14. Lydia
LYDIA
The bruise Frank left on my cheek has settled into a dull throb by the time I hear Nico’s footsteps in the hall.
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed with my knees pulled up. Giorgia drew a bath an hour ago, but the water's gone cold and untouched in the next room. I couldn't bring myself to get in and look at myself in the mirror.
I've done enough of that for one day.
The dress hangs on the back of my door, and I can't make myself look away.
The red bleeds through the gap in the zipper. It’s a marvel that the seamstress at the boutique managed to finish it by end of day as promised after Nico and I left.
And it is beautiful.
I thought it would be my weapon and that I'd show up to his church in front of his whole world wearing something obscene, and for once it would be him standing still and off-balance.
But like with everything else, Nico took the thing I built to humiliate him and made it his.
And the part that I still can’t get over is just how good he made me feel as he whispered how he’ll hurt people for me. Guilt and shame unfurl in my heart every time I replay those words.
So that I can identify every man who dares to look at you. And know exactly who to bury after.
That’s the truth, isn’t it? I want him to hurt people and bury people who dare to look at me. I want that as much as I wanted the dress when I started making the outrageous requests in the first place.
Because for what feels like the first time in my life, I had the chance to choose, and some starved little part of me wanted to cry and scream at how good that choice feels.
And I hate that I want more.
What does that say about me?
I pull my knees up tighter.
Nico’s footsteps stop outside my door. There's a long enough pause that I start to think he might turn around and leave.
Then the lock turns, and Nico steps inside.
He's changed into a plain black shirt with the sleeves pushed up his forearms. The blood is long gone from his knuckles, but the skin is still angry and red where they connected with Frank's face. In his hand is a tray of baked ziti.
My stomach grumbles when I see it, but it twists into a knot when I look at his knuckles.
"You didn't eat," he says. "So I figured I'd bring you something."
"I'm fine."
"You're not," he says without the usual bite in his voice, which is somehow worse.
He crosses the room slowly, sets the ziti by my nightstand, before he retreats to a chair by the cold fireplace–far enough away that I don't have to brace for him. Then, he leans forward, elbows on his knees, and looks at me.
“Anastasio told me your mother used to make this for you,” he says. “So I thought I’d take the chance to cook one too.”
“You know how to cook?” I ask quietly. “Didn’t expect that from you.”
“My mother taught me when I was a child.”
There’s an unmistakable sadness in his voice. It sounds so damn familiar that I just sit there staring at him for a long time, not sure how to respond other than to pick up the spoon and scoop up a mouthful.
The tomato is cooked down dark. The edge of the cheese is baked past golden into a burnt brown. The basil is laid out unevenly.
Everything about it looks heavy and homely.
Even though it’s not hers, it reminds me of her humming off-key at the stove, of the welts on her arms and neck that she'd cover with the wrong shade of concealer, and of her soft voice telling me to set the table, baby, go on.
And just like that the guilt comes up so fast and so hard I almost choke.
I’m sitting in a room with fifteen-foot ceilings while mom is god knows where. The only thing I have telling me that she’s still alive is Frank’s words. I flew across an ocean to save her, and two days later, I’m no closer to her than I was at seventeen with a duffel bag and a broken promise.
The food turns to ash in my mouth, and I want to spit it out along with my guilt.
But I force myself to swallow it anyways.
It feels like the least I can do, but it doesn’t make the betrayal taste any less bitter in my mouth.
“What else did your mom teach you?”
“She taught me to sing,” he says as he watches me nibble. “She taught me to draw. She taught me all the things at night, and then my father would beat them out of me by morning.”
Mom did the same with me. We only ever spent time with each other at night, either when Frank was working nights or after he went to bed.
"Anastasio tells me that that cop called you his daughter at the restaurant," Nico says quietly. “You never told me your father was in the OCCB."
Anger rushes up at me at the thought of anyone mistaking Frank for my father. As if he fucking earned that title. As if it were his shoes that I threw over the power lines all those years ago.
“He’s not my father,” I reply bitterly. “He's my stepfather."
Nico goes still. His amber eyes don't leave my face. "How?"
"What’s there to know?" I stab at the ziti. "His name is Frank Carpenter. He married my mom when I was fourteen, three years after my dad died."
Even saying his name makes it feel like I’m swallowing battery acid. I look away at the open window, and I swear I can hear mom’s sobbing in the bathroom again.
I expect Nico to push for more. To lean in and grab and demand until I give him the whole damn thing. That's the only way I've seen him operate—take, take, take, until the world rearranges itself around what he wants.
Which makes it all the more surprising that he doesn’t move from the chair.
"What did he do to her?" he asks.
And maybe it's because he's not crowding me. Maybe it's because I am so tired of holding all of it inside my own ribs that the seams are starting to give. Or maybe it's just because, for once, Nico’s letting me speak instead of speaking for me.
But against every instinct I have, against the little voice screaming at me to keep my mouth shut, I keep going.
"He hurt her." My voice drops to almost nothing. "For years and years."
The next part jams in my throat, and I can’t push those awful memories back down fast enough before a choked noise comes rushing out. Tears sting against the back of my nose, and I wipe angrily at my eyes.
Nico’s jaw is tight. There's a muscle ticking under the scar, and his hands are steepled together between his knees. Whatever he's feeling, he's holding it on a short leash, same as me. I get the strange sense that he’s doing all of that for my benefit.
“Where is your mother now?” I ask as I try to deflect.
“Capri,” he says quietly. “Where father could never reach her because her family swore they’d kill him if they ever saw him there.”
“And when was the last time you saw her?”
He inclines his head towards the picture frame on the nightstand. “When we took that photo. I was eleven, and that was the day she told me she never wanted to see me again.”
The spoon stops mid-air. “Why?”
He closes his eyes, and a sad smile plays across his face. “That’s a story for another time, piccola.”
For a moment, Nico and I exist not as captor and captive, but as two children who watched our mothers move through the only hours of a day that belonged to them.
I nod, and take another small bite.
"You came back to help her get away from him, didn’t you?” Now it’s his turn to deflect.
"Yes," I whisper.
For the first time in seven years, I allow that admission to scrape its way out of my throat. Guilt and hurt mix together in an awful blend through that single word.
“She told me to be brave the last time I saw her.” The words start pouring out now, and I can’t stop myself even if I want to. “She told me to walk away and never come back. And I have for seven years…”
The spoon clatters to the ground. I don’t bother picking it back up. I don’t feel hungry anymore.
“But then she told you she needed help.”
I grind the heel of my hands against my eyes, my voice rising high and tight with emotion. “Can you bear to see your mom suffer at the hands of a monster and do nothing?”
It’s not a fair question to ask because I know what his answer is. But I ask it anyways, because it’s the easiest way I know that I might get him to stop talking about this.
I don’t hear Nico getting up out of the chair, but I feel his weight pressing down the mattress beside me, and I feel the warmth of his arm draping over me like a comforting blanket.
“No, piccola,” he whispers. “I couldn’t.”
For the first time since I arrived here, he doesn’t tower over me. Instead, all he does is hold me close to him while my tears fall–fast and guilty–down my eyes. He reaches out to gently thumb them away, and I turn to cling to him, fingers digging into the comforting expanse of his chest.
He reaches out and covers my hand in his while I cry, palm warm and rough and careful around mine.
I should pull away. I tell myself that I'm going to.
But I don't.
"Lydia." His voice rumbles under my face.
This time, there’s no edge of mockery in his voice. This time, for the first time, it feels like he actually might give a damn about me. And so I cling onto him tighter and bury my face in his chest.
For seven years, I’ve known that there was nobody coming. That the promise I made on the way out the door at seventeen was mine alone to keep or break, and that I was breaking it a little more with every year I stayed away.
I built my whole life around the idea that no one was ever going to help me carry it.
And now here's a man with blood barely scrubbed from his knuckles, holding my hand and telling me he'll do the thing I've sworn to do by myself.
“I’m going to help you.” He whispers into the top of my hair. “I’m going to help her.”
I want to believe him. God help me, I want to believe it so badly that it scares me.
But wanting someone to help you is how Frank got to Mom. She opened a door with that want, and look at the monster that walked through it.
"You're a liar by trade, Nico."
"Not to you." His eyes find mine.
The awful thing is that I believe him. Not because I'm na?ve but because there's a seriousness in his eyes that I've only seen in the last photo he’d ever taken with his mother.
He’s looking at me with that same seriousness right now.
“And what will the price of your help be?” I can’t help but ask. “What will it cost me?”
“It costs nothing, piccola,” he says. “Because you’re my wife. I told you on the day I married you. There are privileges to being a Don’s wife. This is one of them.”
“And when Frank wins his fight against you because he’s in the OCCB. What then?”
“He won’t win, piccola,” Nico says.
“How do you know?”
“Because I already won.” He cradles my face in his hands. “I have you, and he doesn’t.”
Then he leans in, slow enough that I could stop it. Slow enough that I have time to think about all the reasons I shouldn't.
And I don’t do a damn thing to stop him as I dismiss every single reason.
His lips press against mine and the kiss is nothing like any of the other kisses we’ve had. There’s none of the struggle for dominance I’ve come to expect from him. None of the challenge that’s daring me to fight back.
This kiss is soft. It’s quiet. His mouth moves over mine like he's signing his heart and his name to me. I smell salt and driftwood as he deepens the kiss, and taste the faint warmth of the scotch on his lips.
If I close my eyes for long enough, I can almost pretend like he cares about me enough to actually mean everything he says and not just because I’m a convenient way for him to silence a threat to his power.
But then again, he did stop Frank from taking me away today. Maybe that’s enough for now, and maybe that’s enough for me to believe that he might actually do what he means.
Maybe he’ll be able to help me save my mom, just as I can help him secure his position.
So, I kiss him back, and for the length of one breath I let myself imagine that this man actually means every word and has meant every word that he’s ever said.
When he pulls away, his forehead rests against mine, and neither of us says anything for a long moment.
"Get some sleep, piccola," he murmurs at last, and presses a soft gentle kiss to my forehead. “And let me know if you want another ziti.”