Page 54 of Of Grief And Gratitude

“Fine.” I swiped my thumb across the screen. “You’d better have a good fucking reason for interrupting me right now.”

“It’s Mamma,” Dante choked out. I froze at the broken tone of his voice, unlike anything I’d heard before.

“What are you talking about?” My mind raced, concern making my fist tighten around the phone.

“There was an accident.”

“What the fuck do you mean, there was an accident?” I raised my voice, and Riona shot me a worried glance as I paced on the side of the path.

“I—” Dante cut himself off, and I heard him take a deep breath. “Mamma made a stop on the way home. A bakery. There was—there was an explosion.”

“No,” I rasped, my heart seizing, fear shooting like ice through my veins. “Dante.”

Silence.

“Dante!” I shouted, making Riona jump. Her small hand wrapped around my arm. “Tell me she’s okay.”

A muffled sob answered me, and my heart cracked open. “I’m sorry.”

The last of my ice cream toppled from my hand as I shook uncontrollably, splattering across the path in a spray of white that suddenly resembled an explosion. I could almost hear the sound in my ears.

“Please, no,” I whispered desperately, struggling to draw enough breath to speak, to beg my big brother to make everything right. “Tell me Mamma’s okay, Dante.”

“She’s gone, Romeo.”

The world fell silent as he confirmed my fears, my vision blurring as tears filled my eyes. I barely registered the phone falling from my hand to the ground, catching only a hint of sky blue as Riona bent to pick it up, her voice muffled behind the rush of my blood in my ears.

Mamma.

Not Mamma.

I repeated it in my head until the words ran together. NotMammanotMammanotMamma.

“Romeo.”

I blinked, clearing my eyes enough to look at Riona. When I opened my mouth to speak, nothing came out. She nodded. “I know.”

My head bobbed, mimicking her motion like I didn’t know how to react on my own. Her fingers stroked my face, wiping the wet trails away even as more tears fell. My chest seized, my lungs refusing to expand.

“Breathe, Romeo.” Riona grasped my chin hard, forcing me to look at her as she took a deep breath. “I need you to breathe with me.”

I willed my lungs to take in air.

For her.

Slowly, painfully, I drew breath.

“Dante wants you all together,” she explained quietly. “Somebody will be waiting for us.”

She led me like a lost dog, and I could do nothing more than put one foot in front of the other, my mind fractured by the news that would forever alter my life. There was only the path in front of me and glimpses of blue as Riona held my hand until we reached the street again, where my father’s men waited next to a black SUV.

They remained silent, nodding sadly and opening the back passenger door so Riona could climb in and pull me in after. I wiped my eyes, enough of my upbringing breaking through my grief to remind me I couldn’t show weakness in front of the men.

“Take me to the scene,” I barked, suddenly filled with the need to know everything that had happened. I had to see for myself.

“Romeo, no,” Riona pleaded. “Let’s go to the house instead. The others will gather there when they’re finished.”

She didn’t understand the thing clawing at me under my skin, telling me to get to Mamma. I looked at the men in the front of the SUV. “Take me to my mother.”

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