to shoot my father, but the gun went off. We’re told my brother was killed immediately.”
We sit there in silence. The worst part is I can barely remember my little brother.
His face, his voice, and his laugh are all muddled.
Even if I look at the few photos that my father kept, it’s hard to recall anything about him.
We didn’t even have a headstone to visit him.
My father burned everything to do with that house, including the bodies that were left that night.
“And your stepmother?”
I grimace. “My father took care of her for most of the night.”
Gianna gasps. “And you heard it? You were a child yourself.”
“That wasn’t uncommon for our world,” I mutter, glancing at her tear-soaked face. “My father gave me a choice at sixteen, but he never shielded me from anything. You and your brother lucked out in that sense.”
Her jaw tightens, and I know she’s about to argue with me again, so I grab her hand, squeezing it.
“His third wife is who really put the nail in the coffin of his reputation. We had moved to America after my brother’s death, helped shape Chicago into the power city it is, and I busied myself with school, sports, and girls.
” I throw her a smirk that she rolls her eyes at.
“I knew that I didn’t want to be on the criminal side of my father’s business. I was a teenager and had already lost so many friends to it. The amount of death I had seen was unfathomable. So when my father remarried, the nasty gold digger was determined to create the perfect heir for him.”
I laugh when I think about Meredith and her schemes.
“I’ll give her some credit. She was smart.
She played everyone like they were puppets, dancing to her tune.
The problem is my father had gotten a vasectomy after my brother’s death.
I think a part of him was glad I was coming of age to marry and have kids.
I don’t think he wanted to feel the death of another child. ”
“She didn’t know he couldn’t have kids?” Gianna asks, and I shake my head.
“No, she didn’t at first.” I give her a small smile. “When I was eighteen, she made the mistake of trying to seduce me to get her pregnant. She figured a DNA test would be close enough.”
“Oh, god.” Gianna flinches.
“Yeah, you can see where my father’s thinking went.”
“He thought history was repeating itself,” Gianna says. She moves to crawl into my lap and I welcome her, sitting against the cushions as she settles her legs on the outside of mine. Her hands come up to cup my face and she kisses me softly. “I’m assuming he protected you.”
“Very publicly,” I add, squeezing her ass and moving her warm center closer to my hardening dick.
“So that’s three wives dead in eighteen years…” Gianna watches me thoughtfully. “But one was natural causes and the other two were done out of protection. This may be bad to say, but I don’t see the problem.”
I hum. “The thing about rumors is that they can spin out of control. Some people think he killed my mother to keep his heir uncontested. And no one knows what happened with my brother. They don’t know why he killed his other two wives because we refuse to let that information come to light.”
“And his current wife?” she asks.
Shrugging, I move my hand up her back and wrap it around the nape of her neck. “She’s a quiet little mouse. She doesn’t cause any trouble.”
Gianna kisses my lips when I pull her toward me. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m sure it was hard.” She pauses, biting the corner of her mouth. “Why did you think I would leave you over it?”
I stiffen, looking at her in confusion. “You have already threatened before that you will leave me if I can’t love you. Now you understand why I can’t.”
She pulls back, her eyebrows furrowing. “I don’t understand.”
I let go of her and run a tired hand down my face, sighing. “Love is poisonous. Look what it’s done to my family, and look what happened to the only woman my father loved. She died having me.”
Gianna pushes off me to stand, watching me incredulously with an open mouth. “Sebastian…”
We stare at each other silently before she shakes her head and paces in front of the couch, her hands on her hips. My stomach drops as I take in her agitated state.
“Okay, walk me through this again,” she snaps, turning back to me and I tighten my jaw, not wanting to talk about it any longer.
“Your mom dies in childbirth, your brother’s mother was a fucking predator, your stepmother was a gold digger”—Gianna gives a mocking laugh—“and somehow this all has you believing that love is the problem.”
“Gianna—” I start, but she shushes me.
“What happened to your mother was a tragedy, okay? But I bet if you read what she wrote in that journal you swear is just words on a paper, that’s the only example of love from these women.”
I swallow, my throat threatening to close as I think about the little, black leather bound book sitting in the bank.
“Your brother’s mother—” Gianna continues, shaking her head again. “That wasn’t love, Sebastian. That was a sick woman who took advantage of a child. What your father did, though, that’s the love you should focus on. The anger when he found out and how he reacted.”
I look up at her ceiling, unwilling to submit to the water gathering in my eyes.
“The way you felt like you failed at protecting him, that’s love. The way you guys let everyone think the worst of your father to protect your brother’s memory…” Her voice cracks, but I still can’t look at her.
“Gianna—” I try again, my voice barely above a whisper.
“The way your father didn’t hesitate to remove a second woman from your life. It’s terrifying to love someone, but not for the reasons you think.”
Her hands cup my face and tilt my head to her. She looks as crushed as I feel, and my chest aches as I grab her wrists. “Stop,” I beg her.
She shakes her head, moving to sit back on my lap. “Sebastian, I won’t leave you, but I still stand by what I said. I won’t be in a loveless marriage.”
I exhale harshly, grinding my teeth, but she moves a hand over my mouth and smiles at me.
“But… I can be patient. I know you’ll get there one day.
You won’t be afraid to tell me you love me.
You won’t be afraid to tell our children you love them.
I’m going to show you there’s nothing to fear about loving the right people.
” She moves her hand and kisses me softly.
“I’ll be patient because I’ve never loved someone the way I love you. ”
My eyes flutter shut and I relax. “I promise to open my heart to the idea of loving you.”
A soft laugh fans across my face and when I look at her, she’s shaking her head. “And you think I live in denial.”
I pinch her side, moving her closer to me. “Move to London with me. Let’s start over, away from everything.”
Her eyes grow wary, and they shift to my chest before coming back to my face. “From everything?”
“As much as I'm allowed. Christian prefers me on the outside,” I say, trying to convey that she has nothing to worry about. The tattoo we took is protection for everything involved. My father was only granted so much leeway with a son who wasn’t initiated before it made Christian look weak.
The men already questioning his abilities defer to my father and me.
It gives me men at my fingertips for protecting my hopefully growing family.
She swallows. “And my brother?”
My heart sinks for her. “I’m not holding a grudge against him, but I have no pull with the Italians. If he continues to work with the FBI, it’s only a matter of time until they find out, and they will not be as forgiving as I was.”
Gianna nods, the worry still present. “I guess he knew the risks, though.”
I tuck some of her hair behind her ear. “You can still offer him to come with us.”
She squeezes her eyes shut briefly. “I’m not ready to forgive him. He lied my entire life.”
Rubbing my hands down her legs, I press a kiss on her forehead. “I understand why you’re so upset, but to play devil’s advocate, he did everything to try to protect you.”
Air blows out of her nostrils in an amused huff. “If only he could hear how hard you’re defending him, when he spent years tearing apart your name and image in my mind.”
My fingers tangle into her hair and I kiss her roughly. “But look what good it did in the end. No matter the amount of lies he spilled, your heart always knew it belongs to me.”