Page 14 of Unbound

After a long and awkward silence, after her tale was told, after Angel spoke, she asked again,

“Do you want to ask me anything?”

I shrugged. Luc started to cry. Tia hugged Luc. Lisa started to cry. Angel hugged Lisa. I just sat there, numb. Not hugging anyone, not wanting to be hugged. Not crying. Lisa reached for me, but I gave herthe handand said, “I need a minute.”

My eyes were the only dry ones at the table. I’d already spent so much time crying in the previous few months that I guess tears were in short supply.

We wrapped the lunch up then. Eddy packed our food to-go because we’d barely touched our meals what with the drama being spilled after appetizers, Lisa telling us, through tears, how much we meant to her, telling us how much it meant being welcomed into our family. Spelling out how sorry she was that she wasn’t able to tell us the truth before then, how keeping that secret was so ingrained that it took everything to even say it aloud.

I just kept nodding, I think. But I was feeling like I was about to have an anxiety attack, so I needed air. I think I kept saying I just needed air and finally got up to go get some.

As I was putting my coat on, she told us that she’d understand if we didn’t want anything to do with her from now on. She also said that there were things we didn’t know, security-related issues, that meant that she had to play the part for a while, that we had to keep it secret or all of our lives would be in danger.

“As soon as it’s safe for me to go, if you want me gone, I’ll go. I don’t want to go. You guys are my family. But I will if you want me to.”

Luc and I stared, in shock. What we didn’t do was tell her whether we wanted her to go or stay.

“I just need some air,” was what I’d said and I’d gone outside. My brother Dare stopped me from getting in my car. He’d just shown to pick up Angel and took me and my sister in his SUV instead, saying he’d have someone bring my car home later. He went in to get Angel and Luc and I sat there. I didn’t say bye. I was too… I don’t know.

As he drove, he lectured us about the importance of keeping it all quiet.

Luc had started getting emotional, bordering on losing her shit, asking what he was gonna do about a place like that existing, a place that had fucked over his wife and Lisa, two members of the Ferrano family.

Dare had told her to shut up.

“Shut up, Luc. Listen to me. I told you after Pop died, Tommy and I would find a way to get us all clear of his shit and I wasn’t joking. It’s just takin’ a bit to finesse and we keep getting roadblocked.”

He went back to talking to us about keeping our mouths shut.

I couldn’t even talk to Bianca about it. As close as she was to our family, like another sister to us because her father was our father’s business partner for years, keeping our mouths shut meant keeping them shut completely.

We didn’t have to be told twice; we might’ve been called spoiled and oblivious mafia princesses by bitches who didn’t really know us, but we had Ferrano blood running through our veins.

As much as we busted Dare and Tommy’s chops at times, they were authority figures in our lives, had been since they were teenagers. Well, Tommy always. When we were small, he always had this dark and authoritative presence in our lives.

It took teenage hormones and for me to grow into my inner diva to stand up to my oldest brother. I joked all the time thathe was a puppy dog under that angry demeanor but really, he wasn’t a puppy unless the puppy was a rabid Pitbull.

I’d said it a few times hopefully, trying to crack his wall, but until he’d met Tia, he rarely even cracked smiles around us. He was protective and he was smart and serious, and we knew that our family was in the midst of some messy circumstances. We also know when our brothers, either of them, mean business. This was business time. Dare and Tommy were the law, just as Pop was when he was still here.

Luc wanted to be dropped with me at Pop’s house, where I now lived. I hadn’t been able to cope after Jim and Pop died so I’d moved back to my old room, my boys in the adjoining bedroom that used to be Luciana’s, and my house sat as it used to, before my husband died.

I’d just taken our clothes, the kids’ toys, and left. I was sure my houseplants were all dead. Mail piled up. I didn’t know if anyone stopped by the house and did anything with the grass or the pool. I hadn’t had the ability to even care.

After Lisa’s reveal, I pondered going back, so I could be alone for a bit, but Dare drove us to our childhood home before I had a chance to say otherwise.

Luciana followed me inside and we went right to my bedroom, sat on the bed, and stared at one another. In near unison, we both threw ourselves back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. And then Luc reached onto my nightstand and said, “This color is fucking awesome.”

I watched her lift the metallic coral-colored nail polish. She passed it to me. I sat up and painted the color right over her French manicured nails. And then I stripped my pale purple polish off while hers dried and then she painted my nails. We were both uncharacteristically quiet. No, not just quiet, absolutely speechless.

Me and my sister were close. We always had all kinds to say, but we knew each other well and could also sit in absolute quiet while being completely in sync with one another’s thoughts.

While I blew on my nails, she put on Netflix and we vegged out in there, not talking, under the blankets, watching a few minutes of show after show until Luc would lose patience and switch it, until finally as it got dark, she said she had to go home. We hugged it out. She started trembling, but didn’t cry. Neither of us said another word other than, “Talk to you later”.

When she left, I got my kids from Sarah, who was also uncharacteristically quiet, obviously getting the scoop from someone. I bathed the boys, read bedtime stories, and then listened to my oldest pray to God to take care of Daddy and say Hello and then I climbed back into bed and immediately slept.

I dreamt about Jim, about my father, and dreamt horrible things with both Angel and Lisa being whipped bloody by my father in that red room of pain from the Fifty Shades movies.

Now, days later, I hadn’t seen Lisa. She’d stayed in her room and I’d mostly stayed in mine or the boys’.

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