Chapter 19 #2
“Carina covered for you?” The fact did little to thaw my impression of her. She remained the coldest woman I’d ever met, a woman I doubted possessed a single maternal instinct.
“This has to be a lot to take in.... realizing you’ve married a murderer.” His lips twisted into a wry smile, but his eyes said something different, almost pleading for reassurance.
I slid my hand across his pecs, over his fast heartbeat. “Murderer... no. You were eight, Enzo. Just a frightened boy trying to survive.” I swallowed, nervous to probe further. “Have you killed since?”
He blinked, slow and heavy. “ Si , not by choice, but to protect my family.”
I bit my lower lip, doubt creeping in. “And when you placed your gun to my father’s skull? Who were you protecting then?”
“You… him, all of us.” He groaned and rubbed a palm down his tired face.
“Yes, I’d been angry and used my gun as a last-ditch effort to dissuade you from escaping.
Stupid to hold your father hostage, I admit, but I did everything in my power to make you my wife because the fallout would have been devastating, Gemma. Trust me.”
I did trust him. I’d been around Carina long enough to see how she operated.
If her plan had fallen through, none of us would have walked out of that church alive.
At least he wasn’t capable of killing with so little regard.
“So, you wouldn’t have killed him?” I pushed, even though deep down I knew the answer.
“No, I wouldn’t have.” He smoothed his forehead along mine, a gentle gesture. “I’ve never killed because I wanted to… until Franco. I’m more than tempted to murder Franco.”
Thank God Carina stopped him. I didn’t want Enzo in more danger with these mafioso families for my sake. As for Franco, I’d leave him for God to handle. After all, you reap what you sow. “I know what you did to him, how you brought him here.”
He froze at my side, the sudden stillness radiating danger. “Are you afraid of me?”
I rubbed my cheek over the soft fabric covering his chest, needing his reassurance more than I wanted to admit. “Should I be afraid, Enzo?”
“No.” His large palm cupped me closer to his side, somehow wrapping me in more comfort despite all I just learned. “You never have to fear me. No more than I fear myself.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but he needed prompting. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a darkness in me,” he admitted, his voice rough.
“I look in the mirror and see the man I want to be, a Cammarata, a man of honor. But the life I’ve lived.
.. it’s brought out this… this ferocity.
” He looked away, then back, his eyes burning.
“The other night, when I saw Franco’s mark on you… I wanted, needed , to kill him.”
The intensity in his voice should have frightened me, but strangely, moved me.
His form of protection was dark and twisted, something I should shudder at, but didn’t.
I licked my lips in hopes my words didn’t infuriate him.
“You hurt him for my sake, but vengeance is not yours to give.” A dangerous thing to say to a man like him. But I couldn’t stay silent.
He tilted his head to view me, lines forming between his brows. “You want to exact revenge yourself?”
No, not what I meant. “We all have darkness inside us, Enzo, but it’s up to us to choose the light.” A simple sentiment, but one I believed in with all my heart.
He shook his head, his wavy fringe brushing my forehead. “Not you. You have no darkness in you.”
“We all do,” I insisted, refusing to be placed on a pedestal. “Every human has good and bad tendencies. I simply trust in the light, in my salvation through God.”
A dimple indented his cheek as he shook his head, his gentle way of disagreeing with me. “You’re a good person, with or without your belief in God.”
Why did people always summed redemption down to a scale of good or bad? “Enzo, if I’m hanging from a cliff, seconds away from plunging to my death, would shouting I’m a good person save me?”
He blinked, gaze distant. “No, I guess not.”
“Now you see why I put my faith in God.” A faith he could have too if he just believed. He could be set free from every single pain, giving his burdens over and focus on healing, on rebuilding the man he wanted to be. “Vengeance is God’s alone. Not mine, not yours, not even Carina’s.”
He studied me as though a peculiar creature lay in his arms. To not enact payback no doubt sounded so foreign. “You really are something else, Gemma Cammarata.”
Eager to leave the horrible events behind, I shifted back to the original topic, needing to understand the broken boy beneath the hardened man. “Tell me more about the orphanage?”
His voice turned flat. “Seven years… and we dreaded every minute. The older boys were always looking for trouble, picking on anyone younger. And every year, on my birthday, they’d really lay it on thick.
” He paused, a bitter edge creeping into his tone.
“The nuns would bake a cake… a deliberate taunt disguised as a celebration. We always refused, of course. But the other kids… they’d stuff their faces right in front of us, rubbing it in that we were stuck there another year.
” He clenched his jaw, his voice dropping.
“One year, I almost stabbed a boy. He made Lucio cry, throwing rocks at him, saying our mother didn’t love us.
” He licked his bottom lip, puffing out a disbelieving breath.
“The nuns? They didn’t care. Harsh penalties…
they’d starve us for a day, sometimes more. ”
Tears pricked my eyes, imagining him as a helpless child. The world was such a cruel place. No wonder he insisted on feeding me. He refused to treat me the same as those nuns treated him. “I can’t believe they tormented you… a child.”
“Unfortunately, it got worse.” His voice was low, cold. “I became a bit of a rebel, always causing trouble. The priests who often visited…”
“What?” He’d stilled beneath me, his gaze dark and focused ahead at nothing in particular. “What happened?”
“I don’t know if I should continue… what if this is all too much for you to handle?
” The gentle stroke of his fingers recommenced along my shoulder, and I placed my hand over his, a reassurance.
This had nothing to do with what I could handle, and everything to do with being here for him, letting him have someone to share his burdens. “Tell me, Enzo. Please.”
“They’d chain me to a tree in nothing but my underwear.” He rubbed a hand down his tired face. “I’d be left out all night in the cold.”
My throat closed, and I squinted. I had no words, but I wanted him to know he’d been heard.
His pain mattered. I squeezed his arm. “Did they…” Breathless, I took a moment to compose myself.
“Did they all treat you so horribly? Wasn’t there at least one kind person?
” Please, God, let there have been at least one.
A quick smile graced his face, matching the sudden twinkle in his eyes. “Martina. She was with us in the beginning, but by the time my punishments grew worse, she’d already been traveling back and forth to other convents.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, glad they had one friendly face. “What was she like?”
“Strict, but kind. She’d take Lucio and I out deep into the olive groves to let us practice with guns my mother sent.
As we grew older, she’d revealed she’d changed her name to Martina to hide from the De Lucas.
She didn’t explain the entire story, but told me she helped my mother escape her betrothal to Vito.
Carina assisted her by hiding her in the convent. ”
So Martina hadn’t chosen the church in servitude, she’d used it as her hideout.
Thank God she was there for the boys, someone who understood their dark world, who could sympathize with them.
“A shame she wasn’t around for the entire time.
I wish you had someone. An adult to comfort you, defend you… ”
“If only.” He blinked at the ceiling. “Some nights, when I wasn’t bound by chains, I’d sneak out with the gun we used for practice and just stare out at the moon.
I’d place the gun to my temple and simply breathe…
I had no intention of killing myself, but I just wanted to feel in control…
of something, anything. Holding the gun reminded me I called the shots.
” He brushed his thumb over my chin, the act so gentle, as if handling delicate glass.
“The same feeling of powerlessness came crashing back on our wedding night when you did the same.”
He’d panicked when I threatened myself with a gun, triggered by the ghosts of his past.
“I’m sorry for pushing you to that level of desperation. I in no way intended to force you to do something you didn’t want to do.”
Knowing him the way I did now, I had no doubt he spoke the truth. He wouldn’t hurt me, not like that. “I know, Enzo.” I cleared the tickle in my throat and scooted into a more comfortable position. “So, when did you end up seeing Carina again?”
“Our mother visited twice in those seven years. The second time was all thanks to Martina, who learned of the priests’ mistreatment. She’d tipped my mother off, and Carina came to check on us. I pleaded with her to let us go with her.”
I licked my lips, my heart lodged in my throat. How scary for them both to be stuck there for so long. They were kids, for goodness sake. “And did she?”
He rubbed my hair, and from the way his features relaxed, the act soothed him. “Once I convinced her, she did.”
What price guaranteed his freedom? “Convince her how?”
“I vowed to pay back her enemies. For the first time in years, a light sparkled in her eyes, like my vow rescued her from the damned.” He ceased his strokes and let the strands slip between his fingers.
“That same night, she drove us to the presbytery and made me point out who was involved in tying me. She shot each man in front of us without blinking.”
I didn’t doubt for a second Carina exacted revenge in such a calculating manner. The woman knew no other way of life.
“She insisted we call her Carina, not Mamma. Even though we were back in each other’s lives, she was far from the mother I knew… harder, colder than the woman who raised me. The vow to get back at Elisabetta wasn’t for Carina’s sake alone, but for Lucio and me, too. We wanted our mother back.”
And he agreed to his mother’s diabolical plan for revenge.
He hoped by avenging Carina, she’d morph into a doting mother.
Poor Enzo, poor Lucio. What a horrible fate they’d lived.
And I represented no more than a pawn in this game.
A means to an end. I wanted to tell him he didn’t need his mother to feel loved or wanted, but doubted he’d listen or believe he was worthy.
I stroked his stubble, the rough feel sent a delightful shiver to my senses.
“Celebrate your birthday. Allow the good memories to erase the bad ones. Otherwise, each year you’ll be carted back to those horrible days.
Don’t be caged in the past. Find freedom in the present, so you’ll find peace in the future. ”
He displayed a soft smile. “For your age, you’re a lot wiser than you let on.”
We both snorted a laugh, neither of us shifting from our relaxed positions on the floor.
A strange sense of ease washed over me. The shared weight of his past…
it had shifted something between us. I swallowed, my throat tight.
What did this mean for my plan? The thought of escaping him, of never seeing him again, left a gnawing ache deep in my chest. Did I even want to leave anymore?
Had I grown accustomed to my captor, to this life as Mrs. Cammarata?
Or worse… instead of pretending to have feelings for the man, had I crossed a line I couldn’t come back from?
A line confirming I was no longer in control of my own heart.
Since when had this lie become the truth?