30. Milan
MILAN
After Francesco had climbed into Sicily’s bed and I had refused to share the other side with him, I found myself outside the room, staring at my Consigliere playing cards with Matteo Bonafede, who was holding a sleeping Elena Ferrari curled in his lap.
Bella Fera and my cursed sister-in-law also happened to still be there.
“Milano.” Adrian smiled, holding his cards out toward me. “Here, you play instead.”
I took a seat beside him on the rusty hospital seats, still eyeing the two women who should have been anywhere but in front of me. “What will the punishment be for entertaining a card game with you, Bella Fera? Hung, drawn and quartered?”
“Milan,” Fiorella huffed. She was evidently tired, but it was rare that she was not in a state of disarray, so perhaps that was simply her natural look. “It’s not her fault.”
“I have been informed of this by my wife twice now, but who will pay for what Cesare did?” I shifted my attention to Bella who was shrinking into her seat. “Sicily may not want him harmed, but somebody hurt her, and I cannot let that go.”
Fiorella slapped her card down on the small wooden table between us, followed by Matteo, who was eyeing this exchange with raised brows. I noted his attempt to change the subject as he said quickly, “Remember when Sicily played poker?”
Adriano barked out a laugh. “She didn’t play poker; she attended, you cheated for her, and he freaked out that you were fucking his bride.”
“Matteo and Sicily?” Fiorella gaped, and Adriano nodded with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
“Have we since established that Sicily and I have no interest in fucking?” Bonafede chuckled, kissing Elena’s temple.
I nodded once. I had known for a long time, maybe even on that day, that Matteo and my wife had not been in a sexual relationship, but she had turned out to be everything that I had not expected, and I had reacted like a fool.
A small smile tugged at the corners of my lips as I thought of how I loved her now, but it faded with how much time I had wasted not understanding that. The future, our future, was bright, but the past was not, and Sicily had borne witness to that.
“I have seen your cock multiple times despite that,” I said, attempting to avoid thinking of the past or my wife fucking Matteo Bonafede. “It is at my house. You are her friend because she exaggerated the size of it.”
Bella blushed and frowned as if she had not heard the word ‘cock’ before. She was pregnant; I understood how babies were made.
“Oh god,” Adriano groaned, slumping in his chair and hiding behind his hands. He had also seen a cock many, many times.
Matteo snorted. “You liked it then.”
I rolled my eyes. “I did not.”
“Just say you like looking at my cock at your house…whatever that means.”
Sicily’s door clicked open, and a deeply frowning Francesco appeared. “What in the ever-loving fuck are you talking about?” He didn’t allow me to answer before he nodded toward Bella and Fiore and said, “She’s asking for you.”
I opened my mouth to protest as the girls filed into the hospital room, but Adriano shoved his giant, coffee-scented palm over my mouth. It was perhaps the vilest sensation I had ever experienced.
“Get over it,” he said in a sing-song tone, shaking his head. “They’re your family.”
“Cesare is not my family.” I scowled behind his hand.
Adriano’s lips tugged upward. “By biology, he is. The girls didn’t stab anyone, did they, asshole? They just existed and they make your wife feel better.”
As my tongue darted out to lick his hand and get it away from me, Sicily’s door burst open again, and an exasperated-looking Bella stumbled out with Fiorella on her arm, both followed by a wide-eyed Sicily.
I shot to my feet as Bella flung herself toward me and into my arms, desperate. “What is it?”
I may not have found her husband favorable, but I understood her recent bleedings and did not desire for their child to be harmed. Bella had also been a pleasant house guest, and I had enjoyed her emotional support; I could not forget that.
“I need help,” she whispered, clinging to my arms with nails digging into my shirt sleeves.
“Why?”
She swallowed roughly. “I just feel weird… Off.”
I felt my jaw tense. She could not be here, harmed in my presence again. I could not allow anyone to be hurt again over blood that I did not spill.
“You should call Cesare,” I warned, holding her tightly.
“He’s not picking up!” Fiorella exclaimed, her brows furrowing in worry.
Sicily was staring at me, her bright, scared eyes boring into mine, wanting me to do something, to fix this. Her faith in me was something I treasured dearly, but this time it was sorely too strong.
I looked away, thinking, still holding Bella close to my chest. “Then call Brenno.”
“I tried.” Fiorella sighed.
“She did.” Sicily nodded as though that was helpful.
Francesco placed his palm on Bella’s spine, rubbing gently. “We’re in a hospital. Have someone check her out here.”
“I cannot,” I gritted through my teeth though it pained me to say it. “If something happens to her by my doctor’s hand in my territory, it will cause war. If something occurred of natural consequences and that was proven, war would not break out.”
This was the truth of being a Capo. This was how troubled decisions could be when families were split and separated.
“Are you fucking with me?” Francesco snarled.
“No.” I frowned. I had not given any indication that I was joking.
The weight of his disagreement hung heavier in my heart than I had anticipated. He was family now, and that meant his anger held additional weight.
“Can we drive her home?” Sicily asked, peering up at me.
Driving Bella home would take two hours and involve entering a territory that held no protection for my family.
I went to shake my head, but Sicily was waiting eagerly for an answer, holding onto hope.
She had asked me to do something and was looking at me with a gaze that seemed to manipulate my newfound emotions.
I found myself constantly unable to say no to my wife.
“Fine. But you”—I pointed at Fiorella—“will try to keep Brenno’s men from ending my life, and you”—I pressed a kiss to Sicily’s head—“are not coming.”
“Yes, I am. She’s my family!”
“Sicily,” I growled under my breath. “You are in a hospital. You suffered an incredibly traumatic wound by the men who live with her. You are not coming.”
The dim lighting of the corridor caught the sheen of recovering skin sliced across her throat. I could feel her determination as if it were my own, but I could also still feel her bleeding out in my arms, and that could never happen again.
Sicily remained silent, and it weighed heavily inside of me, but it was her slowly narrowing eyes that I could feel burning through me. Her disagreement was like a bomb waiting to go off, that any minute now, it would explode me into pieces.
I ran a hand down my face. “Sicily, angel, please stay here.”
“I can be helpful.” She folded her arms. “And besides, how do I know you won’t argue with them on the way there?”
The plan had been to remain silent. These women did not need me to argue with them because they knew their roles in all of this, Fiorella especially.
“Please.” Sicily planted her hands strategically on my chest. “Let me feel helpful.”
“Fine. Fine!” I shoved my fingers into my eye sockets, wondering what could have possibly made these women so troublesome.
I turned to Adriano, sighing through my disapproval.
“Will you get her discharged? The police are already aware—I told my men, so do not be concerned if the hospital attempts to call them.”
Adriano nodded and turned to leave, bringing Francesco with him.
I looked at my wife once more, looked at how triumphant her face appeared now that she was helping, and shook my head. “Let’s go.”
There was less drama in the car.
In fact, all three women fell asleep toppled into one another like dominoes while I was racing to get Bella and her baby to safety.
Philadelphia was silent as we drove through its streets.
I found this to be both strange and alarming.
It indicated that Brenno either did not know we were coming or that he was welcoming us.
I clutched the gun at my waistband tighter as we approached a pair of tall, black metal gates that separated us from a long stretch of countryside.
The fact that the Feras, the volatile, violent Feras, lived in a countryside cottage surrounded by lakes and nature surprised me greatly, but when the gates opened automatically, and the calmness of the wind in the trees and the moon lighting the dewy grass surrounded me, I could understand why it appealed.
Siena would have enjoyed their home.
“Girls,” I said, reaching into the backseat to gently squeeze Sicily’s wrist. “Wake up.”
There was a loud groan that was absolutely Fiorella, a small huff that was my wife, and a long stretch that I hoped indicated that Bella was feeling better and nothing had happened to her.
The women gave each other warm smiles as they woke, and I watched how they interacted closely as I pulled up to the front of the large cottage.
Perhaps Sicily could find it within herself to forgive her sister.
It made me wonder if I would ever forgive my brothers.
I opened my door to exit first. “Stay in the car, Sicily.”
Bella and Fiorella followed, leading the way to the strangely colored, rose-pink front door, and my nerves charged through my body like an electric wire as the sound of quick footsteps approached the other side.
The Feras’ choice of decoration was interesting, and it led me to believe that the women in this household were as important to them as the one in mine was to me.
The one in mine that had appeared by my side despite me telling her not to.
I startled when the door opened, not because there was anything negative there, but because Ezio looked as though he had been to hell and back. His hair was frazzled, his eyes wide, his expression explaining that something had occurred that he had not expected.
“Ezio?” I said, probing without the words.
“Can you help?” he asked, his eyes flickering between Sicily and Fiorella. He opened the door wider to reveal a soft home with mismatched shoes on the shoe rack, raincoats hung on hooks, and bags discarded by the front door.
It was a home, one that I had not been able to give them.
My chest hurt as I walked in, admiring the warmth, just as Ezio took a few steps back at my intrusion.
Without wasting another moment, he turned and hurried to the back door through the living room.
I felt compelled to follow, to chase after him, and as I did, I noticed how much lighter his hair had always been than the rest of ours.
It reminded me of when I had found him sitting on the front step of Stefano Fera’s manor singing happily in the sunshine while his brothers brutally committed murder behind him. He still looked as innocent to me as he had that day. I suspected he always would.
I was glad Brenno had taken the boys out of that house.
“Ezio, what is wrong?” I gritted through the sudden sting of cold air as we entered a collection of long, dark fields with the moon as the only light.
Ezio’s head turned over his shoulder, ensuring I was still behind him, and he waved his hand, beckoning me to come deeper. “I think there’s a cat or something stuck in there!”
I had rushed for a cat.
We quickly approached an outbuilding with decaying stone brick and no windows. I felt poorly for the animal being trapped in there of all places.
Ezio pointed to the thick metal door and whispered, “I think it’s in there.”
“Have you looked?” I asked, raising a brow.
He shook his head. “It’s terrifying. Please?”
Ezio Fera was another small being I could not deny.
I heaved the metal door open, the frame groaning as it scraped against the floor, and I knew immediately what I was seeing inside.
This was where they had chained my wife to the walls.
This was where they had covered her in red paint and convinced me she had been brutalized, and my two other brothers were standing there, pacing, staring at me as though I had five heads.
“What is—”
The door slammed shut behind me, and the loud rattle told me Ezio had locked the door.
“Ezio, you fuck!” Brenno shouted, rushing to the door and bashing his fist against it so hard it seemed to make the unstable brick walls shudder.
“Sorry, Bren,” the kid said from the other side of the door. “She asked me to get you all in there together!”
I frowned. “Who?”
“Fiorella,” Brenno grumbled. “He does anything she asks.”
I shivered as a drip of something wet dribbled down the wall and onto my sleeve. It was pitch-black, all for the cracks of light escaping the brick, and the thought of my wife being chained in here made my stomach sick.
Our youngest brother made a noise of disagreement from beyond the walls. “You gotta talk and then they’ll tell me when to let you out!”
It remained silent for a moment and then his footsteps trudged away until they were distant and gone.
“Ezio!” Brenno howled, smashing his palm into the door until he realized how useless it was and slid down the door.
I was trapped in a torture chamber with my brothers, my brothers whom I would very much like to torture, and our women had put us here. They had outsmarted us, forced us to confront what the contract had never allowed us close enough to discuss.
I was no longer of the opinion that women did not rule the world, but I did not feel like talking.
Being here made me feel small and weak.
Defective.
I lunged for Cesare, pinning him against the wall, and struck my fist into his nose.
“Stand up, Milan!” Daddy shouted as I curled into a ball in the corner of his room, my body rocking as I held my hand to my nose. It was bleeding. It hurt. “Get up. Do you think all the other four-year-olds in the Cosa Nostra are crying? No. Get up.”
“M-my nose h-hurts, Dad,” I cried, standing up anyway.
He crouched to my level. “I hit you because you’re defective and we need to fix you, okay?”