23. Sicily
SICILY
I curled my body toward Milan’s side of the bed, my hand snaking over and tapping the mattress gently to find him.
He always got too hot and turned away, but I didn’t mind because it meant he woke up a little, enough to drag me back into the warmest, safest arms. He smelled of sleep and our shampoo, sticky warmth and the last hints of his cologne.
He smelled of him, of us, and that was where I belonged.
But this time, my fingers stayed empty, and I tapped along a barren mattress and a cold pillow.
I shot upright and winced at the scolding hot pain in my head.
These bedsheets were white; these walls were colored in wallpaper that had apple trees and held sconces with yellow light pouring from them; these windows didn’t have my pink curtains.
This bed was empty.
This house wasn’t home.
Milan wasn’t here.
I looked down at myself through blurry eyes. My body was warm from the thick quilt, but a chill flushed through my body as I noticed the clothes I was wearing. A short, silk and lace, silver nightdress, one that I’d seen so many times but had never worn because it was my sister’s.
My…sister’s?
“Hi, Cily.”
A startled gasp left my throat as the white wooden door creaked open slowly, and my little sister stood there looking more grown than I’d ever seen her under our parents’ roof.
She sighed as she closed the door behind her and lowered herself onto the edge of the mattress.
She wore warm clothes, a knitted sweater, jeans and boots, but her face looked tense, her eyes red from lack of sleep or crying, I didn’t know.
What had Cesare done to her and when had he kidnapped her too?
I lunged for her, wrapping her in my arms, but she winced, startling almost, and my rage simmered beneath my skin, ready to pounce when Cesare returned.
I’d kill whoever had made her this timid.
“Are you okay?” I cried, stroking her hair. She smelled sweet, clean, so at least they’d given her a way to bathe and look after herself. “Milan will be coming for us, Fiore, I promise. We just need to do what he wants until then, okay, we need to—”
She pulled away, gulping roughly, taking a stand instead of her seat on the bed. “I’m so sorry about what he did.”
I frowned, blinking at her.
“It’s not his usual behavior. Even Brenno and Bella had no idea he’d do anything like this.” She held a palm to her head, sighing. “We’ll of course take you home as soon as we can.”
We?
I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. Fiorella was at home with Mom and Dad, she wasn’t standing here like this was familiar and calling herself and the Feras a we.
I pulled my knees to my chest, huddling into the corner of the mattress, suddenly feeling like her presence wasn’t truly hers, that it wasn’t safe. “What’s going on, Fiore?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “More than you could understand. I’ll speak to Brenno—”
“Speak to Brenno?” I laughed in disbelief, shaking my head. “Brenno, as in Brenno fucking Fera, my husband’s insane brother? Why are you here, Fiorella, what have they done to you?”
“You’re mad, I get it—”
“Mad? Mad is like you stole my earrings, not that you’re here with the man who drugged and kidnapped me!”
She looked different from the Fiore I’d grown up with. That girl had been a warrior on the outside to cover the soft heart and insecurities she had beneath. This girl with cherry red lips and no ounce of regret on her face had eradicated her, but something about her spirit seemed broken.
Fiorella steeled her spine, standing up straighter as she pursed her lips and challenged, “Mad is also your husband marrying me off without a single care for what I want.”
“He said he’d fix it for you! Why are you defending the Feras?”
This made her look away, like it had deeply bothered her.
I knew that girl, or maybe I didn’t, but the girl who was my sister couldn’t be tamed once she was upset, and I knew there would be no reaching her now. I supposed I had myself to blame for that.
Fiore had always felt too much or too little. She’d always been too noticed or not noticed enough. One day, I hoped she’d find someone who could see her right where she was, but that certainly wasn’t going to happen with the Feras.
“He shouldn’t have to fix it, Sicily. He shouldn’t have taken away my choice in the first place.
” Her voice broke and that was the first time I’d ever heard Fiorella Bianchi break.
A beat of silence passed before she folded her arms, took a deep breath, and said slowly and quietly, “Is he going to fix what he did to them?” Her finger pointed to the door, her lip trembling.
If she knew about the contract, then one of the Feras had become very comfortable with her.
My stomach clenched in some queasy attempt to try and make this all make sense, but all it did was spin my head and squeeze my lungs.
She shook her head and then stepped toward the door, only stopping once the doorway was open. “You can shower, borrow some of my clothes, and come downstairs and we’ll figure this out, okay? Brenno wants to talk to you.”
“Brenno can shove his talking up his ass.”
The sound of laughter reached my shower, and by the time I’d found a clean hoodie and sweatpants that were definitely my sister’s, curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I opened the bedroom door.
The Feras’ house wasn’t even a house; it was a cottage made of white brick, round windows, and mismatched, worn rugs that were warm beneath my feet as I walked through this unexpectedly…safe place.
I walked past the corridor window and noticed how the sun soaked the green yard grass, but also how the earth here was overturned like something had been planted there recently.
Daisies and colorful potted plants freckled the open space, a deep forest surrounded the vast landscape, and a lake ran between the meadows.
Warmth sank into the crevices in the dark wooden floors and photographs of smiles and laughter crammed along all the walls like there wasn’t enough space for them all.
How could the sun shine where the devil lived?
I crept down the stairs, my heart thrumming at what I was beginning to suspect I’d find here.
Nothing.
There was no blood, no shouting, no violence, but instead, jazz music played gently from a speaker, and Brenno Fera, the Capo, was staring at my sister with a grin as she laughed at the youngest brother.
The two of them sat at a long wooden dining table that looked expensive enough to be an antique.
It was domestic.
My sister shouldn’t have been a part of it.
“Sicily, you made it,” Fiore cooed, her smile growing as she noticed me buffering in the doorway.
I wanted to shrink into the floorboards, but all I could do was stand there, wincing at the false happiness circulating around this room. What I really wanted was to go home to my husband, to Adriano and Francesco, where the joy was real and earned.
The laughter that came out of me destroyed every smile in the room. “I’m sorry.” I chuckled, leaning against the doorframe with my arms folded. “This is fucking ridiculous.”
Brenno sighed. “Do you want to take a seat so we can talk?”
“No.” I gestured to the room instead, to my sister, to the illusion of peace this house was bringing. “How did you get Fiore here, hm? Let me guess… You kidnapped her. Method of choice for your family, is it?”
His eyes grew dark, like I’d said something that hit a nerve.
“I would never touch her like that, do not bring accusations like that into my house.” His sudden protective outburst surprised me, enough that my mouth clicked closed as he continued.
“Fiorella came here of her own accord. She showed up in the middle of the goddamned night because your husband decided to make a choice that wasn’t his to make. Sit. Down.”
She’d come here herself? This had been her first place to escape to, and they’d just accepted her, welcomed her even? I wondered what she’d think of him if she knew that he’d gone to that party to slit her throat that day, that he’d almost killed me to get back at Milan.
Fiore pulled out a chair beside her and tapped it, her eyes wide and innocent, practically begging, and I went because this was Fiorella and she had to come home.
She had to.
“Hi, Sicily,” Ezio said shyly as he doodled on the edge of what looked like his schoolbooks.
The fact that this kid was behaving normally and like a kid spooked me; I’d just assumed they trained them in murdering straight out of the womb in this household, but apparently they valued an education for their future Made Man.
The part of me that felt everything Milan did remembered that Ezio was the baby in dungarees who’d sat on the front step while his brothers stabbed their father to death behind him, so I smiled, thinking of what Milan would want me to do, and replied, “Hello.”
“Ez, come on.” Fiorella tapped his page with an exaggerated sigh and a light smirk. “Just hurry up and do it.”
Ezio banged his head against the table until her palm cushioned his skull. “It’s so fucking boring. I already told you all, I don’t need to go to school.”
“Language,” Brenno called from across the room.
I chose to ignore how much he sounded like Milan.
“You do need to go to school. It’s just homework and it’ll take you five minutes,” my sister said as she rolled her eyes, but there was no frustration behind it. She was motherly to this boy, and Brenno was watching them across the room with an adoration that made me want to puke.
He couldn’t have her.
Not him.
Not them.
Ezio screamed at the ceiling for a moment, before picking up his pen and filling out a row of math questions without even seeming to think about them.
“See?” Fiore winked. “Genius.”
“I still need your help,” he mumbled, continuing to complete them without her help.
“No, you don’t.” Brenno chuckled. “You just want Fiore to spend time with you.”
I blinked as the pen flew across the kitchen, smacking the Capo in the back of the head. Ezio glared as he grumbled, “You get her all evening and all night.”