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“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. I’m here to stay. I only leave when you tell me and I want a damn good reason. I think even then, I won’t be able to leave.”

I lick my lips as the tears become heavier and I close my eyes to prevent them from falling just now. In the face of grief, I have this man to present me with so much love and support. While I become unbidden, shattering into millions of pieces, Zane is the rope I need to hold me together. Without him, I dread to think what mess I would be moving through the day as. As the memories of Manuel’s demise and my own and Enzo’s stabbing briskly stir alive, I cave. I shudder on the first sob, it becoming a tremendous wave that crashes over me and begins to drag me away. Quickly, my tears disperse into a frenzied flood I cannot stop. Grief captures me and I am far too weak to fight against it.

Zane gets up, his weight leaving the bed, but it returns moments later as he comes to my side, crawling beside me. Gently, and with ease, he pulls me into his arms, wary of my fragility and allows me to dissolve wholly as he just holds onto me. He minds every line and wire that runs from my body just so he can keep his arms around me and gives me any piece of peace he can offer me. I thought having him here playing bedside vigil was enough, but the moment I am surrounded by everything that makes Zane – his arms, his scent, his breathing, his love – I find myself able to find some salvation from the grief I only know will develop into a maelstrom in the coming weeks.

Then with a hushed voice, he whispers the one thing I need to hear– “
Va tutto bene, dolcezza
.”

It could be an empty promise, and right now I fear nothing will ever be okay, but he’s here holding me when I need him the most. That tells me there is some distance glimmer of hope for us all.

***

It’s been hours since I woke up the second time. I seem to sleep in snippets, waking up every other hour after having the horrors of life brandished at me on repeat. Zane dozed off in the seat beside my bed, his hand clasped in mine after holding onto me to settle. I wanted to ask him about my own health, but every time I thought about it, I realized I didn’t care. I’m alive and that’s what matters. I got lucky while my baby brother didn’t. What else do I need to know?

Staring up at the ceiling of my hospital room, I allow the room around me to fade away; the gentle hum of machinery around me becomes distant, as does Zane’s heavy breathing. All I’m left with is the ticking of my thoughts as they roll over and lapse into one another, fighting for my attention.

But the front runner is the thought of death.

There is no romanticism about death. There’s no warmth, only that aching feeling as everything you know is torn from you. And that’s the bittersweet truth of becoming too comfortable in life – there is nothing more final than death.

But that’s the problem, right?

It’s meant to be final. There is no going back. There’s no safe retreat, no miracle that could change it, no ability for one last chance to say some sentimental words to part on. There isn’t a rewind button or a do-over because, if I had either, I would mutilate Giovanni and make him cry his way to death. I would make sure he felt his life slipping away like he did to me. I would punish him for every sick deed he threatened upon any of us and I would never leave him the opportunity to spiral into the sadistic beast he always wanted to be. He issued death as if it were a good friend of his. He allowed it in, allowed it to captivate our lives and leave us all hanging in the balance.

Death is like a thief in the night. It’s silent, relentless, and after every last remnant of joy from those who possess it. But once it has exactly what it wants, it clings so tightly you fear you’ll never know what life without it will be.

Right now, I fear I’ll never know a life past the grief I feel at losing Manuel.

I roll my eyes closed as the tears begin to weave a fine line through my lashes. Beyond my own physical pain, the resonating hollowness in me is a pain I’ll never forget. The pain my body feels is nothing close to the pain my heart is clenched tightly in. I feel like my heart doubts its own beat. As if it does so, life will resume as normal and nothing is normal about life anymore.

"You should be sleeping."

I bring my gaze down as I turn my head stiffly to the side and feel my breathing hitch.
Enzo
. He’s sitting across the room, directly next to the door, looking like an absolute wreck. His hair is scruffy, his normal clean shaven appearance is replaced by abject stubble giving him a scruffiness he never suits. When he looks at me, I take note of the red rimming his eyes. They’re red raw and full of tears and it further affirms the one thing I panicked over – how will we ever recover from this?

“Enz,” I whisper, my eyes watering more so just at the mere sight of him.

“You gave that man quite the scare,” he responds, unmoved apart from the swift head nod to Zane, who sleeps beside my bed. There’s a sense of detachment to him and it rocks me to the core to hear how lifeless he’s become. So much has changed in such a short succession and the only constant is the man sleeping beside me. While my family falls apart from around me, he’s remained by my side, calling my name and vowing to never leave me.

“I know,” I reply, my tone remorseful as I remember that harrowing cry Zane screamed out with. “Are you okay?” I ask, finding words failing me most here.

“Fine. Better than you, right now,” he grunts, sitting forward slightly. “I take it they told you...” he trails off, his eyes unable to meet mine.

“Yeah,” I whisper, taken aback by his harsh tone toward me. “Why did this have to happen?”

He shrugs, a very uncharacteristic trait for Enzo.

“Why does any of this life have to happen, Amelia?” he asks, the use of my full name bites at me, wounding me further. “We should have seen it coming.”

“We were changing things, though,” I reply, my voice betraying me as it travels softer than the conviction I wanted to empower. “You were changing things. You told me so.”

"What was the point? What's there to change now?" he asks me, his voice rabid with intense emotion. "Gio proved that power wins. What we've been doing is nothing short of a waste of time."

“No,” I whisper, pushing myself up. I’m crippled by the amount of pain that bursts through my stomach. I whimper but bite down hard on my lip to shift more. I sense Enzo moving, rushing forward, but now is not the time for any physicality. “You do not get to condemn this family when you’re the one who fought so hard for us.”

“I fought so hard that I managed to get Manuel killed and you in this state,” he tells me, his tone elusive of anything but bitterness. “I’m such a fucking protector, I allowed Giovanni to win. You and Manuel were stupid to ever believe that I was ever going to save any of us.” I watch as he throws his hands onto his head, tearing wildly at his own hair. His hands fall, leaving his shattered expression to stare at me. Everything he is feeling is raw as it sits etched into every contour of his handsome features. “I failed you all. There is no coming back from that for me. I let you down, Amelia. This is proof you’d all be better off without me.”

“You’re letting him win now,” I snap, feeling my own bitterness rising. “You don’t get to do that!”

I don’t even calm as Zane fully rouses from his slumber and now sits up wondering what the fuck is going on. My grief is transcending into something far more dangerous than I could have imagined and far quicker than I had anticipated. My denial is swept aside for a quick assault of anger. I don’t know how long this will last, but I can only allow absolute consumption.

“You do not get to act like you’re the only one solely to blame in this! He trusted me to protect him, too. He told me so, Enzo. He trusted us all, but me, I was the one who kept him safe. I kept him so safe that I couldn’t even reach him when he needed me most.” I inhale with difficulty, my stomach seizing as I do so and I swallow hard on the howl of pain that begs for release. “He lay there calling out for me, Enzo. He needed me most at that moment and I couldn’t even get to him.” Heated tears of fury begin to fall and I can feel my entire body beginning to suffer from this lack of calm Zane fought for me to be in even in the midst of my newfound heartache. “I won’t ever forget how he cried out to me while he lay there dying. So, don’t you dare stand there playing a blame game like you’re the only one involved!”

“I was meant to save you all! That was my battle,” Enzo quietly declares, not reacting with the feistiness he usually keeps alive in him.

I didn't think my heart could break more than it is right now. This moment eclipses how I felt in the aftermath of my mother's death, and when Zane left me doesn't even shed a piece of light on this feeling. Enzo losing his fight is what kills me most. He has taken the blame for Giovanni and allowed it to destroy the man he has become. My brother is the one who gave up his life and his love to be here for us and in return, he’s had his faith stripped from him. My strong, heroic, and beautifully courageous brother is now nothing more than a shell. He no longer embodies a ferocious fire that could outshine any enemy. He’s lost, vulnerable, belittled by reality for the first time in my entire life, and that scares me.

This reality is becoming warped. I want to wake up from this fascicle gauntlet of plaguing emotions. I want to pinch myself from this dreadful slumber and leave the nightmares haunting me behind. But, instead, I only remain living in the moment – trapped, tortured, suffering.

“There is no way I can fix this anymore.” He hangs there on the spot. He’s dead behind the eyes, swallowed by his anguish and the idea that he deserves to condemn himself most. “I can’t fix this when I had to watch you both bleeding out. I fought for you both, but it wasn’t enough,” Enzo continues, persecuting himself furthermore.

“Enzo, you got yourself hurt trying to save them,” Zane interjects, almost acting as a negotiator.

“But it wasn’t enough! I could’ve done so, so much more! I could’ve saved them!” he bellows, wincing at the tension that overcomes him. “I will never be enough to save us when I allowed Manuel to be gutted and left for dead.”

I feel my stomach drop as he mentions that one callously, evil word. My brother was physically tortured to a slow death and now another is mentally torturing himself with the culpability he feels he has earned. The self-reproach he values so highly is going to splinter him into so many shards, he‘ll never find peace again. And the worst part is I can’t even save him when I am dependent on someone else to hold me together.

“Evil will always win,” Enzo murmurs, desolation befriending him. “We were brought up to believe that and I stupidly favored being the hero over just going with it. How am I meant to run the business when Papà dies when I can’t even keep our own alive? How do I bear to look at myself in the mirror when I know all I’m going to see is Manuel looking back me?”

Enzo is only angering himself more by the second. He’s on the brink of no return, teetering on the point of being forever a wounded man by Manuel’s death. His tone is rugged, sharp, and hits me square to the heart the more this conversation drives onwards. He’s now an angry man, and I wonder what it will take to disperse such heated emotions.

As one tear falls, so does another until the onslaught is something I can neither prevent nor stop now that it’s started. Death once brought my family together, proved who was true family and who wasn’t, but now it’s tearing us apart. Carlo is grieving on his own; Enzo, too. I have no idea how Bruno is coping with the news, nor how my father is dealing with this sudden twist in his family fold. I sure hope the Dio Lavoro never anticipated for this riptide to crash into this.

“What happened will never leave us,” Zane jumps in, now taking command as all hope becomes lost. “That day will very much live with me forever, but only because it has shown me that you have to cherish every moment. I was stupid to not live like that after my mother passed away and it’s easy to forget to be thankful, but we all got another chance. It’s a chance that Manuel doesn’t get, but it’s a chance we can use to really change the direction we were all leading.”

“It’s not,” Enzo growls, unable to hear Zane out on what he’s getting to.

“I have been in this family only a short time, but I have loved Amelia for a long time. The one constant that has been there is the true family you have formed without the likes of Gio or Sal. She dotes on what you bring to her life, Enzo. You, Bruno, Carlo, and Manuel were her true family. When all else failed, she had you four. I know you are reeling from Manuel’s death, but you either let people like Salvatore and Giovanni win or you do what you set out to do,” Zane breaks off, strengthening his fervor. “You make a life that you always promised Manuel you’d all be living.” He stands beside my bed, strong and unrelenting. Even in his exhausted state, Zane looks unprepared to back down and allow us to tear one another apart. “I might be overstepping so many boundaries here, but I cannot sit and watch this family fall apart anymore. I came into this family to fight for Amelia, and when I was here, I saw something I wanted to be a part of far more...the revolution. What I saw happening beneath the facade of the Dio Lavoro was so inspiring that I counted myself lucky to be able to be a part of it.”

“Manuel died,” Enzo comments, his tone quivering as he repeats that solemn truth.

“And that is a fact that won’t change if you decide to give up,” Zane states. His response holds strong as he acts as the final pillar of support we need. “This is going to be painful and it won’t get better overnight, but it will never get better if you start giving up on all what’s important to you. Manuel would hate to see this happening when he always had you to protect him most when he faced moments of such diversity. You are a family that doesn’t think any less of one another regardless of what happens.” Zane briefly pauses, watching the both of us and even as Enzo stands a broken man, his fight to break away is diminishing. “When Manuel came out gay, you were all there to make sure he wasn’t going to become an outcast. When Amelia chose me over your family, you stuck by her. You all love one another so unconditionally, I cannot and will not sit on the sidelines and allow you to tear yourselves apart.”