Chapter 24
Clara
Zee loves me.
I repeated those words like a mantra all week, as if repeating it could make it true.
He promised he loves me.
He tried proving it to me. Each minute he wasn’t busy with his patients or Nadia, he was with me. Over me. Inside me. Showing me the ways a man could love a woman. The way he loved me.
He loves me.
No matter how many times I said it, I had to pinch myself, because I couldn’t believe it was real. And that was a real problem.
“No, no! Don’t!” Nadia let out a quiet sigh as, once again, she reached for the nail polish remover so she could help me clean the color I’d left after pinching my arm.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, slumping in my chair.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s not your fault.”
Not your fault.
But it was. It was my brain that couldn’t control my body, that told me to do these horrible things. Already, I’d ruined the paint job on my nails four separate times because I couldn’t sit still, I couldn’t stop scratching and pinching in an effort to ease my anxiety.
Nadia had become my new babysitter while Zeno was away. As if the poor woman wasn’t going through enough right now—fleeing a controlling family, moving to a new country with her son, about to be reunited with the love of her life—she was now saddled with me.
She placed her hand over my wrist, being careful to avoid messing up my nails any more than I already had and ducked her head to try to catch my gaze. “Are the new meds working any better?”
There was no stopping my flinch. I’d had to confess to her just how awful of a person I was when Zee first dropped me off on her doorstep.
I couldn’t help myself; I couldn’t keep from scratching at my neck until I bled.
I’d made my confession to prove to her that I wasn’t a threat to her or her son, with both him and her cousin, Mario, sitting right across the room.
Mario was there now, sitting on the couch while scrolling on his phone. Acting as if he couldn’t hear every word I said.
Nadia set to work cleaning the ruined polish from my thumb and pointer finger, a pretty smile on her lips.
And there I was again, unable to stop myself from saying something I probably shouldn’t say. “So, tomorrow’s the big day, huh?”
While I kept my gaze locked on Nadia, I noticed Mario glance up at me. Nadia’s smile brightened, and she tucked a tendril of her long, black hair behind her ear.
“It is.”
“Are you excited? You get to see the love of your life for the first time since you were a teen.”
Once again, Nadia’s smile grew, and Mario’s eyes darted to me.
“I am. And I’m nervous, too. It’s been… Well. I was pregnant with Michele the last time we saw each other.”
“Oh?” I leaned forward, trying to still my hand as she readied the bottle of polish. “I didn’t realize you’d come back.”
“Once.” She tossed a glance toward Mario, and the man shifted uncomfortably. “We came home for a visit. Mario caught Paulo trying to woo me away.”
“Nadia—”
“It’s true, Mario.” She put the bottle down, placing her hands upon my wrists before shifting to look at him.
“That’s exactly what you said back then.
That Paulo had come to the house to try to get me back.
‘Loveless marriage or not, you’re still pregnant.
’” Nadia shook her head. “The exact words from your mouth.”
“I was just a kid.”
“You were seventeen. The same age I was when Cosimo and Ida forced me back to Italy.”
“I know.” There was pain etched across his face, and I could feel it as if it were stabbing me in the heart. “And I’m still sorry I couldn’t do more.”
“Mario, it’s not your fault.”
“I could have stopped it!”
“You couldn’t have.” Nadia took a deep breath, then said, “You wouldn’t have been any more successful than Zeno was, and he was there.”
“What happened?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
Mario lifted his gaze to the ceiling, then tossed his phone onto the table beside him.
“Do you know what happened to Paulo’s father?” Nadia asked quietly, keeping her gaze on her cousin.
I shook my head, and for once, the desire to itch and scratch and drum my hands upon the counter was gone. “What happened?”
“He and my mother were murdered. It was a group of boys who didn’t like Benito and the control he had over the city. They broke into our home and murdered them both, and then—”
“Nadia.” Mario was beside her before I even realized he’d moved. “You don’t need to do this.”
“But I do.” She forced her teary eyes to meet mine. “They raped me, Clara. They murdered my mother and Benito, and they raped me. And their friends took out three of Benito’s lieutenants and a handful of other Syndicate men and their families, your grandfather and Zeno’s father included.”
Was it possible to feel the blood drain from your own face? I was sure it was.
“Your father was orphaned that night, as were I and many others in the Syndicate.”
“I didn’t know.”
Nadia smiled sadly, then picked up the nail polish once more. While she finished fixing my nails, Mario hovered behind her.
“Did they catch the killers?”
Mario’s eyes flared, I was sure of it. But just as quickly as it happened, that look was gone. He gave a tight smile. “Paulo and his friends hunted every last one of them down.”
“And the remaining lieutenants?”
Head tilted to one side, he narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat and forced my question around it. “How did they feel about Paulo taking over the Syndicate?”
“It was his right.” Lips tight. Face pinched. Eyes flashing the way they had earlier. “He was Benito’s heir. It was his right to take it over.”
Nadia reached for Mario’s arm, giving it a squeeze. “It’s said that Ada Fierro stood up for him when the lieutenants tried to step in.”
“My…” Mario shook his head. “Paulo did what they were too cowardly to do. He’s the one who hunted down those men.
He’s the one who took care of Nadia and Carmen, sent his friends to look out for our mothers and our sisters.
They stayed locked in their saferooms, then complained when they didn’t get the keys to the golden kingdom instead of him. ”
It started again, the scratching at the back of my head. Like some wild creature was trying to get out. Trying to wreak havoc upon the world.
“Were you locked away in a saferoom too?”
Mario’s brow furrowed and his lips tilted toward the floor. “Yes.”
“Mario, you were seven—”
“So was Zeno!” He shook Nadia off his arm. “Zeno was only seven. He’d just watched his father get shot in the face and his mother get shot in the arm, and yet he’s the one who took care of you. He’s the one who tried to keep Father from taking you away.”
“There was no stopping him.”
The three of us jolted at the sound of the new voice.
Of Zeno’s voice.
He stood in the doorway beside a wide-eyed Michele, somber and anguished and more handsome than any man had the right to be.
“Zee!” I was off my bar stool and across the room before Nadia could yell out a warning not to ruin my nails.
But I didn’t care about my nails.
Not when Zeno wrapped me in his arms and held me so tightly against his body. He let me drape my arms around his neck, and he pressed a kiss to my temple before a low chuckle rumbled through his chest. “Did you miss me, kid?”
I couldn’t even speak, any words I wanted to say weren’t forming in my head. Instead, all I saw were visions of him as a child, watching the back of his father’s head explode all over a wall just as Jayden’s had.
Of him watching his father’s body fall limply to the floor.
Of him staring down a murderer when he was nothing more than a kid.
“I’m sorry,” Mario said from behind me, and Zee loosened his grip enough to shake the man’s hand.
“Don’t worry about it. There was nothing either of us could do.”
I turned to find Mario’s head dipped toward the floor, and Mic watching me with a quiet little smirk on his lips. When he realized he was caught, he gestured to Zee with his chin, then shrugged.
“Will you stay for dinner?” Nadia asked, rescuing my hands and looking them over for smudges in the paint.
“Can we, Zee?” I begged, and I couldn’t help but notice his quick glance at Mic.
“Are you up for that?” he asked, his hand sliding down my back to my ass, squeezing like a reminder of what he’d do to me when we got home, biting like a reminder to be good.
I found a smirk to match Michele’s, then slid my own hand down to squeeze Zeno’s ass. “I’d love to.”