John stood beside the office door, one hand clasping the other wrist in front of him. He wasn’t Italian, and therefore could never be sworn in as a Made Man, but he’d been a trusted man of my husband’s since I’d met him and would probably always be.
“New hairdo?” I asked, glancing at his bald head. It was an ongoing joke between us.
A small smile came to his lips. “Borrowed some of Lorenzo’s hair gel.”
I could feel Lo’s eyeroll behind me.
“Ah, well, I like it.” I winked.
I grabbed the doorknob, but John’s voice stopped me before I could open it.
“Gianna.”
I looked at him to see a somber expression staring back. At this point, I knew what lay beyond the door, but I was so tired of running from it for the last year. My thoughts reflected in my eyes, and he tipped his chin in understanding.
I opened the door and strolled inside.
She sat on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, a textbook open on her lap. When she looked up and saw me, she dropped her pen and stared.
“Hello, Sydney.”
She swallowed. “Gianna.”
“Don’t mind me,” I said, sitting on the couch beside her and grabbing the TV remote. “I’m waiting for Ace. I just need to kill him, and then I’ll be on my way.”
She nodded like she completely understood.
I flicked through the channels, settling on my favorite soap opera, and pulled my legs up beside me.
Sydney’s discomfort wafted from her like a heavy perfume. She shifted in her blue scrubs, and I realized she must have come straight from the hospital. She worked as a phlebotomist to put herself through nursing school. I was surprised she still insisted on working—I knew Antonio wouldn’t hesitate to pay her way.
“Gianna . . .” She hesitated, thick emotion laced through her voice. “I don’t know what to say to tell you how sorry I am for everything.”
Betrayal twisted my heart in a brutal grip.
It was the same thing she’d said in a hundred emails, voicemails, messages, and a couple of personal visits I’d quickly ended. Say something too many times and it becomes meaningless.
“If I could go back and change how things happened—”
“No, no, no,” I muttered, shaking my head at the TV. “Don’t sleep with Chad. He screwed around with Ciara behind your back last week!”
Sydney’s attention went to the TV before frustration heated her cheeks. “I know you, Gianna, and I know you aren’t so indifferent, not to me.”
Bitterness stung my throat. “You do know me. You know more about me than I have ever shared with anyone else. And that is why I can’t forgive you, Sydney.”
I’d taken a few college courses when I married and moved to New York. “It will help you get a feel for the city,” Antonio said. I was in awe of his generosity, the freedom he’d granted me, which I had never experienced before. That was where I met Sydney. I remembered the hours we spent squished together on her dorm room bunk bed, staring at the ceiling and talking about life.
It was the first meaningful friendship I’d ever had. And when it ended, it wasn’t the first time my heart had been ripped out. My chest had felt hollow since I was five years old, and sometimes, where emotions should be, there was only numbness. Some called it depression. I called it life.
“You know what he’s like,” she said softly.
I did know. I knew so well I actually felt sorry for her, but it did nothing to remove the image of him and her together. Or the knowledge they’d been seeing each other for a year now, without any regard to how it would make me feel.
“I didn’t mean for anything to happen. I felt sick about the whole thing—”
“This topic is positively boring,” I sighed. “I know, let’s talk about how my husband is in bed.”
She made a noise of frustration. “Stop doing this. Stop pretending you don’t care.”
“You want some honest emotion from me? Fine.” The words poured from my lips without any sentiment. “I hate you. I hate you for what you did. I hate you for still doing it. And I hate you for acting as though I’m in the wrong here. You’re dead to me, Sydney. Is that enough emotion for you?”
You’re dead to me.
You’re dead to me.
You’re dead to me.
It resounded in the room on an undying loop, like the skipping of a scratched record.
Her face lost all color, and her voice was so quiet it sounded nearly inaudible. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”
“So am I,” I whispered, resigned.
Silence reached out to consume us both. It masqueraded as a calm, peaceful entity, but it couldn’t conceal a volatile edge. We sat in that uncomfortable, deceitful silence. It was her punishment. It was just my existence. She worked on her homework with a shaky hand, and I watched my show while trying not to regret the words I’d said. But I did. They already haunted me, and she wasn’t even dead yet.
Fifteen minutes later, Antonio burst into the room with Ace on his heels. They were arguing about something, but as soon as they noticed our presence, they both stopped to stare. I guessed a wife and a mistress sitting side-by-side was a perplexing sight. I aimed to make it more confusing.
I smiled. “Aren’t you going to wish your wife a happy birthday?”
“Jesus,” Ace muttered. “We don’t have time for this right now.”
I shot him a narrowed gaze. “You know what I don’t have time for? You!”
It was an immature response I didn’t think through, as I did have some free time, considering I had no job and not a single responsibility, and that thought was clearly conveyed in Ace’s dry expression.
Father and son stood beside one another. Together, they could double as a brick wall. An unyielding force of nature. Or something someone might pray to.
My husband’s gaze coasted from me to Sydney and, in a twisted, disgusting way, I thought he liked seeing us together.
I hadn’t touched him since last October, since I’d told him I wouldn’t. But he was getting more persuasive as the days went on, and I was beginning to ache for human contact. For hands and lips on my skin; to lose myself in a sheen of sweat and lust. The desire grew stronger every day, and I knew he was only biding his time until it became unbearable. Antonio might smack me around sometimes, but he had never tried to rape me. My guess was that was a sin he’d be too ashamed to confess. Or, more likely, he thought my resistance was a game I was close to losing, and he was going to feel immense satisfaction when he won.
Thankfully, the way he watched Sydney and me was making me a bit nauseous. I got to my feet and straightened my dress.
“Is there a reason you’re not celebrating with the people upstairs who came here for you?” Antonio asked.
“Yes, actually, there is. To shoot Ace. Since I’m not currently armed, I’ll let you do the honors.”
He rolled his eyes and headed to his desk. “Appease my wife, son. It is her birthday.”
I turned to Nico, triumph sparkling in my eyes like a sibling who had just won a battle. But that was a slightly awkward comparison, considering we’d had sex.
Nico shook his head, and then walked to the door and opened it. “You have a second to say what you need to. And you’re not fucking shooting me.”
“We’ll see,” I muttered, passing him as I walked out the door.
My bare feet touched the cool concrete in the hall just as the first pop cut through the air. A draft hit my face, a ring sounding in my ears. John slumped to the floor with a solid thunk.
I stared at the splatter of red that slid down the wall in front of me.
My breath escaped me in one rush as someone slammed me to the wall, covering me with their body.
Pop.
Pop.
“Fuck,” Nico growled, smacking the wall beside my head. He whirled around, pressing his back to my front. The sound of three close gunshots cut through the air. They rang in my ears and vibrated in my bones.
Something wet and warm soaked through my dress. I touched the spot and brought my fingers up to my face. Red coated my hand like paint.
Somuch blood.
“Ace,” I breathed. “Oh, my god, Ace.” My hand shook.
Someone grabbed my wrist and shoved me into my husband’s office.
“Do not leave this room under any circumstance,” Antonio said. The darkness in his soul had leaked into his eyes, filling them with black. He slammed the door, and I fell back a step, finding balance.
“Oh my god, Gianna!” Sydney hurried over to me. “Where are you hurt?” She ran her hands over my arms and midsection while I stared blankly at the door. When she didn’t find a scratch, she breathed, “Whose blood?”
“Ace’s.”
“Oh, my god.”
A pop sounded from outside the door, one after the other, and then it went quiet. So quiet my heartbeat pulsed in my ears.
She eyed the door.
“No, Sydney,” I warned.
Turmoil flickered through her gaze. “I can help.”
“No.” Urgency filled my voice. “You heard Antonio.”
Tears filled her eyes, one escaping her bottom lashes. “I have a bad feeling, Gianna . . .”
“You love him.”
“Yes,” she cried. “I don’t want to live without him.”
She took a step toward the door, but I grabbed her wrist. I wouldn’t let her sacrifice herself for love. I couldn’t. Love wasn’t worth it. Love hurt. I tightened my grip when she tried to knock my hand away. But then the lights went out, and darkness descended on us, with reaching, searching, cold fingertips.
A strangled sound of protest escaped my lips, and I was eight years old again. Don’t you ever shut up, girl? Disgrace. Worthless. Unlovable. Whore.
My lungs tightened, constricting.
Her wrist slipped from my grasp and disappeared into the darkness.
You’re dead to me.
“No,” I cried, as I dropped to my knees and fought to breathe.
Sydney got her wish.
She didn’t have to live without him.
On my twenty-third birthday, I became a widow of one.
GIANNA
24 years old
August 2015
“CAN YOU FEEL IT? THE beat in your chest?”
I gave my head a shake, long curls sticking to my tear-streaked cheeks.
“Here.” Mamma grabbed my hand and pressed it to my chest, over my light pink church dress. “What about now?”
Something pulsed beneath my palm, small but fast, like the flutter of a frightened bird’s wings. I nodded.
“It’s music,” she whispered, like she was telling a big secret.
My eyes filled with awe, but soon, fear crept into the corners of my mind. “But Papà hates music.”
“Some men, Gianna . . . can’t feel their own music, let alone other’s.”
Sadness pulled on my chest.
Mamma’s gaze grew wet, like mine. “Dance to this”—she pressed her hand to my heart—“whenever and however you want.”
“Whenever I want?”
“Yes, stellina.” She pressed a kiss to my forehead and my five-year-old heart warmed. “Whenever you want.”
“I’m scared of the dark.”The whisper invaded the memory, my low, toneless voice sweeping in.
You’re dead to me.
You’re dead to me.
You’re dead to me.
The words came out with the blackness to swallow me whole.
I woke with a start, the sheets stuck to my sweaty skin. Catching my breath, I stared at the ceiling of my apartment. The dream swept me back to the night of my twenty-third birthday.
I sat at the back of an ambulance, the doors open on either side of me. It was hot and humid, though my blood ran cold.
A sheet covered the body, but it couldn’t conceal the long blond hair hanging off the stretcher as they loaded Sydney into the back of an ambulance.
Someone stood in front of me, and I brought a blank stare to his. I’d been sitting on Antonio’s cold office floor in the dark when he’d found me. Allister hadn’t said a word as he picked me up, letting me cry silently on his shoulder while he carried me outside. Before he disappeared back inside, he’d taken off his suit jacket and rested it on my shoulders. It smelled like a man’s. Deep, and rough, and masculine. I tried to drown myself in the scent instead of the numbness.
“Do you want to go home?” he asked.
Home?