31
MILAN
“Milan, get off him!”
Cesare slumped down the wall until he reached the unhygienic stone floor as I let him go, blood dribbling into his mouth and causing him to choke. I backed off as my father’s voice began to lessen, as I proved that I was not defective and I could protect my wife.
“Why?” I shouted, panting. “Why did you do that to her?” Cesare whispered something, his head rolling on the wall behind him. I crouched before him, squeezing his cheeks between my fingers. “Wake up and explain to me what my wife did that hurt you so badly that you had to slit her throat!”
“S-sorry,” he whispered. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I-I’m sorry.”
Sicily had been right; Cesarewassick. I’d never seen my brother this way before, crying but out of his mind, right here but lost. He was a lawyer, he was exceptionally smart, but whatever was going on inside of his brain was poisoning him.
I looked over my shoulder at Brenno, my eyes narrowing until they adjusted to the darkness and I saw the devastation on his face—soft eyes but a harsh stare, a heaving chest with little exertion required. Some of it was simply a feeling of knowing, ofhaving seen this boy at his best and worst andknowingthat his heart was breaking.
“What happened to him?” I whispered as Cesare continued to mumble how sorry he was.
Brenno shook his head. “He has psychotic episodes and PTSD. He had them a lot when we left New York, then they got really bad when Bella left him and moved to Chicago when we were fifteen. They got better when he started this lawyer stuff, but then he got married, Bella got pregnant, and they started to come back, just not—not like this. I’ll get him help. He needs help… He’s sick.”
My body ached for him, for the boy he had once been, and my eyes stung as I stared at him. I was angry, perhaps I even hated him, but right now, he looked just like a scared little boy, and I could never hate that boy.
I moved my hand to his cheek, and he sobbed into my palm, clutching my wrist gently, holding me there with shaky fingers. “Cesare, can you understand me?”
He nodded slowly, blinking up at me.
“Can you explain to me why you are afraid?”
“They got her,” he whispered, his nails digging into my skin.
Brenno crouched beside me. “He always says this when he’s like this. Cesare, Bella’s fine.”
“They got her because I told her about the contract.” He leaned closer like these people he was scared of were listening. “Th-they got her, they took her from me, and now they’re going to come back and get Bella and the new baby. We need to get Milano to void it, Bren, we need to?—”
I frowned, not understanding his rambling. “Cesare, who did they get?”
“The baby!”
Brenno and I shared a glance before he said clearly, “Your baby’s fine, so is Bella, they?—”
Cesare shook his head, slumping back against the wall. “No, no, my baby died, I saw the blood, I heard Bella crying, she was crying, she was crying so much, and—and she was screaming. They got her, my daughter.”
It was dark, but I felt Brenno’s hand find my leg. I did not remove him. I did not think he even realized he had touched me. His voice was strained as he said, “When was this, Cesare?”
“Long,” my brother answered, sounding distant, his head still shaking against the stone. “Long ago. I-I was beaten, he beat me, he beat me so bad, and I crawled home. Bella was in my bed, she was there, she was losing our daughter… Eighteen, she was, then Brenno came home and we killed him because he beat me?—”
“What is he talking about?” I whispered to Brenno, looking over and noticing the tears trailing down his cheeks.
Brenno didn’t answer. He remained silent for too long, trying to listen to our brother, but then he finally broke the quiet and said, “Cesare, we weren’t eighteen when we killed Stefano, remember? We were—” He choked on nothing, on his own words perhaps, looking away before returning. “We were fifteen, Bella was fourteen then, Ezio was two, don’t you remember?”
Cesare simply shook his head. “Weeks.”
It dawned on me what he was saying. “She was eighteen weeks pregnant.”
“What?” Brenno snapped, his eyes widening.
I slammed my eyes shut as Cesare burst into tears, ones that wracked his body so hard that his chest lurched and Brenno had to place his hand on his heart to keep him still. He looked weak like this, but I wondered if he was reverting back to the very day he spoke of, and if what he was saying was correct, I had forced him to sign that contract when he had just lost his child.
He had been just a child himself.
