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"You heard me, Michael. This is my home, I am your wife, and I am not leaving. Not when you need me more than anything. Not when we need each other."
He shakes his head, "Your choice. If you prefer to stay in Palermo, that can be arranged too."
He stalks forward, and I stare at his retreating back. Shit, shit, shit, what do I do now? How can I make sure to have some form of contact with him? What can I do to make sure that he doesn’t just disappear after this?
"The Christmas party," I cry out, "I want to go ahead with the event."
He turns abruptly and his gaze bores into me. "Xander is gone and you want to go ahead with the festivities?"
I flinch. "He’d have wanted it. He’d have hated for us to be unhappy and mourning him."
He hesitates. "In Sicily, we mourn for at least a month in the period following a death. Celebrations are normally cancelled, or at the very least, conducted in a somber setting."
"I understand," I glance away, then back at him. "We needn't have a party on the scale I'd planned for, but maybe something in a smaller setting? Xander would have wanted us to celebrate his life." I tip up my chin, "You know I am right, Mika."
Michael jerks his chin. "Fine," he tilts his head, "you can stay until the Christmas party, and then I am sending you back home."
And then he’s gone.
4
Michael
What the hell is wrong with me? I had wanted to haul her into my arms, comfort her about our loss, hold her close and tell her that it was okay, that she was still alive and that’s what really mattered. But something inside of me had hardened, and I hadn’t been able to lower the barriers enough to tell her.
It’s as if Xander’s death crushed every last emotion that had sprung to life since I met her. He is gone, my child will never be born, and the only thing that matters to me now is to make sure that she is safe. It’s why I want to send her away, far from here, away from my influence, where my presence can’t taint her, where the company I keep can’t endanger her. Where my way of life will no longer cause her harm. It is the only way to ensure that she will never have to go through this kind of loss again.
She deserves better than me. She deserves someone who is on the right side of the law, who can give her security and safety, and keep her shielded from the darkness in which I spend so much of my time. She deserves more, so much more. Everything that I can’t give her. It’s why I have to let her go.
And yet, when she’d asked me about the Christmas festivities, I hadn’t been able to refuse her. She’d been right—Xander would not have wanted us to grieve his absence. He’d have wanted us to remember him with happiness, wanted us to have a good time as we indulge ourselves in his memory. It’s why I had given in to her request, and the Christmas party will take place as planned…
First though, I have to get through the funeral.
It's been three days since I left her at the hospital and returned home. I'd gotten on the phone and made arrangements for Xander's funeral. My brothers had offered to help but I had refused. This is something I have to do by myself.
Despite all of my influence within the police department, I hadn't been able to prevent them from conducting an autopsy on the body, which had delayed the funeral by a few days. But it had also given me the time to arrange for a funeral of the kind that befits Xander.
I straighten my cuffs, stare at my reflection in the mirror.
The eyes that look back at me, the features that fill the mirror are so like Xander’s. It should be me in the casket… It should have been me in that passenger seat and not him.
The only way to get through this tightness that claws at my chest is to find the bastards who did this and kill them… That is one thing on which I will not compromise. That is the only thing that keeps me focused… Avenge him, that’s the only thing that can restore the balance...somewhat. I knot my tie around my neck, tug on it until it hangs straight down. Then I turn and head for the doorway to my bedroom.
Her door opens at the far end of the corridor and she steps out. Clothed completely in black, from the veil that flows over her eyes and covers the bandage on her forehead, to the gown that draws across her narrow shoulders and down to her feet, which are clad in black stilettoes, she resembles a goddess who has come to stake her claim on the souls of us mortals.
She approaches, her movements slow enough to indicate that she is not completely healed from the incident.
The day on which I had lost, not one, but two of my children. If something had happened to her as well… I never would have been able to live with myself.
As she walks toward me now, all the pent-up emotions threaten to boil over. My fingers tingle and I want to wrap them around the nape of her neck, haul her close as I lick her lips, slide my fingers up her skirt and shove aside her panties to cram them inside her channel, which I have no doubt will be soaking wet.
She comes to a stop in front of me, and her scent… That luscious scent that is so Beauty fills my senses. My cock swells and the blood rushes to my groin. I widen my stance, glare at her as she tips up her chin. Her lips tremble as she parts them, and damn, if I don’t want to lean down and thrust my tongue inside her mouth and feast on her, and draw from the comfort that she can offer me.
But I won’t. I owe it to Xander to hold back. Xander, who is dead and who will never know what it is like to be married, to father a child, to see his paintings displayed in the best museums in the world, to grow old with his woman by his side, to see us take over the Cosa Nostra, to feel the wind in his hair as he drives with the top of his car down, to cuddle up with his wife, to hold his newborn… Fuck. I close my eyes, fold my fingers at my side.Oh, Xander, how am I going to get through the next few hours? How am I going to bury you…my heart?
Soft fingers curl around mine, and I glance down to find Beauty has clasped her fingers around mine. She flattens my hand between her much smaller ones. They almost seem like a child’s in comparison to the width of mine. Her pale skin is like ivory against my tan. I stare at the contrast. So fragile, yet so strong. So breakable, yet so… Tenacious. She is a study in contrasts. The yin to my yang. The other part of me…and yet…
I can’t keep her with me. This one time, I need to be selfless. I need to let her go so she can survive. So I know that she is safe… Wherever… Whoever… She is with.
