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His knuckles smashed against my eye and temple, immediately taking my legs from under me. I slapped onto the floor of the truck with a resounding bang, only this time, I didn’t stay alert, this time, everything went black, taking me away and stealing the little hope I’d built up to get away from here.
Hope.
It was a futile thing. It wasn’t a living, breathing creature, but it had the most impact on us. An impact that could be destroyed in seconds.
Hope.
I feared that I’d never have hope again.
* * *
ROMEO
Some people got anxiety when they were nervous. Sweaty palms, heart beating out of their chest, feeling lightheaded.
But me? I just felt nothing.
There were only a handful of people allowed inside the house that I was pulling up to, all of which got nervous at the prospect of seeing the person who owned the brick building.
Not me though. I’d learned a long time ago to lock my emotions away, to not let them slip to the surface. It was yet another thing my father had taught me so well. The same man who I was about to see.
Since my cousin Lorenzo had taken over as boss of the Mafia when his father had died, my father had been pushed out more and more. I was sure he didn’t like it, but he also understood that it was a new generation running things now, and Lorenzo knew exactly how he wanted to do it. And that didn’t include input from him on a regular basis.
I kept my engine running as I pulled into the driveway. The house I’d grown up in was so different to Lorenzo and Dante’s, yet it was also similar. Italian traditions run deep in the household, as well as the man taking charge and deciding how we would all live. Some may have called our house a mini mansion, but compared to the Berettas’ it was tiny. With six bedrooms, seven baths, a housekeeper who cooked and cleaned, and a huge study, it was more than most people’s homes.
My gaze landed on the bright red door, and I wondered if my father had chosen that color because of the amount of blood he’d spilled over the years.
I saw the curtain twitching, a head of long black hair appearing, then disappearing, and I knew it was my mother. Hauling in a breath, I switched the engine off and pushed out of my shiny black car. It was a sporty model, the kind that you heard coming before you saw it.
The door swung open as I was halfway to it, and Mom’s smiling face greeted me. She looked so much like her older brother, Luca—Lorenzo and Dante’s father. She bounced up and down on the spot, her arms outstretched, waiting for me to get to the door. For a second, I felt a pang of sadness at the fact that she’d only left the house a handful of times in the last decade. It was a secret we all hid; although, I had no idea how we managed it.
Maybe people knew but they just didn’t acknowledge it. Not daring to talk about Antonio Pagani’s wife.
I pushed that sadness deep down, demanding that it didn’t come back up. I didn’t have time for emotions like that, not when I had to protect myself from the memories that always invaded me when I came back here.
“Hey, Ma,” I murmured, not hesitating to wrap my arms around her. The top of her head came to my chest, and I inhaled, smelling the same perfume she’d been wearing for my entire twenty-two years of life.
“I missed you,” she whispered, tightening her arms around me. I knew that she wanted me to come over more than I did, but I…I just couldn’t. The monthly visit to this house was all I could manage, unlike my little brother, Rafael. He still lived here, and I winced at the thought. I knew he hated this place just as much as me, though I never really understood why. It was me that our father taught all of his “tricks of the trade.” Rafael had gotten off scot-free, so what was so bad about it for him?
I held Mom tighter, hating how my thoughts had wandered into a void I tried to keep myself away from at all costs. It was this goddamn house, it unearthed things we all tried to bury, trapping us in its web and refusing to let go.
Mom pulled back, her glassy eyes gazing up at me as her palm softly landed on the side of my face. “Your father is home.” She’d said it so low that only I would have heard her, but as if by magic, my father appeared behind her, his face stone cold, not a single emotion in sight.
“Romeo,” he grunted, narrowing his eyes on me. He’d been left out of all the business decisions as of late, and if it wasn’t for Rafael telling him what he knew, then he’d have no idea what was going on. “Let’s go into my study.”
He started to turn, so he didn’t see the shake of my head, but there was no way he didn’t hear me grind out, “I came to see Ma.”
Mom’s quick intake of breath had me holding her a little tighter. She knew not to piss my father off, which was why she’d walked on eggshells with him for over twenty years, but me? I was starting to realize that I was so much more than my father had made me into. He may have tried to use me as a puppet, but I’d cut the strings the moment Lorenzo had become boss.
My father halted, cracking his neck side to side. “Study. Now.” His growl brooked no room for argument, we all knew it, but I hated how he could dictate every situation.
Respect your elders. That was drummed into us over and over again as kids, but it was damn hard when I knew exactly what kind of man he was—the most despicable kind.
Mom patted my back, flashing me a small smile. We both knew that I’d come here to see her, but now thanks to him, I wouldn’t be able to have a single conversation with her. I had to figure out a way to know when he was here and when he wasn’t so I could plan my visits better.
I followed Mom inside the house, hating the smell. It wasn’t bad, in fact, it was a mixture of vanilla and cinnamon, two scents that used to calm me the most, now all they did was bring back flashing images of me being a kid and draining blood from animals, just so I could learn the “correct” torture techniques.
My teeth ground together as I clicked the door closed behind me. I needed to get the hell out of here as soon as I could, but I had a feeling it would never be soon enough. There was no doubt that my father wanted the lowdown on what was happening at the Beretta mansion. He’d been there so few times in the last six months, in fact, I was sure the last time he’d gone there was when Auntie Rosa had called him to take her shopping. Lorenzo had ordered that I go with them. The entire day was a shit show, mainly because I had to sit next to my father for hours.
