23. Sicily #2
Brenno gave me a pointed look that answered every question I had. It was him that had taken her in and brought her into this family. It was him that had corrupted her mind to believe they were kind or whatever. It was him that was spending his nights with her, and he thought this was a victory.
The heavy sinking feeling drowning my insides told me that I wasn’t going to get her back, but before I could let it consume me, I blurted, “Why here, Fiore?”
She blinked at me, confused, before her gaze settled across the kitchen again on Brenno. They were looking at each other like there was no other place for her, like this was home. “I met Brenno at your wedding,” she said, emotion thick in her voice. “We…talked.”
“Talked?” I spat, shoving away from the table and stabbing my finger at Brenno. “You were the one who fucked her! Out of everyone there, you picked her? You took advantage of her!”
Brenno smashed his fist into the counter, resulting in a loud cracking sound, before running his hand through his hair as his chest panted. “I would never have touched her if she didn’t want me to. I wouldn’t! Watch your tongue, Sicily, or you and I are going to have big fucking problems.”
So what? I wanted to scream, but Brenno held up a finger like he already knew there was a protest to silence. Just as his mouth opened, another tall body walked into the kitchen and my breath hitched sharply in my lungs.
Cesare paused, his eyes flickering between me and Fiore and then to Brenno. “Ah. This could be problematic.”
“Problematic?” Brenno hissed, gesturing to me. “You kidnapped Fiore’s sister and she found her drugged in our spare fucking room!”
His brother nodded slowly, hanging his head down as he held his hands to his hips.
This was insane, he was insane, and if his family were none the wiser to his kidnapping, then he had no morals, nobody anchoring him, and that meant I had to escape quickly before he did anything worse.
“Okay.” Cesare sighed. “Technically, I did do that—”
“Technically?” I snapped, but Fiore put her hand on my leg and squeezed, clearly trying to shut me up.
Was she scared of him too?
“This bitch doesn’t ever shut up, Bren,” he whispered to his brother so loudly I could’ve heard it all the way back in New York. “She threw up like a hundred times in my car as well, but I’ll let that one go if it means Milan voids the contract obviously.”
“Is that why you did this?” Brenno frowned, his head shaking. “Cesare, we didn’t need to kidnap her! You’ve gone too far. We’re risking war with the fucking Cosa Nostra now, for fuck’s sake.”
Risking? No, Milan would obliterate them once he had me back, and if Cesare or Brenno or whoever the fuck touched me, he would destroy the planet just to remove their stain on the earth.
Brenno wasn’t any better than his brother either; just because he hadn’t planned this kidnapping didn’t erase that he’d tried to slit mine and my sister’s throats at the party.
Only Matteo had stopped him, not his nonexistent good conscience.
I didn’t know what my sister saw in him, but I was beginning to believe she didn’t see anything and that they had manipulated her to be here.
“You know what?” I laughed, shoving away from the table. “Fuck this. I’m going home.”
“I don’t think captives can make that choice.” Cesare pouted, narrowing his eyes like his was thinking. “Why would you wanna go back there anyway?”
“To my house?”
He rolled his eyes. “I meant to New York.”
“I live there!” I said with a huff of disbelief. “My husband is there, my parents—”
Cesare kicked his head back and let out a loud laugh. “Your husband who sent us away to be abused and your parents who couldn’t parent your sister? Sounds like fun!”
It was on the tip of my tongue to scream that Milan didn’t send them away, that he was abused and forced too, that he loved them so much, but I couldn’t barter with this insane, delusional man who had psychotic eyes and clearly seemed unbothered by the morals surrounding literal kidnapping.
I rolled my eyes, ignoring him, shaking my head as I stormed from the table, only making it halfway to the door before Cesare leapt up like a panther, like a predator. He closed in on me, not touching me, but keeping me pressed against a glass cabinet with his strong presence.
He stepped closer, his breath ghosting against the shell of my ear. It reminded me of that night at the party, the night that I’d learned exactly who Brenno Fera was. Now, I was learning that clearly, his brother wasn’t much different.
“Listen to me very carefully.” He sneered.
“Milan will destroy that contract in exchange for your life, and I will take everything he has, everything that my brothers deserve, everything that was taken from me and my wife.” Cesare’s hands smoothed down the collar of his shirt as he backed away to Brenno’s side, smiling widely as if that hadn’t just happened.
“Have you heard from Bells yet? She should be home by now.”
“No, not yet,” I heard him reply quietly.
A knowing sank in my stomach, one that I didn’t want to have, and by the way Brenno turned, and his eyes narrowed on me from across the room, he knew it too.
“Don’t you have her location on your phone?” Brenno asked calmly, clapping a hand to Cesare’s shoulder. “You know what these sonogram scans are like. Takes an age, don’t worry.”
Cesare shook his head. “She got mad when she found out I had it and turned it off.”
“I have hers,” Fiorella interjected, holding her phone out for Brenno as she walked toward them. “Here. She gives it to me so I can meet her at her appointments sometimes.”
He kissed her temple so deeply, so reverently, that I forgot I was looking at a killer and my sister. He drew her into his side, and all I could do was slink into the corner and pray that Bella Fera wasn’t in New York with my husband. He wasn’t so cruel as to kidnap a pregnant girl, was he?
Cesare took one glance at the screen and immediately turned on his heel, his dark eyes sinking into slits as he stared at me. “Where the fuck is she?”
“You kidnapped me,” I countered. “How the hell would I know?”
His hand darted forward, snatching my airway between his fingers. He squeezed until I spluttered and clawed at his hand, and even then, he didn’t let up. My vision swam in black stars, flickering in and out of consciousness as his fist shook with how hard he crushed me.
“Tell me where the fuck my wife is!” he panted, slamming my skull against the cupboard over and over. “I’ll skin you alive if she or my baby are hurt, I’ll—”
“Cesare, enough!” Fiorella shouted, real, living terror in her cry.
She jumped toward us, trying to yank at his shoulder, but Cesare was more than twice her size and didn’t so much as falter, let alone remove his bruising fingers from my throat.
He turned his eyes away from me to fixate on my sister like she, too, was at fault here, snarling, “Remember where your loyalties lie, Bianchi.”
Our name sounded like poison on his tongue.
My sister stared at him, her face pale, her lips parted slightly like she wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words. Perhaps it was fear that stopped her, or maybe she was just coming to the understanding that the Feras weren’t the people she thought they were.
“Cesare,” Brenno growled, but it made no difference, nothing did, not until Fiorella’s small hand shot out and gripped his wrist where it was still wrapped around my windpipe.
“Look at me,” she demanded, her voice trembling, and to my surprise, he did, loosening his hand enough for my eyes to stop spotting.
“I think you’re not well again, Cesare. This isn’t you.
This isn’t the man that Bella loves. This isn’t the man who’s been holding me together!
Let me help you, okay? We’ll talk about it like we did last time. ”
I frowned at that, so did Cesare, but it didn’t feel like in the same way I did.
I was confused, but what Fiorella said had reached him somewhere deep inside.
The color returned to his eyes and he blinked at her, letting go of my throat.
Air and life flooded into my throat and I choked on it, forgetting how to breathe as it forced me to slump forward, almost into where Fiore had taken Cesare into her arms.
My lungs burned, but my heart burned hotter.
My sister had betrayed me for these people, for the people who were trying to hurt my husband, the people who had hurt me, and she clearly thought she loved them.
She was choosing them over me.
“Are you okay?” she whispered to me over Cesare’s shoulder where he was murmuring nonsense into her neck like a fucking madman.