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CHAPTER 68
________
Gabriella Matos
I keep my hands pressed tightly to my ears and the earrings in them pierce my skin. The pain, however, is nothing, it only serves to match the beats of my own heart roaring against my ears.
Sweat drips onto my skin and the lace sticks to it. The uncomfortable sensations are what make me sure that I'm still alive, despite the hell this place has turned into. I shouldn't have smiled when shots started hitting each of the men guarding the doors and windows, but I did. Not because I think I have any chance of getting out of this place alive, hiding under the first table I saw was just an instinctive reflex, not a desire for self-preservation. What made me smile when heads other than the priest's started to explode was feeling vindicated. And if that means I'm going to the same hell as these men in the afterlife, well, I really think I got there early.
“Bella!”
I'm freaking out. I'm hearing voices, the voice. Now I'm hearing Vittorio's voice in my imagination.
I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping with all my might that one of the bullets would hit me in the chest, and it's only when that desire runs through me that I realize the cacophony of sounds around me has come to an end.
“Bella!” The call echoes sovereignly above the silence and I cry, not being able to bear the sound of Vittorio's voice being the only sound around me. I cry with longing, with agony, with everything, but mainly because he's not here. “Look at me,Bella mia.” This time, the tone is much more like the orders I was used to hearing leave my Don's lips. My arms dropping are the last movement performed by my body before it freezes.
Silence.
Nothing but my labored breathing, not even a fly buzzing or a drop falling to the floor. My eyelids are about to close with disappointment when I hear it for the third time.
“Come on,bambina, turn to me.” It's not my thoughts that make my limbs move.
The absolute need for it to be true, for the voice I'm hearing to belong to the man I spent all these days waiting for is the only thing driving my body. I crawl out of my hiding place.
The exaggeration of fabric surrounding me is an irritating obstacle and one of the sleeves of the dress catches on a broken part of the altar, tearing it. My legs finally straighten, pulling me to my feet and I turn around at once, not giving myself a chance to prepare for the possibility of finding nothing.
But in the empty and silent church, I find everything.
I find my Don.
The aura of violence always around him, today pulsates, like a living organism, rising and falling, in the same rhythm as his chest. Vittorio carries a huge gun; his dark suit is wet, and the white shirt underneath makes it clear: blood. I once thought he was the face of my most beautiful nightmares, but of course he wouldn't be content with just that. Vittorio is not satisfied with anything that is not absolutely everything that I am. He is alsothe face of my darkest dreams, the ones where I bathe in blood, and I like it.
His blue eyes search mine and I immediately give in. His arms rise, abandoning the weapon in one second and supporting me in the next, preventing my knees from returning to the ground.
Each of the tears I've saved for him over the past few days, and each cry I haven't cried, erupts in a pained and relieved mess down my throat, turning me into a bloody, sobbing mess.
My entire body is shaken by the force of my emotions, I hand each one of them over to the Don, because he has always been much better than me at understanding them, at organizing them, at telling me what to do with them. Except this time, I wouldn't be able to do any of those things now.
Understanding this, Vittorio says nothing, no orders or words of comfort leave his lips. He lets me cry and just holds me. His body cradles mine, giving me relief, comfort, his presence being everything I knew it would be and much, much more. He only takes a step back when my crying turns into spaced out sobs.
“You came.” I manage to say softly, and I feel his thumb smooth my throat, looking for the mark that isn't there before his hand reaches my face, distraught with emotions. Even so, Vittorio's hand reaches exactly the painful side hit by Coppeline, earlier today. “You came,” I repeat the whisper, still having trouble believing it.
“Who did this to you,bambina?” he asks, his now wavering from my face. “Tell me the name of the corpse and I will erase its existence from the face of the earth just as I already did with their life.” I shouldn't like this promise so much, but it blooms inside me like a shining flower, generating oxygen in my core and making me let out a relieved sigh.
“Massimo,” I murmur and Vittorio nods. I continue to stare at him, unable to believe that he is really here, that everything is over, that I have been awakened from the nightmare in which I have spent the last few days immersed. “You came.” I press myself even closer against his body and breathe in the smell that intoxicates me even when mixed with countless others.
The blood on his clothes paints my dress red, spreading across the white fabric like an explosion of color. Vittorio runs his eyes over my entire face in a long exploration. He analyzes each of my features, as if he knew them by heart and was checking that they were all in place. Then a long, slow exhale spills from his chest.
“Say something, please!” I ask, terrified by the idea that if he continues to remain silent, his image, his arms around me, his scent might simply disappear and leave me here, alone, to discover that this was all just another trick of my imagination in an effort to preserve myself from the truth that seemed ready to implode me.
More than the kidnapping, more than the pain, more than Coppeline and everything he did. All of this hurt, all of this made me beg for death, but there was only one thing that made me bend my knees: that Vittorio hadn't come.
“How could I not come if they ripped my heart out of my chest, Bella? I'm not a good man, Gabriella, but not even I can live without one.” Tears flood my eyes again, this time, out of a completely different despair.
“You can't say t-things like that. Y-you...” I stutter, losing the ability to speak when sobs run through me again.
“I can't?” he asks, and I shake my head, denying it. Vittorio nods and takes two steps back. My chest shrinks, but only until I understand why. The world stops spinning as he moves. Allthe air around us becomes useless because I no longer need to breathe, not when in slow motion I watch Vittorio Cataneo, Sagrada's fearless leader, kneel. The Don kneels. He kneels to me. “Then I'm going to bow down,” he says and, soon after, he does so. Vittorio bends into a deep bow and that pulls my own body to the floor.
