43. Isabella
CHAPTER 43
Isabella
I n the week following our wedding, Lorenzo was busy with Damian and Elio doing whatever errand he hadn’t wanted to talk about with me. Going to bed alone and waking up the same way was starting to weigh on me.
When I climbed into our empty bed for the fourth night in a row, I contemplated going down the hall to Gemma’s room. She and I had been in a better place this week, and even at the worst of things, she hadn’t minded sharing.
But Lorenzo would come home eventually, and he wouldn’t like to find the bed empty. I surrounded myself with pillows and tried to get comfortable; it was getting harder and harder to do. But, surprisingly, sleep tugged at me almost as soon as I laid down my head.
The tile is cold. I’m wet and sticky with something; my nose is clogged with the smell of pennies. “Stop.”
“Fuck.” There’s weight between my shoulder blades, squishing me down. What about the baby? I can’t be on my belly like this; it isn’t safe. But when I try to move, the weight pushes down even more.
I’m shaking, and I realize that my eyes aren’t open. But trying to open them is too hard, and the little bit of light that I could see makes my head feel like it’s splitting in half.
“Just do it, you fucking coward.”
Fear. I can’t breathe and struggling only adds to the weight on my back. “M’baby,” I moan, hoping they will let me shift.
They don’t. Instead, I can feel their hands on my skin. They tug up my shirt, and there’s burning. Digging. I try to scream, but I don’t even have the strength to open my mouth.
“Loren –”
“—Zo!” I jerked.
Arms wrapped around me and pulled me against a firm chest. “ Dolcezza ,” Lorenzo murmured, voice thick with sleep. “I’m here. You’re safe.” He murmured those words over and over again until my breathing returned to normal.
I touched my own face, wiping at the wetness on my cheeks. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
Lorenzo kissed the crown of my hair. “Don’t apologize.” He was more awake now. “Have you been having nightmares again?”
I shook my head. “No,” I assured him. “This was the first one.” Maybe that was why this one was so bad. I had gotten accustomed to restful sleep.
Still, Lorenzo blamed himself; I could tell. “I’m here,” he said again. “You can relax.” It was only words, but I found myself melting into his arms, into the soothing feeling of him breathing.
When I woke up the next morning, Lorenzo hadn’t moved an inch. I was still sprawled across his chest. He was awake, scrolling through emails on his phone. His hand ran soothingly up and down my back. “Lorenzo?”
“Morning, dolcezza ,” he said. “Did you sleep better?”
I rubbed my face against him. “I did,” I mumbled. “I thought you had to be away today.”
“I do, but I pushed it back a bit.”
We got up together, and Lorenzo stayed with me all through our late breakfast. “I set up something fun for you this afternoon,” he said as Damian breezed into the kitchen, which was a sign for him to hurry up. “Amalia has my orders. Just enjoy it and relax.”
“And you’ll come home for dinner tonight?”
“Boss.” Lorenzo gave Damian a hard look. They seemed to have a silent conversation, and Damian sighed. “I’ll try and have him home on time.”
I beamed at him. “Thank you, Damian,” I trilled at him.
“How is the pressure, Mrs. Vitali?” the massage therapist asked. She had set me up for a pregnancy massage while two other therapists were working on Amalia and Gemma. Lorenzo had prepared an at-home spa day for all of us.
“It’s wonderful,” I told her. Pregnancy massages were a little odd because I wasn’t able to lay on my belly, and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I usually preferred, but she knew exactly where to touch me to give me relief.
“Good,” she said. Her voice was soft and soothing, meant to create a tranquil environment. The other two therapists spoke in the same tone: it had to be a learned trait. “If you feel any pain or discomfort, please let me know immediately.”
“I will.”
While I drifted, I listened to the other therapists murmuring equally as soft questions to Amalia and Gemma. Far too soon, it was over, and we transitioned into where they had set up to do our nails.
Our feet were soaking as we flipped through the color options when Gemma asked about Cristian. “How close was he really to becoming a priest?”
“He had less than a year left at the seminary,” Amalia said.
“Wow,” Gemma breathed. “He said he had a crisis of faith. Do either of you know?—?”
“We don’t,” I cut off the question. I wasn’t sure how much Amalia knew, but even if Elio had told her everything, Gemma certainly didn’t need to know. “The only thing he told Lorenzo was that he and his mentor had a falling out.”
Gemma hummed. “That’s so sad,” she said, mostly to herself, even as a smirk grew on her face. “Though, keeping that man locked away in a Church would be a crime.” She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “He’s such a genuine person.”
Amalia and I agreed with her. “I’ve known Cristian my whole life,” Amalia told her. “He’s always been like that, even when we were in school. The other guys ragged on him all the time for being so ‘sensitive.’”
Gemma sighed again, sounding very much like a school girl with a crush. “A Vitali man with substance,” she chuckled.
Amalia’s smile fell off her face. “What the hell does that mean?”
My sister looked at her and outright laughed. “Oh, come on,” she said.
“No.” I had never heard Amalia’s voice so cold before. “Explain to me what you meant.”
Gemma caught on that she had put her foot in my mouth, and instead of apologizing, she went on the defensive. “You’re not going to sit there and tell me that Lorenzo and Elio are good men.”
“You didn’t say anything about ‘good,’” Amalia pointed out. “You said Cris had substance. What does that mean?”
“I’m fairly certain that Cristian has never done anything illegal,” Gemma said, pitching her voice low.
Amalia expression became even more veiled. “You’re happy enough to benefit from Lorenzo doing illegal things,” she said, matching her low tone. Her angry eyes found me. “Are you going to say anything?” she demanded. “She’s insulting both of our husbands.”
“I insulted them too when I first came here,” I pointed out. “She’s still settling in.”
Usually, Amalia would be much more forgiving, but today, she was not having it. She reached for a towel and quickly dried her feet and legs off. “You’re going to have to figure out who’s side you’re on sooner or later,” she said to me.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Amalia’s expression was mutinous. “You can’t run away from what Lorenzo is, no matter how much you may want to. You can’t be innocent and the matriarch of the most powerful family in the goddamn Cosa Nostra. Are you Isabella Rossi, or are you Isabella Vitali?”
She didn’t wait for an answer; she swept out of the room, apologizing to the woman who was coming in to do our nails.
“What is her problem?” Gemma asked with a scoff, flipping through the colors again. “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, right?”
“You didn’t,” I agreed. “Elio and Lorenzo are very different than Cristian.”
“See? I don’t know why she was so?—”
“But Cristian can be that man because Elio and Lorenzo do what they do,” I talked over her. “Cristian should be in the position that Damian has. He should be Lorenzo’s right hand, but instead, he was allowed to walk away from the family business.” I showed my nail technician the color that I wanted. “Thank you,” I said, pasting a smile on my lips.
Gemma did the same with a much sourer look on her face. “I can’t believe you’re defending all of this.”
“Gem, drop it,” I said. “Just enjoy what Lorenzo set up for us, and maybe, you can thank him later.”
There was almost no chance of that actually happening; Gemma looked like I’d shoved something rotten under her nose. I did my best to find a more pleasant avenue for conversation, but the mood was officially ruined. It took everything in me not to sit there and cry because Lorenzo’s gift was spoiled.