She knew what I was referring to because instead of an answer, she buried her face in my neck as if embarrassed. “Sore!” I wasn’t expecting an answer and not one that honest.
“I’ll take care of you. We’ll come up with a plan later, okay.” I’d like to keep her out of it, but it’s her mother, enough said.
The others were still standing out on the front steps looking worried until they saw us coming, then they turned and went inside. I carried her all the way up the stairs into my room, passing the bed that was a wreck and taking her into the en-suite bathroom, where I sat her on the chair in front of the vanity to run her a bath.
"Up!" She stood still while I undressed. “What the… Gianna, you’re bleeding.” There was blood all over her thighs.
“Did your period start?” Words I’ve never uttered in my life and never thought I would. She shook her head and, for some insane reason, laughed while I was about to spaz the fuck out.
“No, you did that.” I looked from her face to between her thighs and back at a loss for words, and that quickly, everything shifted once more. I’ll take care of the Fontanes soon enough, but right now, caring for her the way I should, comes first. I lifted her into the water and knelt by the side of the tub to wash her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up, forgive me. I thought I’d make it back in time.”
She smiled, but that light that had been in her eyes these last few days was now dull. I could kill them for that alone.
DRACO
“Draco, what’re you doing?”
“Sofia, my beautiful, beautiful baby, come give us a hug.” She came to me smiling even though she had no idea why I was so happy. “Now, do you want to tell me why you were dancing in your office like a crazy person?”
“Did you see our son? He’s in love.”
“And that’s why you’re dancing? I don’t get it.”
You would if I told you, but then I’d have to explain a whole lotta shit that’s best left alone for now. “Isn’t this something to celebrate? I’m happy for him.”
“I hope you feel the same when it’s the twins’ turn.”
“That won’t be for another ten or twenty years; no need to mention it.” Nothing is going to put a damper on my day.
I’ve been butting my head against the wall for months trying to beat the clock and get ahead of this thing in Sicily before Gabe makes a move, but now, I don’t have to. I have enough breathing room now to continue the search for my father-in-law without having to worry about my son making an end-run around me.
I danced my wife around the room, genuinely happy for the first time in a while. I wasn’t sure, even after the afternoon’s theatrics, but the look in his eyes when he thought something was wrong with his Gia cinched it for me. That boy is well and truly claimed. Now all I need to do is deal with Fontane’s shit before my son does, and we’re straight.
Pop already had a sit down with him, but I don’t know what happened there because he’s not talking, and Gabe got the word out to the towing companies in the area not to pick up the car that he torched, which means that any minute now Fontane is going to pull up in his driveway and find a luxury hull parked in front of his door.
Gabe’s team already told me about him picking up the tow, and I put two and two together, figuring that’s where he’d gone the night before when he disappeared. The fact that he dropped it off in the early evening with no fucks to give tells me that he’s going all in. Now with his grandparents having his back, if the shit they were saying at my dinner table the night before is any indication, things could get ugly.
Pop plays by his own rules, and Ma, well, Ma is the boss of bosses when it comes to the Russo family. Between those two and my son Fontane might be wishing he’d had only me to deal with. None of that was important right now though, all that mattered is that I’d bought myself some time.
The girl works fast; then again, hadn’t Sofia zapped me the same way almost twenty years ago? That’s why I have so much hope. The look I saw in my son’s eyes earlier is one I’ve worn. I know the look, I know the feeling, and I know that there’s no way I would’ve jeopardized my happiness with Sofia or given up on life, not when I had her.
I’m going to ignore the fact that my son has some kind of code that I never even knew existed for now. I shouldn’t have let him study all that shit at a young age and wouldn’t have had I known that his mother would divulge her past the way she did or that he would use what he’d learned to build a strategy of revenge that would make Genghis Khan’s march through the plains look like a cakewalk.
GABRIEL
“I’ll be right back; you good?” I’d reheated her water once already, and she seemed more relaxed, but at my announcement, she gripped my wrist. “Where’re you going?”
“Just into the bedroom. I won’t be long, I promise.” I kissed her head and left to go take care of the bed. I stripped it, my guts twisting at the sight of even more blood on the sheets.
I called downstairs to Ma because she’s the only one I trust to take care of what I needed. I wanted to spare Gianna as much embarrassment as I possibly could. She came with Sheila in tow since I guess they didn’t trust me to know how to make the bed myself when all I asked for was the sheets. I just rolled my eyes and went back to Gianna, who looked like she was ready to get out of the now tepid water.
Her after bath care took a little longer than was necessary since I took my time in order to let them finish what they were doing in the bedroom. Besides, I needed to make up for not being here when she woke up, so a few more strokes of the brush through her hair wasn’t a hardship, and she did seem to appreciate the effort.
“Babe, I can go to your room to get you something to sleep in, or you can wear something of mine.” She blushed and pointed at me, so I headed for my closet and grabbed some boxers and an old tee for her to sleep in. I made her eat upstairs with me, sitting up in bed on the new sheets that she noticed and blushed.
I made her eat just a little bit more than she wanted to, which wasn’t much. “What did you do with Greta?”
“I moved her out of the motel and sent her somewhere safe.”
“Thank you. I was worried about that. I gave her the card Pop gave me; I hope he wouldn’t mind.”
“He won’t don’t stress it. And you don’t have to worry about her anymore. I’ll take care of it.”
She gave me a strange look before nodding her head in acceptance. I moved our empty plates out of the way and sat next to her with my arm around her. I can tell that she’s fighting to hold it together, “do you want to talk about it?”
“Not right now. It’s still hard for me to think about. I feel sick every time I imagine it. Although I was too young to do anything, the guilt won’t go away.”
“Survivor’s guilt is like that; it doesn’t have an age limit. Plus, she was your mom. People usually talk about the bond between a mother and her child from the parent’s perspective; not many focus on the other side of that coin.” Something must’ve shown in my voice because she picked her head up off my shoulder to look at me, and I avoided her eyes.