AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Does he hate me?I can’t imagine what I might have done to make him feel that way. It wouldn’t make any sense, really. But I can’t read anything on his still, silent face.
“I’m glad you came,” I whisper, even that sounding loud in the quiet of the church. “I didn’t know if you would. If anyone would tell you. Or if you’d come even…even if they did.”
“I wouldn’t have failed to come back for this.” There’s that stiff formality still in Alessio’s voice as he looks down at me, but I can hear it falter the slightest bit. “How are you, Gianna?”
“I’ve been better.” I bite my lip again, tasting blood; it’s been bitten so often in the last forty-eight hours. A small, almost hysterical giggle builds up behind my teeth, and I have to swallow it back so I don’t make a fool of myself here. I feel like I might come unhinged at any moment, like the numbness might break, and I might fall apart when the reality of it all hits me, and I don’t know who I would turn to any longer if that happened. Once, it would have been my father I would have leaned on, if anything so awful had occurred. But now, I have no one.
“I’ll be here for a little while after the funeral. The Family wants to speak with me, and then—” Alessio hesitates. “Well, I’ll be going back to New York soon. But I’ll make sure that you’re alright, before I return.”
There’s no quantifiable reason for the way my stomach drops a little, hearing that. Of course, he’s going back to New York—there’s no reason to think that he would stay. I don’t know why I would be disappointed to hear that he’s going home, once all of this is taken care of.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Alessio says quietly, still looking down at me. I wish, for just a moment, that I could hear what he’s thinking. I don’t have the slightest idea why he’s looking at me, almost as if he wants to bolt, as if he wants to be anywhere but standing here with me, with something shining in his eyes that almost looks like guilt.
“It’s your loss, too.” Before I can stop myself, I reach out, touching the back of his hand—and for just one moment, his fingers brush against mine before I feel him flinch back.
Hestepsback, too, putting a little more distance between us. Farther down the church, I can hear the wooden doors to the front opening and the sounds of hushed conversation. Alessio’s shoulders stiffen, and he nods to me.
“I’ll see you after the funeral, Gianna,” he says formally. “I’m sure the Family will want to speak with me at length, but I’ll be sure to give you my condolences and check on you again, before I make any decisions about when I’ll be leaving.
Once again, there’s no reason to feel so bereft when he walks away. There is no reason to feel that disappointment again.
And there’s no time to think about it, because the church is beginning to fill up with everyone else who has come to say goodbye to my father, and I’m dragged abruptly back into the moment, into the reality of what’s happening around me.
Alessio hasn’t been a part of that for a very long time. And it seems to me that one way or another, he has no intentions of being a part of it now, either.
Alessio
I’ve never felt anything like the guilt that speared me when Gianna came to stand in front of me, when she spoke to me—when she touched my hand. The way even that brush of her fingers made me feel—
What the hell is wrong with you?I berate myself as I walk to my seat, feeling both that sick pulse of guilt through my blood and a desire that is both unexpected and unwanted.In a church, no less?I’m half-hard in my suit trousers from being so close to her, from the scent of her floral perfume and her hand grazing mine. I’ve never been aroused by something so simple in my entire life. I’m a man in his late thirties with a long list of women who have been in and out of my bed—it takes more than a pretty face, a whiff of perfume, and the touch of a finger to make me hard.
Except when it comes to Gianna Mancini, apparently.
The worst part about it is that marrying her is exactly what Giacomo wanted me to do. Hewantedme to think about her as a wife—not back then, of course, but when she was old enough. He wanted me to promise that when she turned twenty-one, I would marry her. No matter that I’d be nearly forty then, or that I’m her relation by law, even if not by blood. No matter that I’m twice her age, that I was an adult when she was born. He’d said I was the only man he trusted with both his name and his daughter, and he wanted me to be her husband. Not a marriage of convenience, either, as I’d suggested. He wanted her to be happy. He’d believedIcould make her happy.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him all the reasons why he was wrong about that. So instead, I’d stuck to my excuses, to Gianna’s age and our legal bond, and left. I’d stayed away for three years, and I would have stayed away for many more, if not for Giacomo’s untimely death.
And now—
I swallow hard, taking my seat in the pew and resisting the urge to adjust myself, ignoring the ache in my groin in the hopes that it will go away if I don’t think about her at all—not about her wide, soft blue eyes or the rosy shape of her mouth, how beautiful she is now, or the way her fingers felt soft against my hand. Not about what else I longed for her to touch in that moment, the way I imagined in one split second her without that black dress, her fingers and lips moving over my skin as I taught her—
Christ above, man. What the hell is wrong with you?I grit my teeth, forcing the thoughts out of my head. I feel slightly as if I’ve come unhinged, like something about all of this has caused me to start losing my mind. Imustbe losing my mind if I’m fantasizing about Gianna in a church at her father’s funeral.
Atourfather’s funeral, if the technicalities are upheld.
I manage to keep my thoughts on the straight and narrow for most of it. It’s not hard once the church is full and the priest starts Mass—the air is too somber for anything else, too full of grief. Giacomo Mancini was a good man by all accounts—as good a man as one can be in this world we live in, and he helped those he could by whatever means he could. The church is full of both his peers and those he knew by association, people in the community that he helped, and it’s clear that he was a man who will be missed. It’s no surprise to me—even after so many years away, I don’t doubt that he stayed the same man who adopted and raised me as his own when he thought he’d have no other child.
I want to go to Gianna, when we’re in the cemetery. I see her one row forward at the edge of the grave, her hair blowing around her face and her cheeks streaked with tears. I have the aching desire to gather her in my arms and comfort her, to tell her that things will be alright. That I’ll keep her safe. Nothing makes me want that more than seeing Giacomo’s consigliere—Lorenzo—standing next to her, a man I neither like nor trust, as much as Giacomo would have insisted I should feel otherwise. Throughout the burial, I catch him looking at her with a possessiveness that makes me uncomfortable, and I grit my teeth, holding myself back.
I feel certain that I know what the Family will ask of me, and if I go to Gianna, if I let myself comfort her and be seen with her in my arms, it will make it that much harder for them to take me seriously when I tell them that not only will I not do as I know Giacomo wished, I will not be staying here in Chicago, either.
I’m not surprised when I’m approached the moment the last bit of dirt has been thrown on the grave. The others standing around are beginning to dissipate, heading back to the waiting cars, and I see Lorenzo guiding Gianna back to hers with a hand on the small of her back that makes me see red, my teeth grinding together for reasons that I know I should not feel. Reasons that mean I need to return to Chicago sooner, rather than later.
“Alessio Moretti?” The gravelly voice comes from a few feet behind me, and I turn slowly, seeing the craggy face of Enzo Fontana, one of the elders from Sicily, and the second-highest ranking member of the Family.
I incline my head without thinking, an automatic sign of respect. I have no intention of bowing heedlessly to their wishes, but rudeness won’t help anything—and my presence here and how I behave reflects on Luca, as well. Regardless of what happens today, I’m still Luca Romano’s consigliere.
“Don Fontana.” My voice is measured, equally respectful, but there’s not a stirring of emotion on the other man’s craggy face. He’s dressed in an expensively tailored suit, a long black coat over it despite the warmth of the day, and a hat covering his iron-grey hair. He gestures to a car idling at the edge of the cemetery, two guards waiting outside of it.
