Tu sei la mia regina. You are my queen.
My heart burned and twisted like warped metal in the fire. It was pure agony to think of everything Dante and I had been through and wonder if it was tainted by this new information. But I leaned into it, diving deeper, because I knew I would hate myself if I let go of this man without a fight.
He’d fought for me, too.
From the moment he’d meet me, he’d fought to scale my icy walls, to break down my barriers not only so that he could know me, love me, but so that I could learn to love myself.
He’d killed for me, become a fugitive to save me from my father, and he’d given me his family so I’d have love and protection, a community, when I hadn’t allowed myself to have one before.
I sighed, scrubbing my hands over my face.
It was possible I’d overreacted.
But it was shocking and disheartening to feel like the only idiot with their head in the sand. To imagine everyone talking about Tore and Caprice, about Dante and Cosima behind my back.
The former wasn’t really Dante’s fault, though.
Of course, Cosima would want to tell me herself and she hadn’t been able to until now, even though she’d had plenty of time before I took Dante’s case to fess up. I understood, even if I didn’t like it, that before then, I had no real reason to know because Dante and Tore were nothing to me.
No reason beyond the fact that I was Cosima’s sister.
I wanted that to be enough, but when had it ever been?
Giselle was my sister, and she’d cheated on me with my ex-partner.
Sebastian was my brother and he’d only just confessed his long-time love for not only a married woman, but a man.
Caprice was my mother but she’d never told me about Salvatore.
We were as fractured as a windshield after a crash, only held together by a sheer feat of engineering that was the Italian family ideal. Stay together at all costs. Pretend to be happy when your neighbors ask how you are, even if your life at home is nightmarish.
It was pathetic.
Until now, until these two secrets that had exploded in my face and threatened to eviscerate my soul, Dante hadn’t lied to me. He’d let me see exactly who he was, what he did, and who he wanted.
Me.
It was impossible to think back to our time and New York without seeing how he had set his sights on me, hunting me down with single minded determination until I was his.
Because he so clearly wanted to be mine.
I felt shaky, every nerve flayed and raw as I took a scalpel to myself and dissected why this had hurt so badly, why it had felt for a moment like I was dying.
I’d always felt I wasn’t good enough.
Maybe I was born with that inside me, but Christopher watered it for years then Daniel, unwittingly, cultivated it when he left me so callously for my little sister. My self-loathing and doubt had grown into something monstrous, blocking out all other light.
Until Dante.
I don’t want to be loved.
Let me love you anyway.
There were tears on my cheeks and the imprint of agony inside my chest, but I dragged in a deep breath of stale church air and felt a little better.
My knees cracked loudly as I stood, a nonna glaring at me as if I disturbed her purposefully. I ignored her scowl as I made my way into the separate chamber that housed the ruins of the old temple to Apollo. My skin sizzled as I stepped into the hallowed space, my soul connecting with the pagan God where it hadn’t with the Christian deity.
Apollo was the god of healing and of music.
A fitting divinity for me if ever there was one.
There were no pews in this chapel, only the alter and the echoing, empty space before it. I planted myself before the painted frescos and the golden statue of the god, and I made a promise to myself that was almost like a prayer.
I would play music again. Christopher didn’t own that pleasure and I wouldn’t allow him to taint it any further.
I would be vulnerable with my family, crack open my soul no matter how much it hurt and show them its chaotic contents. And in doing that, I would forgive them for their failings as gracefully as I hoped they would forgive me for mine.
I would love Dante as much as I possibly could, because he had taught me how to love again by healing my heart with his pure kindness and loyalty. Mama had told me as a girl that actions spoke louder than words, that if I wanted to prove my strength, I would have to act the part. Dante had shown me time and time again the strength of his love for me, that he chose me above everyone else and everything else in his life. It was time I did the same.
He deserved nothing less.
When I spoke the words under my breath, I didn’t address them to God. I addressed them to the ancestors who had led me there and to the Elena I was honing myself into, not a victim, but a fighter.
A queen.
I left the church feeling cleansed and exhausted, my gaze more internal than external so at first, I didn’t notice the lovers twined together in the narrow, shaded alleyway behind the Duomo.
I wouldn’t have even paid them any notice at all if I hadn’t glimpsed two heads of long, dark hair, two dresses tangled together at the hems into one.
They were women.
Homosexuality wasn’t unheard of in Italy, of course, but it was an antiquated society with bigotry still rife in every day society. I was surprised enough by this courage to make out in public to pause as I passed them, peering into the shadows.
My gasp altered them to my presence and my suspicions were confirmed.
Mirabella Ianni gaped at me over her lover’s shoulder, her pink mouth still wet from her kisses.
We stared at each mutely, both struck momentarily dumb by the inconvenient coincidence of our meeting.
“Signora Lombardi,” she finally whispered, panic suffusing her entire face, giving it an urgency that under other circumstance would have made her placid prettiness fierce with beauty. “Please, do not tell anyone about this.”
Her girlfriend moved to face me, glaring at me as if I was the anti-Christ. They held each other still, arms looped around waists, shoulders pressed together.
A unit.
A team.
Just like Dante wanted to be with me, if only I’d stop fucking it up with my insecurities.
I studied Mirabella with new eyes. There was desperation in her pale brown gaze, a tremble in her fingers as she fidgeted with the sleeve of her lover’s dress. She was in love, powerfully so, and she was used to being ridiculed for it.
My heart panged.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I assured her, stepping closer, something stirring at the back of my brain. “But Mira, what are you going to do?”
“I told Dante, I won’t marry him,” she said and I could tell she wanted to be fierce, but she was so soft it didn’t hold.
Her girlfriend on the other hand stepped forward and snapped, “You can’t make her do anything.”
“No…but Rocco Abruzzi is her uncle and capo dei capi of the Napoli Camorra. He can absolutely make her do whatever he wants. Unless…”
Mirabella had long dark hair that fell nearly to her waist. She wasn’t slender, but she had the olive gold skin of southern Italians, and enough height that, in heels, maybe it could work…
“I have an idea,” I said slowly, despite the mounting excitement in my blood. “But it’s fairly crazy and you’d have to trust me.”
Mira stared at me with those guileless eyes for a long moment. “He loves you.”