I thought about it for a while before I shook my head. “I made my peace with it when Aurelia told me she was pregnant. That made me realize I needed to live in the present and not the past. But it means a lot to me that I can bring him home ... and lay him to rest. It’s closure, the last page in this shitty story.”
“It wasn’t all shitty,” he said. “Pretty fucking epic if you ask me.”
I’d met the love of my life, finally put Isabella behind me, and met some of my closest friends on the way. And now, a new stage of my life was about to begin—and I’d never been more excited. “It was, wasn’t it?”
The cemetery was located outside of Taormina, a short ten-minute drive. My mom hadn’t spoken of Edric in a long time, but I knew she still went there every single morning. That was confirmed when I arrived at his headstone and a fresh bouquet of flowers was there.
He hadn’t been gone that long, but time had already made its impact. The stone had lightened from exposure to the sunshine and the salt in the air. Grime had started to build up in the crevices of the engraving.
Tommaso and some of the other guys unloaded the oil drum from the back of the van. They rolled it down a plank of wood to get it to the dirt. They’d drained it in Palermo, and now nothing was inside except for the bones. Even sealed inside the oil drum, his body had still decomposed, and since it’d been over seven years, there wouldn’t be much left of him.
I grabbed a shovel and started to dig at my brother’s grave site. The others helped me, and an hour later, we reached the coffin that had already deteriorated. It was sealed shut even though there was nothing inside, so I pried it open and popped the lid.
I climbed out of the grave, then moved to the front of the van. I leaned against the grill and stared at the side of Mount Etna, thevolcano quiet for the time being. I could hear Tommaso and the guys working, transferring the bones from the oil drum to the coffin before they sealed it shut again.
I didn’t have the heart or the stomach to watch. Couldn’t see what was left of a man who still felt so real to me.
Tommaso released a quiet whistle to let me know they were finished.
When I walked over, they were shoveling the dirt back onto the grave.
“Thanks, guys.” I grabbed a shovel and joined them, putting the dirt back in place and compacting it with the bottom of our shovels, doing our best to make it look like it hadn’t been disturbed. But because my mother visited every single morning, she would know something had changed.
Hopefully, she would assume it was just scheduled maintenance. I wouldn’t lie to my mother, but this was one secret I would take to the grave. Let her believe her son had been killed by an idiot driver rather than broken into pieces and used as a nightstand.
Now that I was about to be a father, I thought about it differently.
I grieved for my mother in a way I hadn’t before.
If that ever happened to me ... I wouldn’t be able to go on.
When I pulled into the driveway of my home, I stopped when I got past the gate. I didn’t open the garage. Just gripped the wheel and stared at the place that had become home. The place that I had left in search of vengeance, power, and wealth.
I hadn’t realized all that was right in front of me the entire time. I just had to get my wife first and bring her here.
I pulled into the garage, then stepped into the house.
Aurelia and Medusa were there waiting for me in the hallway. Aurelia burst into tears at the sight of me and rushed to me to hug me harder than she ever had. Held on to me like she dangled over a cliffwith spikes down below. She breathed hard against my chest before she released an unexpected sob.
“Sweetheart.” I cupped the back of her head as she cried against me, cried like I’d died instead of lived.
Medusa was right at my feet, looking up at me before she raised a paw and issued a whine.
“In a sec, baby girl,” I said quietly, consoling Aurelia first.
She finally pulled away enough to look at me before she reached up and cupped my face. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
I bent my neck to kiss her, to pull her into me. “And I’m never leaving again.”
Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “If he’s gone, then we can return to Rome—”
“No.”
“You can have both, Con.”
“I don’t want both. This is what I want.” I moved my hand to her belly. “Just this.” I kneeled down and lifted up her shirt to kiss her stomach. That was when Medusa got impatient, moving her snout under my arm and trying to pull it toward her, demanding attention. She used to be the only woman in my life, but she had two other people to compete with these days.
“Hey, baby girl.” I cupped her face with both hands, then ran them back through her fur, making her eyes soften at my touch. Then I kissed the top of her head and gave her body a rubdown, bringing her in for a hug before I let her go. I stood upright and looked at Aurelia again, looked at the eyes that made me soft the moment I saw her. “It’s good to be home.”
