Chapter 55
Camillo Vicari
Calabria, Italy
Beep. Beep. Beep.
My eyelids were heavy, and it took me a moment to open them. It was a struggle to adjust to the bright, harsh light of the room. I felt a throbbing pain in my back that extended to my ribs, but I couldn’t remember what might have caused it.
I tried to move and realized I was tethered to something.
I lifted my head and saw tubes and wires snaking from my body. I was in a hospital, I realized, and reality hit me like a physical blow.
The cliff.
Accorinti.
DAISY!
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. I ripped the electrodes from my chest and forced myself upright, ignoring my muscles’ screams of protest. Someone had shot me, and she… She was at the mercy of my enemy.
I had to get out of there. Now.
“Camillo!”
My eyes snapped toward the sound, and the relief I felt nearly knocked me back down. There, in the doorway, she stood watching me. Her brow was furrowed and that hair I loved so much was pulled into a braid. There was no sign of blood on her, no visible wounds.
The woman I loved was safe and sound.
The woman I loved…
I lunged out of bed and she rushed to meet me. I immediately pulled her into my arms, crushing her against my chest.
“Dolcezza…” I gasped, and the tears finally came, thick and hot. I had almost lost her. “Dolcezza, are you okay?”
Her small, gentle hands rested on the bare skin of my back, and her laughter vibrated against my chest. “That’s what I should be asking you, isn’t it?
” she said. I stepped back just enough to look at her, to see her face up close.
There were still faint marks from her injuries, but they were healing.
I stroked her hair, loosening it from the braid. “I thought I’d lost you, Camillo.”
“How long was I out?” I asked, pulling her back into the safety of my embrace.
That’s where I wanted her. Forever. But wanting wasn’t always enough, and I knew it all too well.
“Over a week. It was… horrible.” She wriggled out of my arms and wiped away a few tears that betrayed her composure. “Lie down. You’re not fully recovered yet.”
Before I could protest, she pushed me down with her small hands and I yielded. I let her cover me and reattach all those monitors to my chest.
She was the only one who mattered, and she was alive. Safe and sound.
I studied her face. The way her eyes were now shadowed with exhaustion.
Only Dio knew how much I would give to keep her here, by my side, forever.
There was nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice to grow old by her side.
But no one simply walked away from The Life.
I would be a mafioso until the day I died, and Daisy was too pure for my world.
“I need to know…” I murmured, exhaustion and desolation weighing heavily on me. “I need to know what he did to you.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and took one of my hands in hers. I realized she was still wearing the Vicari women’s ring, and my heart tightened.
It had always been hers and would remain so. The famiglia Vicari tradition would end in her hand.
“Nothing more than what he showed you on camera,” she admitted, and suddenly her peridot eyes looked away from me, drifting off into the distance. “I killed him, Camillo.” My eyes widened. “I killed them all.”
“What…?” I whispered, unable to comprehend what she was telling me.
“Cissio Accorinti. Antonio Palumbo. The woman… and the children, too. I shot them all.” She paused for a moment, letting out a heavy sigh. “And I don’t regret it one bit.”
I shut my eyes tight. My Mamusia’s voice echoed in my mind: ‘But will she be able to be terrible when necessary?’
I took a deep breath and placed a hand on her waist. “Ti amo, dolcezza.”
To my surprise, she gave me a sharp, sidelong glance. “I just told you I killed three children, Camillo, and you’re professing your love?”
I laughed, my heart racing and the beeping of the monitors filling the room. Ah, my Piccola Furetta.
“Well, I’m not innocent of that crime either.”
She snorted. “You had your reasons. I would have done the same.” She looked at me, dead serious. “I did the same, in a way.”
I sighed and pulled her toward me, feeling her brief resistance before she finally lay down. Her scent of strawberries and chamomile soothed my soul. “My world ended when I realized they had you,” I admitted, running my fingers through her hair. “I’ve never been so afraid in my life.”
She nestled closer against me. “I… I thought it was you… That my time had come.” Her tearful voice broke something inside me, and I held her even tighter.
“No, Dolcezza. No. I wouldn’t be capable of that. I think I never was—that I’ve always been lying to myself…”
She began to cry softly, clinging to me, until she managed to say, “I don’t want a single chapter of my life without you.” That surprised me and shattered me in equal measure. “I want you to be in every one, until the very end.”
I peppered her head with kisses, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. Our parting was inevitable. “I’m sorry, Piccola Furetta, but I’m afraid I cannot grant that wish.”
She sat up as if my words had electrocuted her. I wiped her tears away with my thumb. “What are you talking about, Camillo?”
I smiled, feeling all my pain pour into the gesture.
“It was because of me that Accorinti captured you, and if we hadn’t found you in time, you might not be here anymore,” I confessed, speaking through the lump in my throat.
“This world is too dangerous, and I’m not willing to risk your life again. ”
“I’m not afraid—”
“I know you’re brave. I know you’re willing to face anything, Piccola Furetta. But I’m not,” I admitted, watching her face crumple as she began to sob.
“Camillo, please. Don’t do this. I—”
“Dolcezza. You don’t belong in this world, and the only way I leave it is in a casket.
” I cut her off, my voice trembling with sadness.
I squeezed her hands tightly. “This ring…” I murmured, lifting her left hand slightly.
“It belonged to Rosa Vicari. After her, it was passed down to every woman in my famiglia. It was the first peridot we mined from our lands. It’s not just any ring.
It’s the engagement ring given to the wife of the first Vicari man to wed.
” I clung to what strength I had left, trying not to crumble at her weeping.
Her tears felt like acid on my skin. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer, until our faces were mere inches apart.
“I’d give anything to see your hair turn white, Piccola Furetta.
To rest my cane beside yours and have you at my bedside during my last breath.
But keeping you with me would be the most selfish and cruel thing I could do.
My enemies would always be after you. You’d be the first target.
And you’re the last person I want to lose in this world.
” I gasped, the pain consuming me. “This is the end of our story, dolcezza. But I want you to keep the Vicari ring. One day, when you’re an old woman, look at it and remember me. Remember us.”
Daisy sobbed and wailed, her pain reverberating throughout the room and mingling with the beeping of the monitors, which at that moment echoed the frantic rhythm of my heart.
“I don’t want the ring!” she cried out. “I want you. Please.”
“Unfortunately, dolcezza, that cannot be.”
Daisy might never understand, might never forgive me for this, but I would rather live out the rest of my life missing her than exist in a world where she no longer breathes. I would rather let her go and watch her walk down the aisle toward another man than have to bring flowers to her grave.
A man could say ti amo in many ways. By asking a woman to marry him.
By gifting her a bouquet of flowers. Even by ripping his heart out and offering it to her on a silver platter.
I was letting my woman go, and I didn’t believe I had ever meant a ti amo as deeply as that one.
Perhaps because I had never loved anyone—not even close—as much as I loved Daisy Parker.