48. Vivi
VIVI
It’s easier to focus on facts than feelings. And, despite the exhaustion pulling at my eyelids, I’m not ready to go back to sleep.
Gio is pacing at the foot of my bed.
Doesn’t look up when I ask, “Where is Francesca now?”
“With her mother,” he answers. “Ginevra Pazzi has moved her to a private facility. Both women are living there while Francesca gets the help she needs.”
“And physically, she’s okay? I mean, she didn’t get hurt that day?”
“No, bella, she didn’t. Not like that.”
I sag against the pillows, the relief fleeting. It’s hard to wrap my head around all the lies that’ve been exposed. The damage that’s been done. To me, Gio, Aurora, Francesca, the people we love.
My brain snags on that last word. The emotion that holds so much promise, so much potential for pain. I let it simmer below the surface. I’m not ready to think about it. Not yet.
“How long have I been here?”
Gio glances at me, eyes shuttered. “Two weeks.”
“For a through-and-through gunshot wound?”
“Yes, but you lost a fair amount of blood. And your body was exhausted. After everything that happened, after everything I did…” His throat tightens around a swallow. “After everything you went through, the doctors thought it best to keep you here, let you rest.”
“And you were okay with that, okay with me being off your precious island?” The question surprises me as much as it does Gio. I hadn’t planned on asking it. It just popped out.
He stops pacing, shoving his hands deep into his pockets like it’s the only way to stop himself from reaching for me. “Of course I’m okay with it. You’re not a prisoner, Vivi. I’m so sorry I ever made you feel that way.”
“I’m not a prisoner,” I repeat. “But am I still your wife?”
Gio jerks. The blood drains from his face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you never wanted to marry me. You didn’t even want a wife.
I was a pawn. Part of a plan.” I can feel Gio’s revelations from that last morning on the island rattling in my bones.
“When you said your vows in that church, when you put your ring on my finger, I was nothing more than an object to you. Not a person. Never a partner. And I know you had your reasons. That you were doing what you thought was necessary to protect Aurora. I know that. But knowing that doesn’t erase the rest. And it makes it impossible to believe that anything between us was real.
That what you claim you feel for me is real. ”
Gio stares, then curses, moving faster than I’ve ever seen as he drops to his knees beside my bed. A position of prayer. Of penitence.
He doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t need to. The fervor in his eyes is palpable. A caress on my skin.
“What I feel for you, Vivi, is the realest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
What we have together…” Gio shakes his head, dazed.
“It is true. Deep. Excruciating, if I’m being honest. And so fucking real it makes the rest of the world feel like an illusion.
You are my reality, Vivi. The woman who taught me I have a soul.
A heart. A purpose for living beyond the Family. ”
Gio draws a finger up my braid, following the rope up over my chest and my shoulder until his fingers slip into my hair.
Gently, he draws close until our foreheads touch.
“You are my family. With Aurora. With our baby.” His other hand lands tentatively on my abdomen.
My whole heart clenches. “I’ll never be able to atone for how I brought you into my world, bella, but I hope I can prove to you that you’ve become the center of it. My life. My love.”
His kiss is as sweet as it is fierce. Over too soon.
When Gio pulls away, his eyes are so deep, so dark, I swear there’s no bottom.
No limit to the feelings he’s making so much effort to express.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve tried to control things.
People, situations, feelings. To plan and plot my way around anything emotional or messy or unpredictable.
But I’ve been lying to myself, Vivi. There are so few things in this world I can actually control.
And you, my love, are definitely not one of them. ”
His voice drops, pulling me closer. “Which is how I know I can’t answer your question.
Not the way you want. You’re the only one who can decide if you’re my wife.
But I can say this—whatever else you believe, amore mio, whatever else feels real, you can be absolutely certain that I love you.
I am your husband. And I will be your husband until the day I die. ”
Gio’s confession is seismic, rocking my foundation and sending aftershocks through me, over and over, until I’m so dizzy I have to close my eyes.
When I next open them, Gio is still there, still kneeling by my side. Gaze tracing my face like he’s worried I might disappear.
I love him.
It’s not a lightning bolt to the head or fireworks in my chest. It’s a quiet truth, one that’s been sneaking up on me gradually, coloring my life in vibrant hues where there used to be only black and white and shades of grey.
I love him.
It’s on the tip of my tongue. I’m about to tell him, but something Gio said is stuck in my head. “Wait—did you say, baby?!”
“Sì, bella.” Gio’s face softens. “You’re pregnant. It’s very, very early—two weeks at most, but the doctors have run the blood tests several times. Each time, your pregnancy hormone levels come back higher. Nothing is guaranteed, not this early. But yes, mia amata,…we’re going to have a baby.”
I’ve been doing a really good job not crying, but when Gio says this, I burst into tears. The next thing I know, Gio is on the bed, has pulled me against his chest, and is holding me close as I fall apart.
When I run out of tears, I’m so drained I can barely keep my head up. “Sorry, sorry,” I mumble into his chest. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Hormones and exhaustion,” Gio says. “And maybe some excitement too?”
“Yes.” My smile is watery. “To all three.”
“So you’re excited, bella? About having our baby?”
I stroke his jaw, tipping his head down until our lips meet. “Yes. I am. It’s what I’ve always wanted. To have a baby, a family, with the man I love.”
We’re so close I swear I feel his heart stop in his chest. I pull him down for another kiss.
Confess. “I love you, Giovanni Marchetti. Your heart, your determination. Your commitment to your family. Your willingness to do whatever is necessary to protect them, us. Your loyalty. Your love for Aurora. There’s no other man I want as my husband.
As the father of my children. Just you.” I grin.
Wide, bright. “Guess you and Ro are stuck with me.”
“Meno male. Thank fucking God.” Then Gio is kissing me until the beeps of the heart monitor go erratic and nurses start rushing in.
My husband is stubborn, dictatorial, but even he understands that in the hospital, he is outranked.
The nurses are scolding him. I’m blushing furiously, and Gio is apologizing in Italian and carefully returning me to my bed as the medical staff check my vitals and readjust all the various tubes and wires attached to me.
Before they leave, the senior nurse barks something at my husband. I don’t know what she says, but as I drift off to sleep, I notice it’s made Gio’s ears turn bright red.
It’s another three days before I’m finally discharged from the hospital.
My arm is in a sling, the bullet wound healing.
My energy levels are still pretty crappy, but the doctors say that could be as much the pregnancy as anything.
Apparently, the first trimester is full of fun symptoms, including exhaustion.
As the helicopter approaches the island, a foreign feeling sneaks up on me. Half happiness, half peacefulness…
I sink deeper against Gio’s side, find the name for it. Contentment.
A sense of rightness, of being home.
Gio, on the other hand, is vibrating with a tension I can’t identify. Elio is in the helo with us, sitting up front with the pilot. The helicopter we’re in is new, high-end, the cabin quiet enough that Gio and I can converse without headsets.
I tap his leg, get his attention. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he assures me. “Just relieved to be getting you back home.”
“Liar.” I sit up, turn so he can’t avoid looking at me. “Are you worried about Vampa?”
Before I left the hospital, Gio told me that his underboss has retired (in the civilian, stay alive way, not the mafia one).
It’s not exactly common in the Family, but Gio and Vampa agreed it needed to be done.
The older man blames himself for what happened with Francesca and Tino.
Even though it was the priest who gave Francesca the code to the cell doors, Vampa can’t forgive himself for the numerous security breaches that happened on his watch.
Or the fact that he was convinced until the very end that I was responsible for Matteo’s death and needed to be handed over to the Pazzis.
I think his reluctance to accept the truth came from a place of protectiveness; his unfailing desire to keep both Gio and Aurora safe.
But Vampa has taken it as a sign that he’s lost his edge.
That his ability to judge people is gone.
When Gio finally had the chance to update Vampa on who poisoned me and why—another failure he took the blame for—the older man decided he was done.
In his mind, he’d failed too many times to continue being Gio’s sottocapo.
Now, the job officially belongs to Elio.
I know Gio has been thinking about his old friend a lot, but when I ask my question, he answers, “No. Vampa is fine. Grumpy, but fine. He’s gone off to his beach cottage and is currently driving local fishermen insane with tips on which flies they need to use to catch the largest sea bass.
He’s going to stay there for a few months, then come back and harass Elio.
Make sure the kid knows how to beat me in a knife fight. ”
“No, no.” I slap his chest with my good arm. “No more knife fights.”
“Yes, amore. More knife fights. It keeps me sharp, in shape. Lethal, as required. And—” he nuzzles against my neck, “keeps my energy levels in check. Otherwise, you, darling wife, would never make it out of bed.”
I arch a brow at him. “And who says that’s a good thing?” I tease a line up his thigh, stopping just short of his groin. “Maybe I like the idea of you keeping me in bed all day…”
Gio’s growl dissolves against my tongue as he kisses me, some of the urgency he’s been working so hard to suppress seeping through. My nails dig into his thigh. He drags my bottom lip between his teeth, sucks.
Arousal explodes between my thighs, and I’m trying to find the right position so I can press my breasts against his chest, get my legs spread across his lap, when Elio gets Gio’s attention.
“Mi scusi, Signore,” he says, monotone. “But we’re in position.”
I pretend that Elio didn’t just see me try to mount my husband and serenely look out the windows. “Position for what?”
Gio adjusts the bulge at his crotch and points out my side of the helo. We’re hovering on one side of the island. I can see the helipad, the gardens, the villa in the distance. But right beneath us, there’s something new.
“Is that a—a dock?” The passing comment Dana made in the hospital about boats comes back in a rush. “Oh my gosh—did you have a dock built on Lisca Bianca?”
“Yes, my love.” Gio indicates where a beautiful power boat is anchored. “The dock. The boat. The captain and the guard who will be on standby twenty-four hours a day. They’re for you.”
“For me?” I turn to him, perplexed.
“Your wedding gift,” he says. Then, voice dropping, “In one way or another, you’ve been held captive your whole life. By your parents, the nuns. Me. That is ending, now. Today.”
He kisses me, sweet but deep. “I love you, bella. More than I thought possible. I want to give you the world, and the chance to live in it. Which means you can’t be stuck here all the time.
Obviously, the helo is at your disposal whenever you want to use it, but the boat makes things easier.
So, if you’re suddenly desperate to visit Dana on the mainland, you can.
Or, if you and Aurora want to take the boat to Milazzo to go shopping, you can.
With the guard, of course. You will always have protection.
But you can leave the island whenever you want, as long as you promise you’ll always come back to me. ”
I’m so overcome it’s hard to talk, but I promise him. “Always. Forever.”
“Bene, bella. It’s time you have some freedom, Vivi. And it’s my job, as your husband, to help make sure you never feel trapped ever again.”