26. Milan
MILAN
My knee bobbed until it ached, and then I continued to bounce it up and down as we waited for Cesare.
We were parked in the small, abandoned car park of an old diner midway between our territories.
The decrepit building still stood behind us, though the lights no longer worked and there were plants crawling up the edges.
It was pitch-black, so dark that even the headlights fogged in the shadows, but my vision was optimal because I was looking for her.
I was going to see my wife. I was going to hold my wife. I was going to tell my wife that I loved her because I should have done it a long time ago. I was going to never let my wife go again.
“You okay, love?” Francesco asked Bella beside him in the backseat.
She was bundled in a muddle of his and Adriano’s baggy clothes, her hair damp, and she was wearing no shoes, just the fluffy socks I had purchased for her.
Cesare was not going to believe that I had looked after her, but the smile she gave us was indicative that while she may not have been happy, she and their child had been kept safe despite my nagging to murder her husband.
In a life that was not this one, Bella and Sicily would be friends. Cesare and I would be family. That was all that our mother had wanted on her good days, for us to remain whole and together, but this was impossible, and as long as I had Sicily, I would be complete.
As a second pair of headlights pulled up opposite our car, the weight of my hammering heart became nauseating, and the truth of what I would find on my wife’s body became real.
I turned to face Bella, holding out the black pistol in my hand.
“I will hold this to your head, but I will not shoot you, I promise.” She thrust her pinky finger forward, and I wrapped my own around it until she smiled a smile that indicated her trust. “Adriano and Francesco will have guns pointed at Cesare, but they will not shoot unless he directly decides to harm us or Sicily. Does that make sense?”
She nodded firmly, taking Francesco’s hand as he pulled her from the car before allowing me to take her into my arms outside of my vehicle and to press the gun to her forehead.
I almost dropped it and her at the sight of my wife, who was approaching opposite us.
Sicily was led by Cesare, a long, clean kitchen knife pressed tight against her throat. The same red gashes and bleeding marks covered her face as in the video, but they looked duller now, smudged even. She was walking normally, and she even smiled.
The corners of my lips twitched back, but I did not dare speak, not with the crazed look in my brother’s eyes. They were dark, dilated like he was medicated, and I had seen that look before on our mother’s face; I knew not to do anything to chance this state he was in.
My gaze roamed to the people standing behind him, to Brenno who had Fiorella tightly tucked underneath his arm, to Ezio who was glued to his other side. My sister-in-law’s betrayal stung my chest, but I did not care; I cared for my wife who would never see her sister again.
I had hoped, in part, that Cesare had acted alone in this, that I could spare Brenno’s life, but it was apparent that this had been their plan, that they had worked together.
I had never wanted my brothers to die. I had avoided it, hoping we could reconcile, but Sicily was my future. She was my hope.
“Good evening, Milano,” Brenno shouted across the distance, his eyes fixated on mine. “I apologize about what’s happened here, this was never supposed to happen. Cesare mentioned he had organized this meet-up, so we’re here to exchange the girls. Nobody needs to get hurt.”
“Good evening,” I echoed, clutching Bella gently around the waist, ensuring I did not put pressure on her skull or her body. “How do you wish to proceed?”
“Let Bella walk over here,” Cesare demanded, his words angered and bold.
I shook my head. “Not without Sicily being freed too.”
Cesare kept his focus on his wife, the edges of his face softening slightly when he looked at her. His hand darted into his pocket and it caused Adriano and Francesco to step closer, but he simply released a piece of folded paper, holding it out to me. “You’ll sign this first.”
Brenno and Ezio’s brows furrowed, but I still nodded to Francesco to take it, my heart and breathing becoming problematically out of sync.
Francesco walked forward slowly, showing his hands in ceasefire until he snatched it and returned the paper to my hands.
I only lowered my eyes to read it once Adriano and Francesco’s guns had returned to point at my brothers, and once I had, it felt as though the gun had been shoved against my own head.
They wanted everything.
Everything that I was, everything that I owned, and they wanted me to swear to silence.
They were doing to me what I had been forced to do to them.
“This is not the way, Cesare,” I called out, my head shaking slowly.
I wanted nothing more than to embrace that once kind-hearted boy and remind him of who he was inside, that this was never supposed to be his life, that he was always the one that had reminded us that we had a heart.
“Not the way?” He laughed, but it was dry.
He thrust the knife against Sicily’s throat, her swallow causing the blade to nick her skin.
“It wasn’t the way to give us up, Milan.
It wasn’t the way to forget about us with that man!
” His voice shook with his tears. “I won’t let them come after my wife or my baby, Milano, I won’t let Fiorella be hurt either! ”
“Cesare, Fiorella’s fine. Give Sicily back now,” Brenno said softly, tucking Fiorella closer to his chest as if he needed to believe it too. This surprised me.
“No!” Cesare yelled, causing more blood to dribble down my wife’s throat. “You don’t get it. None of you get it, none of you—”
“Explain it to me then, Cesare,” I called out, taking one step forward with my hands raised.
He paused, tears running down his cheeks, but then he said, “The contract, the contract, the fucking contract, Milan! I told my wife, my wife knows about what’s in there, and Brenno told Fiorella, and if anyone finds out, Diego Sansone will kill us, he’ll kill us all, and my baby will be dead again!
I need you to void it, Milano, right now. ”
By logic, by the terms of the contract, he was correct; we were all living on a death sentence.
I could threaten Adriano’s father until he voided it, but we would be called liars and cheats for the lie of our name, and my poor wife would be harmed in the fallout.
Logic would not work with Cesare, not now, not about what he prized most. Cesare Fera was built from emotion, he always had been, but only now did I understand that.
I gently pushed Bella into Francesco’s grip and took another step forward, still holding out my hands as though he would detonate.
“I am sorry, Cesare.” He frowned, and it reminded me of when he was a child, blinking up at me, wanting me to fix everything that hurt.
“I did not protect you.” I took another step forward.
“I did not save you, but I allowed you into Stefano’s hands.
” Sicily was within my reach, but I did not snatch her out of his grasp, not yet.
“I am sorry. I-I miss you.” I was aware of the tear sliding down my cheek.
“You may punish me, but please allow me to protect my wife. If I sign your contract, she will be left with nothing, no defense against people who will harm us for the lie of our name. That is not her fault. None of this is her fault.”
Sicily was sobbing quietly, only inches from my hands. I could reach out and touch her, calm her if I chose to, but not with the knife to her throat.
“Milan,” she whispered. “You need to talk—”
“Shhh, angel,” I said gently, but this caused Cesare to snap back into his episode, reminding him that she was relying on me as they once had.
He silenced her cries, shoving the blade tighter against her skin. “Sign it. I won’t allow you to come for us again, I won’t allow my baby to be born just to be hurt by these people, I won’t allow it. I won’t, I won’t! I’ll slice her fucking throat, Milano. I’ll do it right now, I will—"
“Cesare, what the fuck are you doing?” Brenno roared, but he could not hear him in this state.
“Sign. It.” He hissed through each word. “Or I’ll kill her.”
Blood trickled from Sicily’s neck and each drip onto the concrete between us was like a timer.
A bomb.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
“All right.” I swallowed the bile. “Okay. I will sign it.”
I turned, taking the contract and using the bonnet of my car to sign away everything that I had built on my father’s grave, everything that I had founded in Siena and my mother’s name. It had never been about being Capo dei Capi, not truly.
I was not defective, and I had done good things.
My signature scratched onto the paper, and not even the stars above belonged to me anymore, but that was okay, because Sicily did.
Adriano gripped my arm before I could return, his eyes frantically searching mine. “Are you fucking crazy?”
“I have no choice, Adrian.”
“There is always a choice!”
I nodded once. “There is. It is my wife. If I do not have her, I have nothing.”
Bella placed a hand on my wrist, her tears flowing steadily. “I’m so sorry, Milan. Cesare’s sick, he needs help, and he—”
I caught Bella as she keeled forward, silencing her words with a deep, pained groan.
The contract fluttered to the ground, as I lowered her beside it. “What hurts?”
Within seconds, Bella’s sweatpants were soaked in red. It was a deep, almost black red, and there was nowhere I could hold, no way I could make her sobs better.
Mom spluttered blood from her lips, eyes, stomach and somewhere else I did not know. It spewed onto my hands as she strained herself to repeat the words, “You are capable, Milano, you are capable, Milano, you are capable–”
“Stop!” I shouted, pressing into the wounds I had created. “I am not capable of this, of killing you! I am sorry, I am sorry, I am—"
I turned my hands to see my palms. They were wet. The knife was wet. Bloody with her blood that I had spilled.
Adriano’s roaring cries drew my eyes to the hallway where he clutched Siena who had just wanted to find me.
Mom had killed Siena.
My brain told me to stop, that the sensation on my hands was sickening, but I did not want to stop, I could not stop the overwhelming voice inside that reminded me that I was defective, that bad things happened when I existed, so I did it again, and again. Nobody stopped me.
I was not defective.
“Cesare, I-I’m sorry,” Bella sobbed, pulling me back into the reality that I was useless once again.
I could not help, could not stop her pain.
Defective. I was defective.
I turned to Cesare, clutching his wife in my hands, aware that what he could see was not the entire story, that all he was staring at was the blood on my hands and the blood on Bella. His pupils grew frantic, desperate, terrified as his chest began to pant. “What the fuck have you done?”
“Cesare.” I shook my head. “I did not—”
“What have you done?” he roared, his screams piercing every valve in my heart. Before I could open my mouth again, his knife moved.
Moved against Sicily’s throat.
She coughed, spluttering at first, her small fingers reaching for everything and nothing, and then she slumped to the gravel, her own blood pouring from her in waves.
Death was what occurred to one’s physical body, but I was certain that my soul died watching the life slip from my love.