Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Giovanna
I knew somewhere in the back of my extremely fuzzy head that it was still only the very early hours of the morning. But forcing my sore eyes open, I took a quick look around my room. With surprise, I found I couldn’t find the soft, orange glow emitting from the night light I’d slept with since I was a small child. Anxiety had been my bedfellow since a young age.
With my heart rate accelerating and feeling a little confused, I pushed myself up onto my elbows and shook my head a little, trying to focus on the large space around me.
After only a few seconds, I remembered why I hadn’t followed my usual bedtime routine, and the whole of the previous day flooded back. Sorrow captured me as I recalled what I’d gone to bed to try hard to forget. My papa, my mama, and Nonno.
‘No,’ I whispered into the room. Once again, I sagged down onto my pillows in reaction to the sudden ache of anguish inside my chest. Lifting my hand, I pushed it against my breastbone, trying to curb the spreading claws of pain at the knowledge I would never see nor even speak to my nonno again.
What I’d been trying to run from yesterday evening hadn’t escaped me. As the old saying went, what is meant for you will always come to you—and right at this minute I comprehended it was true, painfully true. Waves of anxiety took over; my breathing became frantic but no longer productive. And there I lay, alone in the dark. Suddenly, I could hear the calm, methodical voice of my grandfather talking to me in the way I had only ever heard him bestow on me.
‘You are stronger than you think, Giovanna.’ My eyes opened as I began to scan the room for him. But of course, I couldn’t find him. Unexpectedly, my heart warmed as I realised he had spoken the truth. He would always be with me, wherever I found myself. His love and guidance and blind faith would live on inside my head and heart.
And for now, I tried to relax into what he wanted me to hear.
‘ You are stronger than you think, Giovanna. I have refused all the marriage offers for you so far, as I wanted you to first become the woman I know is inside there. The same woman you rarely let make an appearance.’ I watched in my mind’s eye as his pain fell away as he spoke to me, and I felt lighter. ‘I saw her today. I saw her in your smile, I heard her in your laughter, and your zest for life. Don’t shut her away any longer, let her free. I regret I won’t be there to watch you fly, but you must promise me you’ll embrace the one who will, because he’ll be the same one who will catch you when you fall.’
I saw Dante then, an image of him laughing as we’d talked yesterday.
‘Be the woman you keep out of your mama’s reach.’
‘I will, Nonno. I promise.’ I spoke loudly into the vacant room. ‘It’ll take time, but I promise I will.’
Slowly, with his strength of belief wrapped around me, I talked myself out of the grip of an impending panic attack. Then feeling braver than I’d ever felt before and with my breathing beginning to once again feel regulated, I flung back my covers and spread my arms out wide in acceptance of what I understood I needed to do.
I let go.
Tears once again took their leave of my eyes and I let them. They ran on and on without purpose, until I could feel on either side of my face that the cotton of my pillowcase was wet with my sorrow. They ran until my eyelashes felt burdened with the salty residue left behind. They ran on and on until I sensed I was cleansed, and my body felt dehydrated. When I finally opened my eyes, I made myself a promise.
This was my new beginning. From that day, I was going to be the woman my nonno saw inside me.
With the night sky beginning to warm around the edges of my blinds with the touches of yellow only daybreak brings, and the phone once again beginning to vibrate inside the drawer I’d dropped it into a few hours before, I sat myself up.
‘You are Giovanna De Luca, let no one take that from you ever again.’
Rolling onto my side, I pressed on the drawer and watched it react and open. There in the middle of my silk underwear that I’d absentmindedly thrown the phone onto, I saw the screen light up with an incoming call. Now in a hurry, I picked up the phone and accepted the call.
‘Dante?’ I spoke his name and I could have sworn I heard him sigh with relief.
‘Giovanna.’ My name rolled off his tongue and I sunk back onto my bed, holding his phone as close as was possible to my ear. ‘Where are you?’ His tone changed to one that was demanding.
‘At home, in my room,’ I clarified.
‘Thank fuck.’ He swore and somewhere in the background I heard a thump as though his hand had landed heavily against a piece of furniture. ‘I’ve been going out of my mind here with worry.’
‘You have?’ I questioned a little coyly.
‘I gave you my phone so we could be in contact. It’s been ten hours, amore mio. Ten long fucking hours, twenty-four texts and only Christ knows how many phone calls,’ he chastised.
‘You could have spoken to Salvatore. He would have known where I was,’ I offered, feeling slightly overwhelmed.
I heard a laugh leave him. ‘Nah, that wouldn’t work. You need to understand your brother and I might be related by marriage, but that’s where our relationship ends.’
‘I’m not sure I understand.’ I felt my brown furrow. ‘We’re family.’
‘Not quite… my family are the poor relations.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘It is what it is. Anyway, back to us.’
Us.
I’d never been part of an us. Somewhere deep down, I knew I liked the idea. In fact, it conjured up memories of yesterday. I wrapped my spare arm around myself as I imagined I could still feel how he’d held me yesterday.
‘You are never to ignore me again, my love. Do you hear me?’ he carried on.
‘I’m not deaf.’ I felt a wave of my newfound defiance, pushing him a little so he would show me once again he cared.
‘Giovanna.’ His tone held strength but was spoken gently. And I could see in my mind’s eye him closing his briefly as he held together his emotions.
‘Were you worried about me?’ I felt like a little girl as I asked the pathetically needy question. But it was one I was desperate for the answer to.
‘I think the numerous calls and text messages will prove to you how worried.’ Secretly, I was looking forward to checking the exact number and reading all the cursing I knew he would have typed out as he demanded over and over that I answer him. ‘I was frantic.’
‘Frantic?’ I repeated.
‘Yes, that and so fucking angry I couldn’t get hold of you.’
‘I see,’ I replied, loving the sound of what he was saying and blushing at the same time as I imagined just how vibrant his blue eyes would be as he spoke of his frustrations. I was surely now living in the fantasy I’d dreamt about since I was younger, while also in the nightmare that was the loss of my grandfather. It was a hard path to negotiate, especially with me having no real-life experience to guide me. I made a pact with myself there and then. I would follow my heart and make a note to occasionally listen to my head.
‘I’m not sure you do, Giovanna,’ he carried on. ‘I’m convinced you have no idea what happens to a man when he finds the woman who takes him over, body and soul, and then can’t contact her,’ he explained.
‘Body and soul.’ The words left my mouth without me thinking. I had to be dreaming.
‘Body and soul,’ he repeated. ‘When he’s worried about the pain she’s going through without him. When he wants to hold her tightly to him until he absorbs the agony and makes it his own. When her safety and wellbeing is the only thing he needs… Not oxygen, not food, not anything. Because everything else around him pales into insignificance.’
‘No, I don’t,’ I whispered into the phone. Listening with the whole of my heart and nothing more.
‘Then I’m going to take the rest of our lives to show you.’
‘You are?’ I questioned hopefully. I knew he’d said the previous day that he wanted to be my someone, but could this really be happening to me?
‘I am,’ he concurred.
I wanted to find words, better words to tell him how much I wanted just that. To tell him I was convinced, even without any prior experience, that he was going to be the one my nonno had told me about, but my capability to do so felt lacking. So instead, I released a nondescript acknowledgement that I’d heard him.
A soft laugh left him and I imagined his tongue playing with his teeth, as was his way.
‘How did it go with Nonno?’ he gently questioned.
I scrunched my eyes shut tight in a bid to control the anguish I knew would follow his question, ‘We said goodbye.’
For a few seconds, the line between us went silent.
‘I want to hold you, Giovanna.’ I could feel his impatience.
‘I wish you could… I love my nonno. I’m worried about who I’ll be once he’s gone,’ I admitted.
‘Don’t be. You’re strong, you just don’t know it yet.’
‘He said something similar to me.’
‘A wise man,’ Dante offered. ‘What else happened last night?’
‘I have no idea. I shut myself away in my room.’
‘So, you’ve spoken to no one else?’
‘No.’ I shook my head a little feeling confused.
‘Good girl. Now, I have something to tell you. But before I start, you need to understand that we have already found her—we have her back.’
‘Her?’ I questioned, feeling on edge.
‘Mia was taken yesterday from the party.’
‘Taken?’ I heard my voice rise in panic. ‘Your sister Mia was taken from the party?’ I enunciated each word as I searched for clarification.
‘Taken. But we have her back. Mia is safe.’ He spoke deliberately making sure I grasped what he was saying.
‘Who?’
‘We think it was Enzo. Our families came together to find her.’
‘Did you?’ I asked, as guilt took hold of me.
‘Yes, I made it back in time to search. Alessio and me found her on the beach behind some rocks.’
‘How is she?’
‘She’s unconscious, caused by a hard blow on the back of her head. I’m still at the hospital with my family, and your brother is also here.’
‘Salvatore?’
‘No, Gabriel.’ His tone hardened.
‘Oh God! I’m so sorry. If you hadn’t been with me, you might have been there.’
‘None of this is your fault. Apart from the worry you caused me by not answering the phone I left with you.’
‘I should have answered the phone.’ I spoke my thoughts out loud.
‘Yes, you should.’
‘I won’t do it again.’
‘No, you’re right, you won’t, Giovanna.’
‘What are the doctors saying?’
‘No one has given us anything concrete. She has a few more tests to go through today before we’ll know more.’ His voice remained hard. ‘There’s something I do know,’ he offered.
‘Yes,’ I encouraged.
‘I will kill the man responsible for our pain. I’ll extinguish his life and make sure that he will never again be the cause of pain to those I love.’ His voice sounded distant, as if I was listening to a stranger talking to someone else.
‘Dante.’ I all but whispered his name once again, hoping he could feel my empathy. ‘I just don’t understand how such a lovely afternoon has turned into all this.’
‘That is the way of the family, Giovanna.’
‘Family?’ I questioned with a loud tut following. ‘My papa, for all I know, still hasn’t come home. My nonno is dying, and I’m not allowed to even hold his hand to help his passing. And I expect when I move from this room my mama will still be asleep after taking drugs for her nerves. I don’t like nor understand the way we do family,’ I admitted.
‘I’m not sure any of us do. But it’s what we are.’
But it’s what we are . He had hit the nail on the head, however much I disliked the statement, I knew it to be true. ‘I know.’ My head dropped in resignation.
‘But it was a lovely afternoon, amore mio. We met again. I for one take some happiness from that.’
‘I do too.’ I couldn’t help the ghost of a smile as it swept across my mouth.
‘From now on you will answer when I call.’ It wasn’t a question, but more of a demand. One I was happy to accept.
‘I will.’
‘Good girl. Now, I need to go, the doctor is expected out soon and hopefully he will have some positive answers about Mia.’
‘Okay.’ Reluctantly, I agreed our call would have to end. But just before I lost him, I gripped the phone tight with both hands, needing him to feel the sentiment behind my words. ‘Dante, I hope he does. I really hope he does.’
‘Me too,’ he sighed, releasing his evident pain. ‘I will call soon, be ready.’
‘Yes.’
‘And remember, Giovanna, just who you are and who you belong to.’
‘I’ll remember. How could I not?’ I sat up straight on my bed as I spoke, all at once finding the words I wanted to tell him. ‘The second my eyes first rested on you; it wasn’t about you. When my eyes found you, I saw all of me. I understand I already existed, but without you in my life I wasn’t whole. There’s no coming back from that feeling, Dante.’ I shook my head slowly, ‘I know I’ll never be the same. My life will never be the same.’
Silence met my acknowledgement.
‘Giovanna De Luca, you are mine.’ His voice finally rang out strong and true.
‘Yours.’