AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Six nights. Six long, lonely nights. After the first one, I’d gone back to my original bedroom, the one Dario had dragged me out of. The one I wished he would drag me out of now, but he hadn’t come home. If we were divorced then I needed to move out. Both I and Tomasso, but I didn't know how I would seperate him from Nonna. My finger hovered over the number for the court house, but still I didn't call. I knew I was burying my head in the sand, and every day my heart ached a little bit more.
In fact, Tomasso was the only thing keeping me sane. We’d had a pediatrician visit the first day I was home, and despite me trying to ferret out information, he told me he’d never met Signor Banetti, and an assistant had arranged for his visit. Tomasso was malnourished, frightened, confused, and sporteda dozen or more old injuries. The doctor was immensely gentle with him, and immediately recommended a child trauma therapist who Alvize took the details on, then informed me later we had an appointment in three days with a Dr. Katy O’Leary.
Tomasso was a little nervous around me and terrified of the men. Alvize made sure Tomasso had plenty of warning when he entered a room. Spoke slowly and quietly. Tomasso quite liked Imelda, but Nonna? I think they loved each other from the first day. She fed him. He didn’t shy from her touches. She clucked over his bruises. And never seemed to worry that he didn’t say a word.
The pediatrician said he couldn’t see any physical reasons for Tomasso not to talk, told us not to worry, and to let the therapist handle it.
The breakthrough for me came on the fourth day, when I caught him looking at the pool. I’d tried to coax him out to the beach, but he’d seen the guards and refused to go, so I didn’t push. I told him I was going in the pool, and if he wanted to come, there were some shorts on his bed. I’d also got a million different types of pool toys and threw them in. He couldn’t swim, but we stuck to the shallow end with Alvize keeping an eye on both of us.
Alvize had given me a new phone, but the first time I called Dario, Lucio answered. And the second. And the fifth. And the tenth. All he said was Dario was healing and he would tell him I had called.
So here we were. Six nights. I couldn’t sleep, as usual, so I crept out of bed and made myself a coffee, taking it to sit out on the back patio.
I swear Alvize was a ninja because he appeared the moment I sat down.
“The beach is patrolled,” I said. “I don’t need a babysitter. Go get some sleep.”
He nodded, then completely ignored me and sat down. Useless tears pricked at my eyes, and I looked away.
“Did Dario tell you what I did?”
I glanced back at him in surprise. “When?”
“Nine years ago. We got shaky intel, and a job went south. Lost my whole team, well, most of them.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Is that why you left the army?”
He shook his head. “No. I left because I’m a stubborn bastard who couldn’t see a good thing when I had it and decided to drown myself in a bottle.”
I waited. Because there had to be more to that. He took a sip of coffee, then glanced at me and sighed. “I wasn’t planning on ever telling anyone this.”
I snorted. “Well, you know a dozen ways to kill me with your little finger if I ever tell anyone else.”
He met my gaze. “But I’m not gonna have to, am I? Because you seem to be doing a good job of that yourself.”
I flushed and drew Dario’s sweater tighter around me.
“Not all of the team were killed,” Alvize said after a moment. “I managed to keep one alive.” Alvize didn’t sound like that was a good thing.
“That’s good,” but it sounded more like a question, even to me.
Alvize huffed out a bitter laugh. “I had to drag him away from the wreckage. He had a spinal injury and moving him screwed up his legs.”
“Moving him saved his life,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, well, try telling that to a twenty-eight-year-old who thinks his life is over, anyway.”
“And?” I knew there was more to this story.
“And he told me I should have just left him in the bird. Helicopter,” Alvize added, but I’d got it.
“What has that to do with stubbornness?”
“Because about a year later, he came to see me. I was out of the army and drinking heavily by that time. Seeing him in the wheelchair…” He trailed off. “I liked him before. We had to be careful, but we’d even started talking what ifs.”
“What if?” I prompted when he didn’t say anymore.
Alvize looked down at his empty mug. “What if one or both of us left? What if we got together?”
