Blood spattered the walls of our bedroom, transforming our loving home into something I normally kept far, far away from those who lived here. The two people who meant more to me than anyone in this fucked up world.
I stood frozen—numb—in the center of the room as my eyes traveled over the walls and bed. The photo on the nightstand of the two of us on our honeymoon smiling into the camera like the stupid, lovesick kids we were, dripped with blood. A piece of flesh hung on the corner, clinging to the wood in a desperate attempt to stay where it was before it finally succumbed to gravity and landed in the small pool of blood beneath it with a plop. The entire scene was like something out of a nightmare. The faces in the photo completely unrecognizable now.
My fingers went lax, and the gun slid from my hand to land on the hardwood floor with a loud thud. Silent tears ran down my face. ‘Why did you make me do this, Ale? Why?’ I asked her. ‘WHY??’
My wife stared back at me with dark eyes that were vacant of the life that had once lit them from within. A life full of love and laughter. A life we had made together.
I refused to look below her neck, not wanting to see what I had done. I hadn’t shot her in the face or head. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, even though it would’ve been a quicker death. Because if I had, that would be the last image I had of my wife. That was the way I would always remember her. ‘Alessandra…’ I whispered her name, afraid that, wherever she was, she would hear me and see what I’d done. Would she haunt me now? Destroy our beautiful home in her ethereal rage? The home I’d helped build with my bare hands?
My legs suddenly gave out, and I fell to my knees beside the gun, then forward onto my hands. Crawling across the floor, I somehow made my way over to her, slipping and sliding through the blood that trailed across the floor. I could barely see as an excruciating pain ripped open my chest, laying my heart bare, and tears streamed down my face. But somehow, I managed to find her hand. It lay limp and cold on the floor, and I picked it up and held it to my chest with both of mine, trying in vain to keep it warm.
Was she holding our son right now? Would she tell him how much I love him? How much I miss him?
Elliot had been gone for nearly a year, but I could still see his intelligent brown eyes. Still hear his giggles as I walked through the house when I got home, searching for my family, only to find them in some far corner of the house playing in whatever imaginary world they were visiting that day. He’d only lived four precious years before he was taken from us by a stray bullet. A bullet that had been meant for me.
After it happened, I’d gone a little bit mad for a while.
For Ale, the madness had never left.
I’d tried to keep her safe. To keep her in the background, where I’d hoped Luigi, the boss of the Italian mafia in Austin, would forget she even existed. I told her over and over that our son’s death was nothing but an accident, and there wasn’t anything that could’ve been done. But she wouldn’t fucking listen to me. She was a mother who’d lost her child, and she wanted revenge against the man responsible. For her, that man wasn’t the gunman, but Luigi, the one who’d groomed me since I was a child to join this life of crime.
We were young when we met, Alessandra and I. Teenagers. Way too young to fall in love and get married, even though we’d waited until she was finished with school. By that time, I’d already held my position as one of Luigi’s top soldiers for two years. One of only two people he trusted with his youngest son.
Alessandra wasn’t from our world. She hated the fact that I was involved with the mafia and was always telling me to get out and find a respectable job. However, this life she hated so much was the only one I knew. What else was I supposed to do? I never went to college. Never learned a trade. As a member of La Cosa Nostra, I could provide well for her and any children we might have. She’d always have a good home. She wouldn’t have to work unless she wanted to. And she’d have the other wives to keep her company.
But she wanted nothing to do with any of it. And when Elliot had died, she’d blamed me. Blamed the family. Especially Luigi. As the boss, she believed he should’ve protected us. And she was right. However, if I’d gone after him, I only would’ve been signing my own death warrant. I would’ve left her completely alone in this world that would never accept her but would never allow her to be free. Because even with me gone, she would never be allowed to escape. I was smart enough to know this.
Alessandra hadn’t cared.
She’d gotten out of control. First attacking him with her bare fists at the funeral, and then driving to his house with one of my guns. And it had only gotten worse from there.
Before I knew it, she was snooping around on my computer and phone, trying to find the right time and place to get to him. This she admitted openly to me, throwing it in my face that she’d been able to get into everything so easily, and eventually I had no choice but to tell Luigi so he could take precautions. I told him she was grieving as any mother would, and that over time she would grow to accept our son’s death. He listened and was sympathetic, but he couldn’t take the chance that she would somehow get through his men. However, to show his appreciation of my loyalty, or maybe to test it further, he told me I could be the one to take her out. Before she did something really stupid and got someone else killed or brought the FBI down on our heads.
Horrified that he’d even suggest such a thing, I tried to reassure him that I would make sure she never got anywhere near him. I offered to send her away. Swore to talk sense into her. I told him she was still mourning our son, that she just needed time. But all of my pleading fell on deaf ears. Even Luca, his own son and one of my best friends, couldn’t talk him out of his decision. If I didn’t do it, someone else would.
I went home that night and made love to my wife for hours, bringing her to orgasm over and over until she was sobbing and reaching for me. Only then did I take my own pleasure in her sweet body, fucking her like it was the last time I would ever be able to do so.
And then I got up from the bed, retrieved my gun from the top of the dresser, and I shot her in the center of her chest as she slept.
‘You were mine,’ I told her as I held her hand in the ever-growing puddle of blood soaking my bare skin. ‘MINE. Why wouldn’t you stop, Ale? Why couldn’t you let it go?’ I sniffed and started rubbing her arm. She was growing so cold and pale. ‘Caro, this was a war that would have no winner. It was a war we couldn’t win. Why couldn’t you see that? Why wouldn’t you believe me? Even if I’d chosen you, we wouldn’t have gotten away. We would both be dead now.’
Perhaps that would be better, I thought as I pulled my wife’s body up onto my lap. The sobs I couldn’t hold back anymore wracked through me as I hunched over her as though I could protect her in death like I couldn’t in life.
Three days later, dressed in my finest black Armani suit, I stood beside her open grave and watched as they lowered her body into the ground beside our son’s. The funeral had been expedited. Luigi wanted this ‘mess’ forgotten as soon as possible.
‘At least she didn’t suffer,’ Luca told me. ‘She didn’t even know it was coming. It was better this way.’
Yes, I knew this to be true. Luigi wasn’t known to be a compassionate man, and he didn’t appreciate the fact that I was unable to keep my wife under control. If I had refused to carry out his orders, he would’ve sent his men after her. And as much as it hurt me to do it myself, I couldn’t stand the thought of another man’s hands on her. Of someone else hurting her. And they would’ve hurt her in ways I couldn’t even imagine. She’d threatened the boss’s life. There was no other way this could’ve ended.
Luca’s next words interrupted my grief. ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’ I asked him.
‘For staying with me,’ he said. ‘I need you, Enzo. I’m glad you made the right decision.’
‘I’m not so sure that I did,’ I told him quietly as I watched people dressed in mourning clothes throw handfuls of dirt on Alessandra’s coffin and begin to wander off. Back to their lives. Where they would tell each other what a shame it was that it had come to this as they went about their business like nothing had happened. Like my heart wasn’t in pieces inside my chest, shattered by the weight of my sorrow and guilt. ‘If I was more of a man, I would’ve—’
He cut me off before I could finish the thought. ‘You would’ve been killed, along with Alessandra.’
I turned to look at him, pulling off the sunglasses I wore to hide how fucked up I was inside. ‘At least I would be with my wife and son.’
‘And then what the fuck would I do without you, my friend? Huh?’
‘You have Tristan.’
‘I do,’ he agreed. ‘And I have no doubt he would protect me with his life. But Tris is missing something inside of him, Enzo. We both know that. He follows my orders without question. But who will be around to talk me out of doing stupid shit when my temper gets out of control? Who’ll be here to remind me there are other things that matter sometimes besides the business? To stop me from becoming my father?’ He took my face between his hands and forced me to look at him. ‘I need you, Enzo. YOU. Don’t you dare fucking leave me.’ His fingers tightened on the sides of my head. ‘Swear it to me.’
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t make him a promise I wouldn’t be able to keep. The guilt of what I’d done ate at my insides like worms. I was a coward. And a fool. I belonged in the ground with my family.
‘I’m your family, too,’ Luca said quietly, knowing what I was thinking without my having to say it. ‘I was your family before you ever met Alessandra. And so was Tristan. Could you forgive yourself if you left me and something happened to one of us?’
His face blurred before me. ‘No,’ I admitted. And it was true. I’d never be able to rest in peace with the two of them still here.
‘Then swear it to me,’ he said. ‘Swear you’ll stay here with me always.’
I blinked away the tears as the sound of mounds of dirt hitting Alessandra’s coffin filled my ears. ‘I swear,’ I told him.
And I kept that oath. The days went by, gradually turning into months, and then into years. My grief for my wife and son never left me, but it did get easier to think about them over time. Luca saved my life that day. If he hadn’t been there, I had no doubt I would’ve put my gun to my head right then and there and joined my wife in her grave. In return, I watched over his. And there was never anyone in my life who would make me regret my vow to him.
Until now.
