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I turned to face him, barely able to see through my swollen eyes. “You’re going to marry my sister. She’s going to need all the protection she can get.”
He held my gaze in understanding and silently nodded before turning and striding up the driveway to the house. I meant what I said. Alessio Barbieri was never going to lay his hands on Elle ever again.
Art Therapy
“It’s okay, dolcezza. He’s gone. He’s gone,” Mamma’s calming voice wrapped around me like a blanket on a cold winter’s night, yet my body still trembled. The warmth of her had no effect as she stroked my wet hair away from my face and pulled the covers up to my shoulders. The agonising sounds leaving my body were unlike any I had heard before. The sound of a broken woman consumed with betrayal and ultimate heartbreak. Just seeing him again in the flesh, those blue eyes filled with lies and deceit, was too much to bear.
I squeezed my eyes shut, turning my head into the pillow and willing the emptiness to return. All I had felt was hollow since I returned from that nightmare. Unable to move, to sleep, to eat. Different faces appeared beside my bed, all with the same look in their eyes. Pity. And I couldn’t take it. None of them would understand. But it was better than this. Better than the irreparable pain crippling my whole body. The pathetic heartbreak that threatened to swallow me whole.
I heard raised voices outside my bedroom. Gio. Max. Liv. Panic. Fear at what I had just done. I had told the mafia world I was the one who killed Isabelle. But what choice did I have? They were going to kill each other. The two men I love more than life itself were never going to stop until one of them was no longer breathing.
The moment I heard the house alarms, I knew he was here. My whole body awoke with prickling dread and unwanted need at the same time. Finn had charged into the room with panic reflected on his face. And I knew. I didn’t want to see him. I knew it would kill me. But I had to. I had to try and stop this. He was here because of me.
When Alessio and I locked eyes again through the rain, it all came back to me. Every moment I had been refusing to acknowledge. All the time we had spent together. His smile, his touch, his promises. All lies. I hated him. He used me and tricked me. He’d been fucking his sister the entire time. Scheming to tear my family apart. He made me believe… he was falling in love with me. I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. Yet, the pain in his eyes when I told him I hated him seemed genuine. But I knew that couldn’t be.
As my sobs eased to whimpers, I blackened my mind, refusing to accept the pain on his face when he watched me walk away from him. The hollowness slowly returned and I welcomed it. Mamma kissed my temple, before leaving my room to deal with the stress on the landing between my family. I heard the door open again seconds later and turned my face into the pillow to hide myself from whoever it was. Why wouldn’t they just leave me alone? All I wanted was to be left alone in my despair.
“Elle?”
It was Finn. His concerned voice provoked a whimper from me. I felt a dip in the mattress behind me and then the warmth of his strong body cocooned mine as his large arm wrapped around me tightly, pulling me back into his chest. It was everything I hadn’t realised I needed. My best friend. My rock. A fucking cuddle. I suddenly spun in his arms, burying my face into his chest as fresh tears ran down my cheeks. He just held me. Solid and safe.
“Why?” I managed to squeak, my voice hoarse and raw from emotion. “Why did he do this to me?”
“What did he do to you, Elle?” Finn whispered softly above my head.
“He broke my fucking heart.”
His arms tightened around me as the pain intensified when I said the words out loud for the first time. Exhaustion soon took over, sleep dragging me under, but there was no reprieve. His face was all I saw. His words. Moments between us that caused so much pain it would jolt me awake once more. A continuous cycle all night. When I finally gave up on staring at the ceiling, I carefully climbed out of bed. Finn was passed out next to me, still fully clothed and snoring softly. I moved my gaze to the windows. My curtains were still open, the starry night’s sky on full display in all its beauty.
I stared up at it. At the twinkling stars and luminescent moon. A new wave of heartache washed over me. The memory of the last time I gazed up at these stars from my bed. I had been on the phone with him. Talking about love. About finding your one true love. And then the memory of us in the hammock together, looking up at the same stars from the Greek beach. I thought at that moment that I finally believed in soul mates. In finding the love of your life. The love that was in a league of its own.
I stood up, walking silently towards the door and grabbing a hoodie off my vanity stool. I turned to look around my childhood bedroom. Nothing felt real anymore. I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. The overwhelming need to feel something other than pain spurred me on to creep out my bedroom and make my way downstairs. I waited. Making sure I picked the exact moment Gio’s soldiers turned their back on my hiding space so I could slip through the laundry room door and out into the garden. It was a route I had perfected as a teenager. The way to my art studio when I needed a moment in solitude.
As soon as I shut the sea-green, wooden door behind me, I closed my eyes and sank to the floor. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, just breathing, but when I finally opened my eyes and looked around at the organised chaos of my studio, it felt like my heart was ripped from my chest. Everything about this space reminded me of him. This was where it all started. I had always loved it for that reason. It had been my dirty little secret. My forbidden fantasy for so many years. And now he had ruined that for me too.
I stood up and stormed towards a blank canvas, shoving it on an easel. I inhaled deeply as I picked up a paintbrush and stared at the block white board. Channelling all my dark emotions, I swept the brush across it with a flick of blue paint. I had no idea what I was creating. But it was a burning need inside me. My mind cleared and entered a trance-like state. Hours passed. Canvas after canvas. Painting after painting. The sun started to rise, streaming natural light through the little windows and forcing me back to reality. I blinked rapidly as I looked around the small room at what I had done. Image after image of abstract bodies, lovers tangled in intense embraces, dark and moody portrayals of a man with bright blue eyes. Oceans and bleeding hearts ripped through every image as if it was a carefully planned collection. As if the pain and the vulnerability of each piece was always meant to belong there. It was the best work I had ever done. And I hated it. Every bit of it. Because it was all him. My eyes stung with angry unshed tears and nostrils flared as I felt the rage building inside me. I grabbed the canvas in front of me and threw it to the floor before turning and chucking the next and the next until there was a pile in the middle of the room. My chest was heaving frantically as my eyes darted around the room for anything to use to destroy it all. And then I remembered.
Racing to the corner of the room where a small cabinet stood, I opened the drawer and stared at the metal zippo lighter I had kept for all these years. It was sixteen-year-old Alessio’s. He had dropped it as he dashed out of the studio when his papi summoned him. I lifted it up and flicked my thumb down, causing the small flame to dance wildly. Turning back to the pile of masterpieces, I held it up above them, my hand shaking as the emotions got the better of me.
This was closure, I told myself. This was me destroying all evidence of him from my life. I would burn this studio to the ground and watch it disintegrate to black ash. Just like my heart. I looked down at the portrait of his face at the top of the pile. Those swirling blue eyes that stared back at me with just as much emotion. I crumbled to my knees, tears running down my cheeks as my arm shook in front, willing me to drop the lighter. The door of the studio opened behind me and I dropped my arm, snapping the lighter shut as heavy footsteps ran towards me.
“Elle! What are you doing?” Finn shouted, dropping to his knees next to me as I fell back into his body, collapsing with no fight left in me. He held me to him as he looked over at the paintings and took the lighter from my hand.
“I can’t do it!” I cried, “I hate him so much, but I can’t do it. I can’t get rid of him. I can’t get him out from beneath my skin, Finn! He is everywhere. I loved him so fucking much it hurts. And he destroyed me! It was all a lie. He just wanted the North. And he would do anything to get it! Destroying me was just a twisted game!”
“Elle, that can’t be true. I saw the way he looked at you last night. No man who truly doesn’t care about someone looks that broken. Tell me what he did, Elle. Maybe, it isn’t what you think,” Finn pulled me back from his chest and looked down into my eyes.
I shook my head, staring down at my hands. “He made me believe he wanted me. That what we had was special. He said he wanted to marry me. He fucking proposed while he was fucking me!” I scoffed and Finn’s eyes widened. “But it was all a lie. As soon as Diego died, he didn’t have to answer to anyone. He no longer had to marry me to get an alliance like his father wanted. He planned to give me to Galiz. He didn’t need me anymore. He was going to kill Gio and take the North for himself.”
Finn’s confused brown eyes narrowed as his dark eyebrows tensed, “Who told you all this?”
“Isabelle. She was in on it from the very beginning. It was all planned. She held me in that warehouse, waiting for Galiz. Dante was going to take me to him. While Alessio went to meet Gio to kill him.”
Finn looked up from my face and out of the window. He looked angry but confused. “What if Isabelle was lying? Why do you believe her?”
That dark, poisoning rage erupted to the surface again as I stood up from him and paced the floor. The memory of that video flashed in my mind. Him fucking her. His own half-sister. His blood. It was sick. It was disgusting. And I’d let him fuck me? While the whole time he was sleeping with her too? It was enough to make me want to throw up again. I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words out loud. The shame that followed them. The disgust.
“Trust me, Finn. Alessio and Isabelle are just as fucking twisted as each other.”
