7. Sicily #2
“That is not protecting me,” I tried to say firmly, but the words came out strangled and soaked in my tears.
I chanced one more glance at the blood, torturing myself as though this was my fault and not his.
“That’s—that’s—” Evil, I wanted to say, but I swayed a little too hard, and my eyes blurred in and out of focus until I felt myself topple, and my eyes didn’t refocus again.
There was a dull ache in my palm, a sharp pounding in my head, and the grinding of wheels against the road when I came to.
I lifted my neck with a groan, only to flop back down onto something leather when it was too heavy.
When I did manage to blink awake, I looked down at my body splayed out across the dark leather seats, at my bloodied wedding dress, at the world passing by the window—I was in a car.
I bolted upright with a gasp, using the front seats to yank my numb limbs upright.
Was I being kidnapped by the assassins who had come for me?
“Easy, easy.” Adriano twisted in his front seat, his face not as worried as it had been at the church. “You okay?”
I blinked, unsure if that was a real question. We had just been attacked. Milan tortured a guy to death, had a mental breakdown, and he was asking me if I was okay?
That was a firm fuck no.
My throbbing wound had been wrapped in another tie. It wasn’t as blood-soaked as Matteo’s had been, so the bleeding had slowed, but it was aching and sticking to the fabric still. It needed stitches, but I doubted Milan would want to explain what had happened to a hospital.
“Am I dead?” I groaned, clutching my temples. “Is this hell?” I half-hoped I had died so I didn’t have to be caged inside Milan’s torture dungeon house for the rest of my life.
“If you were deceased, you would not be speaking.” It was the same, monotone, lifeless tone that Milan had used before the attack, but now he was just driving like nothing at all had happened, like the lights of the street weren’t illuminating the blood caked on his shirt.
“Adriano would also not be in hell, so be rest assured, this is reality.”
Adriano wouldn’t be in hell, he’d said. Did that mean he would be?
I jolted between the two front seats as Milan sharply turned a corner, pulling up a steep driveway that probably warded off burglaries just from the sheer vertical height of it.
It was too dark to see all of the details, but I could make out neatly trimmed green trees and bushes lining the street behind two guards manning a tall steel gate.
They each nodded once at Milan before the gate unlocked, and I couldn’t help but gape at the estate that stood proudly before me.
The house was white stone with large, oval windows and doors with an even whiter, purer frame.
The circular driveway was clean, not a single leaf touching it.
It felt more like a castle than a house.
Warm golden light poured from every window and door, and it made me breathe, made me calm, made this suddenly feel like more of a home than Dad’s gray manor had ever been.
How did the Milan who had just tortured a guy to death live somewhere like this?
“This is your house?” I whispered more to myself than Milan as the car came to a stop, and I followed the two out on still-unstable legs. “Jesus Christ.”
“Yes.” Milan sighed. “Your assessment of my home is unnecessary.”
Adriano chuckled as he gestured for me to follow them toward the front door, and I did, telling myself that it wasn’t because I wanted to, but because I had to, was forced to even.
I was tired in a bone-deep kind of way. Physically, only my hand hurt. Mentally, if one more thought entered my brain, I would collapse. Still, I followed and allowed that one more thought as I passed through the threshold to Milan’s home.
It was empty.
Utterly void of furniture and life, simply stretches of plain white marble and nothing else.
Adriano closed the door behind me, and as if he could read my mind, he whispered, “We’re still moving in, and I’m still in the process of trying to convince Milan that decoration is nice.”
Milan threw his keys onto a nearby cardboard box that was still taped up and didn’t give either of us another look as he escaped down the hall.
The only words he left us with were “take your shoes off” and then he was gone, tearing at the top buttons on his bloodied shirt as he ascended the spiral staircase three steps at a time.
I guessed that meant we weren’t going to talk about the attack, or what had happened to him when he’d seen the blood on his hands. There was so much I had to ask him, though I wasn’t sure how I would ask, or if he would even answer me.
My husband was an ass, but was it more than that?
“Come.” Adriano sighed, moving toward the staircase. “Let me show you your wing.”
The rest of the house was just as empty—so empty that my shoes echoed against the marble as I followed silently. There were no photos on the hallway walls, no plants in corners, no curtains or drapes over the wide circular windows.
He pointed at a wide, ornate archway with floral crowning as we passed by the first floor. “Kitchen. There isn’t one in any of the wings, so you’ll have to share with us.”
I hadn’t expected to have a separate bedroom, let alone my own kitchen; at least there weren’t more occasions that I would be pushed away, and they would have to be near me, whether they liked me or not.
“The kitchen’s on the first floor? What’s the rest of the downstairs for then?” I asked.
“Business, the garage too. Milan and I have offices downstairs. I’d stay out of there unless you want to use the pool, then you’ll have to pass our doors.” Adriano shrugged, stilling for a moment before finishing, “Just don’t go in Milan’s office is what I’m trying to say.”
“I guess that ruins my thoroughly thought-out plans of breaking into it then. However will I occupy my time?”
He laughed under his breath, shaking his head as we continued.
I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a living room beside the kitchen, judging by the couch and the TV.
I almost commented something snarky about Milan permitting a TV the size of Jupiter in his house, but Adriano was already pausing before a set of glass double doors that seemed to lead into an even brighter corridor.
“Milan and I share a wing,” Adriano said, flinging his fingers toward said wing.
My cheeks grew hot.
“Jesus, Sicily, we sleep in separate bedrooms. Don’t look at me like I’ve just said I fuck your husband every night.”
My mouth fell open. “I didn’t—”
“If you need Milan, he’s on the right. I’m on the left. Don’t get us confused. Please.”
And then we were moving on, up to another floor entirely. This one was dark, like it had remained unused for some time, but when Adriano turned the glass chandelier lights on, the landing revealed everything, including its colorful, mismatched furniture.
This wasn’t a hallway, it wasn’t a wing of the house, it was a full home.
The sitting room had deep green walls, one navy blue couch with yellow cushions, and another orange couch with pink cushions.
There was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf stacked with a variety of books, a small white desk with a pink laptop and a fluffy matching rug beneath, and dusky blue drapes framing the sight of a distant pond to finish it all off.
Tears filled my eyes as I held my breath and tried to focus on just one beautiful aspect of the space, but it was impossible. I had never seen this much color, never been allowed to live within this much life. I choked quietly as I whispered to Adriano, “You have good taste.”
He huffed a laugh. “I didn’t do this.”
Adriano didn’t say it outright, but he implied that Milan had done this, that perhaps he’d decorated a space for me and not the rest of his own house, that he’d bought a clean space only to sully it with colors that he thought I might like, just like he’d predicted that I’d love the colors on my ring.
Milan was the biggest contradiction, and I didn’t know what this violent muddle of hatred, confusion, and softness was, but I knew I felt it all for him.
And I hated that.
I loved that I hated that.
Thankfully, Adriano nodded toward the dark corridor before I could contemplate that all night.
I followed him, staring at the colorful couches until they were entirely out of sight.
He tapped on the first door, labeling it ‘the bathtub’, the second one ‘the bathroom’, and then he opened the last door, and I couldn’t control my gasp.
It was so much more than a bedroom. It was a creative masterpiece with floral bedsheets atop a bed so large it could fit six of me, tall ceilings adorned with art in mismatched frames, some gold, some silver, some simply glass, and windows towering two stories high with a balcony overlooking the pool and gardens.
In a daze, I ran my fingers over the soft sheets, wondering if this was real, or rather, what parts of it I wanted to be real.
“Our doctor will be in to stitch up your hand, and then you can get some sleep,” Adriano said with a shy smile, forced this time.
“As shitty as things were today, you still have places to be tomorrow, so I suggest you get up on the early side so we can talk about it. I doubt you’d want to hear it from Milan; I certainly wouldn’t. ”
He turned to leave, but I stopped him as I said, “Adriano?”
The Consigliere didn’t turn but twisted his head over his shoulder and raised a brow.
“Are we not going to talk about what just happened?” I hated feeling weak, like I was fulfilling the reputation that men put on women, but I couldn’t control the prickle of tears in my eyes.
“I mean, we just got attacked at our wedding, and he—” I couldn’t say the words again, couldn’t make my brain relive the sight of the body.
“No.” Adriano shook his head. “This is your life now, Sicily. It’s going to be fucking hard being the Capo dei Capi’s wife, but it’s gonna be even harder being Milan’s wife.”