19. Milan
MILAN
Francesco Carbone had lived in my house for one week, and I had already planned his death twenty-three times. Twenty-two of them were planned to look like an accident. One time, however, I did plan a bloody spectacle.
He sang loudly in the shower at seven in the morning, fed my wife sugary pancakes and even more sickly syrup so she contained the energy of a wild horse every morning, and he was extremely vocal in his sexual activity with my Consigliere multiple times a day.
He then showed up to dinner each night and everyone smiled and sometimes Sicily clapped at his appearance.
Francesco was suboptimal in every regard, but he seemed to make everyone express happiness, and that caused me to be tolerant of him, so much so that I had permitted him to attend Sicily’s request at an outing with us.
My wife had requested both of our presences with a vague destination on her phone map alongside the pink car, and though I would give Sicily everything she ever wanted, I drew the line at the car after the Fiorella Bianchi party debacle.
“Sicily,” I said slowly, keeping one eye on her, one on the map, another hidden eye on the street, and the final on Francesco in the backseat. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere so fun,” she said, smacking her lips together in the mirror and applying something unnecessarily pink and sticky.
I turned the corner as her phone requested I do, frowning at the tall, white building that emerged.
It looked like a mental institution with boarded-up windows, something brown smudged along each seam of the decaying brick, and doors with a significant security issue, considering they were wide open.
Sicily made a sound similar to that of a newborn bird, and I understood that this, paired with the grin on her cheeks, was excitement at this decrepit building.
“What is this?” I asked, trying to neutralize my furrowed brows.
“Come see for yourself.” Francesco launched himself out of the car, scooped my wife into his arms, and slung her, squealing, over his shoulder.
I barely noticed the building I was entering over my sudden deep need to cut off his hands.
“Isn’t it great?” Sicily laughed as Francesco set her down on the barely functioning floor tiles and peered down another corridor before escaping down it.
My brows rose.
It was impossible to consider this unfinished, security disaster ‘great’.
Each interior wall was skinned of wallpaper or paint, though a limited number had half painted gray walls, the floors were cracked with unlaid tiles or dusty with remnants of some attempt at a floorboard, and the windows were hidden with damp cardboard. The lights did not even work.
“Extremely great,” I replied, because Adriano had once told me that when somebody was passionate about something, it was important not to be unkind about it. “What will this be used for?”
Sicily clasped her hands together as she looked at the cobwebbed ceilings with wide eyes that indicated some kind of appreciation. “Well, nothing yet.”
“Nothing?”
“We haven’t bought it, not yet at least. I wanted to get your opinion.”
My chest felt different. An ache did not form there, but it grew incredibly warm and tight.
She valued my opinion, even after everything I had said to hurt her, despite that I was different. She was asking me, waiting for me to speak, trusting me with her mind as she did her body.
I took her hand in mine, pressing it to my heart as I took another look at the building.
If the window coverings were removed, the sunlight would be optimal.
If the flooring was fixed, it would be structurally sound.
With some cleaning and painting, the building would be bright, complete, warm, and visually aesthetic.
The world was rather beautiful through my wife’s eyes.
“I think,” I said with a confirming nod as I pulled her close and kissed her freckled nose. “That it has the potential to be whatever you need it to be.” Just like you. “You should purchase it. You did not need my permission.”
“For my school?” She swallowed roughly like I would suddenly reject this idea.
I had found this demand for change overwhelming at first. I had barely adjusted to my wife, let alone her world-changing, and I had expressed this through harmful words and the desire to lock her ideas away, but now that I was looking at it, at her, there was no doubt in my mind that Sicily Lucca made the planet spin.
She was capable of changing the world, and I experienced the warmth over my body that accompanied the need to lift her up and show her to everyone.
Pride; that was what ordinary people would title that.
My lips twitched into a wide smile. “This is optimal for a school. It is close to our house, and I can bring you food often.”
Tears lined her eyes, but her smile grew. These were the only tears I would allow.
I opened my mouth, but the words did not come again. “I—” I love you. My lungs constricted and I cleared my throat to say instead, “Where is Francesco? I cannot lose him; Adriano seems to have developed love for him, and he would certainly not forgive me for displacing his love.”
Her laugh was the only sound I replayed in my head to brighten my day. “I know.”
I raised a brow. “You do?”
“It was obvious,” she whispered.
Francesco walked through the corridor before I could answer as if we had summoned him. He had finished a phone call with a wide smile on his face. I found his expression pleasant.
“The estate agent can meet us nearby now, if you’ve got time.” He directed the question at me, and I wondered if they did not wish to go on this endeavor without me. I would not interfere, but I most certainly would be looking over any contract my wife signed.
“Indeed.” I guided them to the exit. “Davide’s restaurant is not far away. We can meet there.”
I pulled the door open, smiling at the sound of my wife chattering about paint colors and how she might go about constructing another wall.
She would certainly not be doing that alone, but her enthusiasm was addictive.
As I came to close it behind Francesco, I pulled on the handle to click it shut, and the glass panes shattered around my hand.
Sicily and Francesco gaped for a moment before they both burst into laughter that seemed to make even the shattered glass catch the sunlight.
“Yeah… It needs some work,” Francesco said, tugging on his neck.
“Some?” I echoed, shaking the glass off. “Sicily has an affinity for residing in buildings without adequately locked doors. I will fix it.”
She rose on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to the corner of my lips. “I know you will.”
The estate agent was sitting on a table in the darkest corner of Davide’s restaurant. She was young with dark hair, dressed finely and expensively, but did not appear to fit in well within the casual elegance of my territory.
Francesco led us forward, shaking her hand and then pulling my wife into the forefront and introducing her and the project as hers.
My jaw began to ache, and it took me a moment to understand that I was smiling so widely that it was causing physical pain. I had not smiled this way in years, ten to be precise, but it was only natural that the woman I loved was the one to cause it.
The woman I loved.
Admitting those words, that claim on her, was simple within my own internal systems. All I was capable of doing was loving her; all my brain functioned on was her, but out there, beyond me, the world could take that away.
It could tell me that I did not feel, or that I was defective and could not experience love.
That she was not mine.
“Let’s take a seat and talk through the paperwork,” the agent said with a smile that was as enthusiastic as my own. She flicked open the caps to two tall glass bottles of iced water, pouring a glass from both and handing us one each. “Do you have an idea of when you’d want the keys?”
My brow rose. “I do not believe keys to be necessary; I am able to walk right through the door. It is smashed to pieces.”
Francesco bit his lip beside me before clearing his throat and saying under his breath, “She obviously meant metaphorically.”
“That was not obvious to me,” I replied quietly.
Sicily sipped her water, ignoring us. “As soon as possible, please.”
The agent’s eyes lingered on me for a long, uncomfortable moment before turning to my wife.
It was only when they hit Sicily and softened that I noticed she had been viewing me through her brows as one did in severe anger.
Perhaps she did not understand me as I did not her metaphorical speech.
It was a regular occurrence for people to dislike my social difficulties, but her evident anger toward me seemed extreme for somebody that had said only a few words to me.
The agent smiled as she continued to Sicily, “Have you discussed the cost?”
“The cost?” Sicily swallowed.
“Fifty million dollars for the building.”
She choked and her hand found mine against my thigh. Sicily required reassurance and assistance when it came to finances and legalities, but I did not provide this. She was intelligent and was capable of working out what was required.
“Sorry.” She tugged at her collar. “Could you repeat that?”
I knew that this would be new to her, but I had underestimated the levels of stress this would cause. Sicily was flushed pink, sweating from her temples, her knees shaking in the confines of her tight skirt.
Francesco shot me a glance, and though I was unused to reading people’s emotions by merely a glance, Francesco looked very similar to Adriano, or perhaps it was just that I cared about him enough to look closer.
“You okay, Sicily?” Francesco asked as she stood abruptly, coughing a little.
“Yeah, I just need some air.” She grimaced, stepping toward the front door. “It’s hot in here.”
It was not. The restaurant had the air conditioning units blasting.
I rose with her, but she shook her head, and I sat instantly, not truly understanding why I did not possess my own brain when she gave me an order.
I was Capo dei Capi, but not in my own life and certainly not in hers.