Page 58 of Princess of the Mafia

The dream blurs in front of me like the rustling of fabric, and I am pulled forward.

I am in his office again, and I am older. Older than seventeen. I am in front of his desk, pleading to study something. I’m not sure what. Antonio’s Papà is in the office with him. He’s in a wheelchair, but his face looks strong. “Just let the girl do what she wants, Carlo. I don’t see the harm in it.”

“I just said no, Ria. Now get out so I can talk business here.”

The door slams behind me, but it fails to close completely. I stand outside and listen.

“Don’t interfere with my business, Alberto. My girls will be wives to Dons one day.”

“I am only saying there’s no harm in educating them.” Antonio’s Papà’s voice floats through the gap to me.

“I don’t need them to put up a smart mouth. All they need to learn is to spread their legs when the time comes. That’s all.”

Fresh hurt washes through me at those words.

Everything swirls again, and I’m standing on the black and white tiled floor of the kitchen. It must be closer to his death because he looks like how I remember him. I am telling him something, I don’t know what, and his attention is all mine. Till his gaze shifts and moves past me to the door. I turn around and catch a new maid entering.

“Run off, Ria.”

His eyes are on the maid like he’d forgotten all about me. I grab his arm. “Don’t do it, Papà, per favore.”

He shrugs my hands off him roughly. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he snaps. “Now, get out.” When I don’t move, he yanks me by my hair, pushes me out, and slams the door on me. The lock turning sounds like a bolt on a heavy door. Still, I don’t move. I stand behind it and wait for the familiar grunts to pass through the door. Why? I don’t know. It’s as if there’s a sickness in me that needs that confirmation for it to be true. Yet again. It doesn’t take too long till it does.

I want to stop it. I am adamant that this time I will succeed in making him see sense. I pound on the door. “Papà, don’t do it. Per favore, Papà.”

Warm hands grabbed me and held me tight. “Shhh Principessa, it’s just a dream.”

I jerked away from an embrace that confined me and held no comfort. “No, Papà, per favore, please, no.” Panic was in my chest, and I gasped for my next breath. Rage and vulnerability throttled through my body.

A light flickered on and slit through my eyelids. A man’s face emerged in front of me. The memories were too close. Too suffocating and too painful. I put all the strength I had into my hand, and I slapped him across his face.

The moment the noise of bones hitting skin echoed in the room, I was jerked out of my sleep. Ice-cold sweat drenched me as I scrambled away from Lorenzo and curled up against the bedhead. No woman could survive hitting a made man. Why had I hit him when I should have known it was a dream? My chest burned from painful gasps. Fear crawled like an icy chill under my skin. My hands wrapped around my trembling body, and I dragged my gaze to find him.

He sat on his knees, arms and legs spread in surrender. My lips wobbled when my eyes skidded to the angry red mark on his cheek. I expected to see blind rage in his eyes. I didn’t understand what I saw in them. It touched me too deeply. It touched me too softly, and it rocked my wobbling nerves, and I burst out crying.

“Shh, Principessa,” his voice rasped with sleep, but when he pulled me into his arms, his embrace was warm and tight and felt like comfort and home. “Tutto bene. It was just a dream.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured in between sobs.

“Fuck, Principessa, there’s nothing to be sorry about.” He moved to the bedhead and took me with him. The only hum in the room was the sound of our combined breathing. His breath to mine. My breath to his. We sat like that until my heart stopped thundering in my pulse.

At some point, he switched off the light, and it was just me and him and the darkness of memories in between us.

“You want to talk about it?” His voice was gruff as it vibrated against the crown of my head.

I shook my head and snuggled closer. I don’t know how he did it, but he molded his body to mine, and I felt enraptured in it. That must be the reason my next words fell out of my mouth. “I miss him.”

“I know, Principessa, I know. Nothing wrong with that.”

I shivered in his arms and snuggled closer. “Do you want to lie down?”

I shook my head, my hair caught on his naked chest.

“What do you want then?”

“This,” I muttered.

He let out a rough laugh, like the idea pained him. But we stayed like that. I guess we stayed like that all night long because when I opened my eyes in the morning, I was still wrapped around him, against the bedhead.

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