25. Sicily #3
“You people—” My voice cracked, almost sobbing again. “You’re sick in the head. Let me go home, I want to go home right now, I want Milan!”
“I know, I’m so fucking sorry, Sicily,” he said, his voice genuinely sincere. “I’ll get you home no matter what Milan does to us, you have my word.”
My body calmed as he stroked the back of my head, and I wondered if it was because of how similar his hands felt to Milan’s.
Big, warm, rough with the evidence of what Hugo Lucca had done to them.
I closed my eyes against his leg, letting my body refuel while it could in case I had to fight again because I would next time, I’d fucking kill them all.
“He said—” I coughed, choking on the roughness the scream had left behind. “He said his therapist told him he was psychotic. Is that why he did all this?”
Brenno paused for a moment, shuffling slightly, and when warmth spread over my body, I realized it was because he’d looped my arms into his thick, heavy jacket.
“Cesare has PTSD and it causes psychotic episodes, but he isn’t psychotic himself.
They aren’t that common anymore, but sometimes he slips, especially if things change around him. ”
I sniffled. “What changed?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
I sat upright, fisting his wrist to steady myself. “Fiorella?”
He held up his hand, and it took me a moment to notice the silver band looped around his ring finger. I frowned, trying to work out what the hell that was because surely, surely, he was not engaged to my little sister.
“No,” I whispered. “You controlling, evil—"
He huffed a laugh, but it almost sounded sad. “I know you’ll hate me for this, and that’s okay, but I love her whether you accept that or not. She saved my life.”
“And you would’ve slit her throat at that party if I hadn’t been there instead! This is literal insanity and she needs to come home.”
Brenno stayed silent, but his hand tightened against his thigh.
Instinctively, I leaned backward as his nostrils flared and his pupils dilated like he wanted to hurt me, but he simply shook his head and said, “If Fiorella wanted to leave, she could; I’m not her jailer, Sicily, but why would she want that?
She’s been living here for weeks, and your parents haven’t contacted her once.
They don’t care, but I do, a lot.” He sighed, but it turned into a chuckle.
“And for the record, I wouldn’t have hurt either of you at that party.
You just caught me off guard, and I had to make an excuse. Sorry.”
“An excuse?” I spat. “You slit my clothes and threatened my life!”
He shrugged. “I never claimed to be a good man, just one who loves your sister very much.”
I couldn’t deny that Fiorella looked happy and Brenno sounded genuine, but Cesare had also sounded like a functioning member of society, so I wasn’t that trusting of appearances.
I knew our mother and father hadn’t given Fiore the attention she’d needed, that she’d felt invisible for most of her life, but I’d tried my best, I’d given myself to Milan for her, so how had she still fallen prey to Brenno and Cesare Fera?
“Tell me what happened to her here,” I demanded, but it came out as a small order, a scared one. Images of them brutalizing her until she submitted to them flashed through my eyes and I couldn’t bear it. “If you hurt her—”
“I didn’t hurt her,” he said as though the words pained him. “I also won’t take that story away from her, if she wants to tell—”
I shoved to my feet, exhaustion and frustration and fear weighing me down. “Because you did it, didn’t you? You broke her, you ruined her until she was yours!” I was sobbing now, holding my arms around myself as if it were Milan touching me. “What did you do? Torture her? Abuse her? Rape—”
“Enough!” I startled as he shouted and pushed to his own feet, backing into the corner as he stalked toward me, pointing at himself.
“The only torture that goes on in this house is what goes on up here.” He tapped the side of his head.
“She healed my brain so I didn’t end up like fucking Cesare.
You want the truth? I was raped, Sicily, by my mother when I was fifteen.
She thought I was my father; she didn’t know it was me, and then I killed her, and that sucked the life out of me for ten years until Fiorella came along.
The knife that I threatened you with? She helped me bury it, it’s gone, and I’m not the man who threatened you at the party anymore.
I’m not the man who wanted Milan dead even a few weeks ago.
You may not like it, but Fiore and I need each other, and you need to let her go. ”
For our entire lives, Fiore and I had been the only safe haven we’d had.
Our parents had been checked out, and we’d had to survive the disgusting rumors and society’s expectations for women using only each other.
But now I had Milan who killed the rumors and was changing the rules for girls like us, and she had…
Brenno. Brenno who had been hurt, who had trauma just like Milan.
I didn’t like it, it felt wrong to hand my sister over to this man, but perhaps I was being too cruel by loving Milan through his demons and not allowing Brenno and Cesare to do the same.
I sniffled, the weight of his words pressing into my mind until I blinked up at him and realized what he’d said. “Wait, what?”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“You didn’t kill your mom, Milan did.”
He frowned but shook his head. “No, she raped me and took my knife. I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew, I was awake and walking out of my bedroom. Milan was trying to save her and there was blood everywhere. Adrian was crying—”
“Oh my god,” I whispered, slumping against the wall, my tears burning as they slipped down my cheeks.
Their truths—the truths seared into secrecy by the contract—were different.
How much of what had separated them was actually true?