[smg id=31099 type=normal align=center width=150] (11 page)

How can I be the dangerous catalyst that ruins it all? I’m the fucking cause of every one of mine and Zane’s issue. I am the one to blame for this misery I condemn myself with all too often.

Strong hands grab me fiercely, forcing him to sit up straight, but I need to get away. I want no one to see me like this. When I see the bleary vision of Zane through my water filled eyes, I fight him all the more.

"No!" I shriek, pushing him away harshly. “Let me go!”

“No, Amelia,” he defies me, holding on against all my writhing to get free. He’s not willing to let me go, I can feel it just in the way his hands encase my arms. He wants me to realize that I am not getting away from this ruinous moment we are about to cause. He usually likes to confront things, as do I, but right now, what I’m feeling is not something I want to admit. My harsh tongue will not hold back from revealing
everything
he has made me feel. “I’m sorry, it meant nothing.”

“No, you don’t get to play with me like that. Sure, what I did last night hurt, but actions hurt just as much as words, you bastardo!” I scream at him, and I see he’s not budging. So instead of struggling with this alone, I decide to tell him what I was telling Lorenzo. “I told Lorenzo to go home, to leave because I don’t love him, and when I push him off you’re all over a girl.” I close my eyes as the images resurface. “You were touching her and kissing her and, God, you watched me while you did it!”

“I was hurting,” he speaks, and I shake him off all the more. “I was lashing out.”

“Well, it fucking worked!” I decide not to hold back anymore. I just need to tell him all the truths. “Everything I said to my father last night was a lie, but you didn’t give me a chance to prove that to you. I would’ve spent my life apologizing for every single word I told him last night, but you just had to go one better and hurt me back.”

“I just wanted you to feel how I did,” he replies, almost solemnly. He looks away from me, ashamed of himself. “I was so angry and I still was, still am! You weren’t telling me straight out that you lied, you didn’t force me to think otherwise. I was just angry and I wanted you to feel what I was feeling.”

“And it worked,” I remark coldly. “Now let me go!” I fight until I finally slip away and he tries to grab at me again, his apology marring his beautiful face. "When you broke up with me last time I felt like I was drowning. Suddenly this huge wave crashed into me and it took me by surprise. One moment I was living on cloud fucking nine with the man I loved with my entire heart and the next I was being condemned by him and cast into the only fiery hell he believed I deserved! You made me feel like that again and all because I’m a convincing fucking liar." As my anger mounts, so do my tears. Each one attaches to a lash, preparing for a watery onslaught. "I thought years of abuse at my father's hands would kill me, but it was you. You were always going to destroy me and I was the blind fool who allowed you to come in and take the opportunity time and time again." I begin to laugh, hysterically might I add! “And I really don’t know why I allow you to do it.”

Apparently, that admittance is enough for Zane to let me go. In our most intimate moments, I stole tiny pieces of Zane, as I had allowed him to do to me, and now they bleed with dishonesty and begin to shatter as we argue. We were always meant to be explosive – I felt it in my blood every time we kissed – but I never wanted it to be catastrophic. We were never meant to tear one another apart. We were never meant to destroy one another with callous words and malicious actions. We were never meant to kill the hope we both gave one another. Not when I had only ever loved him to death with the faith that our reincarnation would be invincible.

“I thought we were destined for something beautiful,” I begin to say and although my eyes water, I remain strong. “But all we keep doing is devastating one another. I’m not sure I can do it anymore. You believe the words I tell my father, and I believe what I see you do. It’s just never going to work. You were right, though, I’m always looking for absolution.”

“I didn’t mean that,” he tells me, his apparent anger quickly sobering up.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him with a tiny shrug of my shoulder. “I was bleeding out long before you twisted that knife.”

Wiping my face, I force myself away from him and stand up. There are so many things I want to say, but I’m unsure if I want to fight a battle that always ends up lost. I’m tired of everything, and it’s not until now I truly feel how much my life has drained me. I have to live with a man I love, but it doesn’t mean I have to love him and maybe that’s my safest bet. Family is a business in this household and business doesn’t mean pleasure.

“I’m in this life for you, Amelia. There has to be something we can do.” He speaks as if it’s all just that easy. That we can build one another up to tear them down and keep doing it on repeat.

“We can work together, but that’s it. It’s all I can manage, right now,” I tell him, putting back the coldness into my tone. There was a moment of sheer honesty, but it’s gone because if I revel in it, he will wheedle his way back into my heart and charm me back into loving him. It’s now time to initiate the Amelia who protects herself. The magnitude of him really being here has taken four days to truly hit me hard and it’s left a lasting mark. “This life is game of Russian roulette, Zane, and it sure as hell ain’t my gun or yours we’re using,” I tell him, my throat tightening as the realization finally falls upon Zane’s face. “Be careful when you decide to pull the trigger.”

“You can’t make this sound like closure,” he speaks as we stand apart. “No matter our issues, surely me being here is enough to make you see sense! No matter what, I gave up everything to be here! I’ve jeopardized everything to stand here before you today!”

“No, don’t you dare!” I snarl and put my hands up to stop him in his tirad. “You chose this. I didn’t beg you to come and be an Abbiati. I didn’t want you involved in this!” My hands fall to my side briefly before they fly up into my hair. I know he’s right, him being here is testament enough, but our actions don’t keep us on the same pages. “You don't get to do this to me again! I am not going to be your fucking fool anymore! So live out whatever sick fantasy you have, Zane, but leave me out of it." My tone has started to raise in octaves, my broken heart straining for each wretched beat. "Please!"

“I can’t just give up,” he tells me. There’s a begging ebb to his tone, but he’s not entirely ready to become vulnerable to it wholly. “No matter what was said or done, I can’t. It’s not for me to do. I just didn’t expect things to
unravel
like they did!”

“I told you to be ready at every turn, Zane. You said you were all in, but I threw one curveball and suddenly I’m yesterday’s news. Like you, I have to be ready for every fucking turn, for every attack. I was protecting you from being delivered a very limited life. Have you forgotten that my father already had a bounty on your head once! Do you really think he’s a man to forgive unpaid debts?” I watch him, seeing the penny finally drop. “Believe me, Zane, I wanted nothing more than to shout from the rooftops that I finally felt like something in my life was going right, but when my father throws us for a loop like that we have to forget about all our needs and make sure men like Salvatore Abbiati are smiling brightly at the day’s end. That was my reason for this, but you failed to believe in me and believed in what I had to say before that.”

“Amelia.” He steps forward, his plea written all over him.

“Don’t!” I roar, unable to hear him out. We’ve been here too many times. “I don’t want your apologies and I don’t want you to suddenly be remorseful because now you see why I did what I did. I know my track record isn’t perfect, but I thought I had given you enough for you to hold a shred of hope for me.” I shake my head, trying to rid my dismay at how quickly the love story Zane and I had started again has decayed. “You said you weren’t going to be stupid enough to lose me a third time, but we were both the idiots because this is over. For good.”

“Why are you being like this?” he asks; now he’s the one sounding at a loss. “I was stupid; I always am when it comes to you. I do the wrong things and say the wrong thing. I am the fuck up here. I lose sight of what’s right and I just end up like this. You know that, so why are you just giving up now?”

“I’m not giving up, not really. This is me protecting myself,” I say pushing him away from me, so I can stand up. “Now stay out of my way. You’re just another minion to my father.”

If I’m protecting myself, why does it hurt so much?

***

“Dinner will be delayed,” my father states later that evening. “We have other matters to deal with first.”

I should be disappointed, but today has left me with a minimal appetite and a feeling to just crawl between my sheets and forget about what transcended only a few hours before. I have to sit with Zane nearby, and it’s not easy at all to cope with. I know love isn’t an easy game to dabble in, but it shouldn’t be able to make so many millions of pieces in my heart – each one as fragile as the next.

“Any particular reason?” I ask as I stand up, throwing my napkin back onto the tabletop and begin to follow.

“I found one of our own stealing from the business,” my father states and begins to leave the dining room to head toward the grand room. “And he’s been threatening my prize jewel.”

I walk in to find Tony Costello on his knees, flanked by Giovanni as he guards him. I still a little before I continue forward. Tony is one of the men my father has up front to sort the packaging and correct distribution of drugs. He’s worked with the likes of my father, Big Al, and Carmello all in equal measures; it’s how my father grew a rapport. He made his men expendable with the faith that their main loyalty would remain with him, but in recent years, more seem to crave the greedy promises the others make. The ones my father, in turn, will destroy by taking their lives.

This is Zane’s first slaughter like this and I wonder how he’ll take it. I steal a look and can see he’s unable to quite work out what’s going on until Carlo whispers something and there’s a brief spark of terror before Zane covers it up. I continue to take a space beside Enzo and watch as to what Tony has done to ruin his space in our family.

“Tony here decided to go against the Dio Lavoro,” my father begins to say, taking up the space before Tony.

“Carmello put me up to it,” he states, his voice traveling with such confidence that he might earn some bargain if he’s completely upfront. “After what your new recruit did to his face, he wanted some of your best cocaine handed over so he could break it down and find out your secret.” Tony is becoming frantic, divulging all he had been promised, but he should know that Carmello’s promises mean nothing when you’re in the house of Abbiati and knelt before
the
Salvatore Abbiati. “I told him he was stupid, but after Carmello threatened my family if I didn’t, I couldn’t say no. I wanted to protect my family.”

“You do realize that he might have threatened your family, but I will threaten so much more than that,” my father comments dryly, starting a short pace before the doomed man. “You have betrayed me by forming an alliance against me. You have implicated the life I have supported you with and now I can’t let it continue.”

With a click of his fingers, Giovanni presents my father with his trusted switchblade, clicking the button to allow the knife’s blade to glide out. He holds onto the steel slither and places the handle into my father’s hands, and I prepare myself for the attack that is about to come.

“I’ll do anything,” Tony begins to beg, watching the passing of the weapon.

“But that’s not all you’ve done,” my father argues back, keeping himself as calm as he can enable. “You also promised to remain loyal to Carmello until he got Amelia. You offered to help him get his hands on my daughter.”

“He threatened my wife and kids!” Tony argues back, desperation hanging onto every word of his. “I had to stop him!”

“I don’t care!” My father’s words are a sonic boom compared to Tony’s sniveling pleas. “How dare you think you can steal from me and not be repaid for me. Many men before you have fallen for the bargains and all have ended up dead. To add insult, you promise him what is mine. You promised him that you would lure my daughter and kidnap her. You set up a malicious subterfuge in which my daughter would be drugged and taken and all because a man like Carmello promised you riches! Had you come to me first, I would have made sure Carmello would never have had an opportunity to touch you or your family. I’m a man of my word and had you told me his plan, I would have given you more than this.” My father stops before Tony, leaning in closely. “But unlike you, I do have faithful men who do as they’re told and get repaid kindly. Now you’re about to lose it all and so is your family.”

“No, I’m sorry. Please, no,” Tony begins his pleading again.

“Amelia,” my father suddenly states my name, jolting me from my trance and quietening Tony. “You can do the honors.”

“Me?” I gasp, looking at him as if there’s another Amelia miraculously joining us. I’m still in shock that men were conspiring such plans against me. The fear it’s risen shows again how wanted we are by outside forces far more dangerous than the police. “Why me?”

“I want to see if Alberto was right about you in Italy. I want to see if you have gotten better.” My father presents the knife to me. “C’mon, Amelia, I want to see what the old country made of you. I want to see if keeping you here was really worth it. I want everyone to see that you truly are a force to be reckoned with.”