Page 118 of Tyrant (The Villetti Chronicles)

He got up, pulling me with him. I let Zayn lead me out of the dining room into the hallway and towards the stairs. He seemed to deflate with each step he took up the stairs. It made my skin prickle with nerves and I couldn’t find my voice to ask him where we were going.

Right at the back of the house, Zayn opened a door and walked inside, pulling me along behind him. It took me a moment to register what I was seeing when we came to a standstill by what looked like a hospital bed. There was a woman with dark hair lying in it, hooked up to various machines. The whooshing noise coming from one of them had my eyes darting to the tube attached to her throat. She was on a ventilator. There were other tubes attached to her body, presumably for feeding and draining fluid. I had never seen anyone on life support before. It was unnerving, especially considering Zayn’s words before we came upstairs. It left me with the distinct impression Gennaro was responsible for whatever had befallen her.

“Zayn,” I whispered, my hand trembling in his. “Is that who I think it is?”

Thirty Nine

Zayn

It hadn’t been my intention to bring Ari upstairs to see my mother this evening, but what she’d said about my father had hit a nerve. She didn’t know the true extent of my father’s cruelty. The man behind the mask. My mother’s current vegetative state was a literal representation of how far he would go to punish someone for their crimes against him. Not that I thought the so-called crime fit the punishment, but it was neither here nor there.

“Mamá,questo è il mio amore, Arianna.”

Ari let out a little noise of distress. She might not know I’d just introduced her to my mother as my love, but she knew whatmamámeant.

“Did he do this to her?”

I couldn’t look at Ari. Her words cracked open the harsh wounds inflicted on me by my father when he told me what he’d done to my mother. What disobeying his orders would be met with if I ever tried to seriously go against him.

Noemi Villetti had once been full of life, laughter, and love. Now she was a shell, barely alive, and I hated him for leaving her like this.

With my free hand, I reached out and stroked my mother’s hand, feeling desolate. I didn’t come up here often. It broke my soul to see her like this. I brought Ari here because I wanted my mother to know I had found happiness with a girl I shouldn’t have ever wanted but somehow ended up needing.

“Yes.”

Ari let go of my hand and curled herself into my side, wrapping both arms around me. The fact she was comforting me had me swallowing hard. I was the one who took care of her. It being the other way around was foreign to me, but I’d noticed her checking in with me more and more often to make sure I was okay. Maybe it should go both ways. I could let Ari take care of me in her own way. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to allow myself to lean on her. She was my partner. That was how it should be. Partners supported each other.

Curling my arm around her, I pressed my lips to the braids on top of her head and breathed her in. She smelt like home and it helped keep my sadness at bay.

“You have to promise me something, Tink.”

“What is it?”

“If I tell you the truth about what happened to her, you cannot tell another soul. Enzo and Gil don’t know everything and right now, it has to stay that way.”

Ari trembled, her hold around me tightening.

“I promise.”

Perhaps it would be cathartic to tell someone else what happened. Arlo knew, but it wasn’t the same. He’d been there with me when my father explained what he’d done. He vowed to remain by my side when I’d broken away from the family over it. Arlo was the only person in my life who had never betrayed me… until Arianna. She had my trust.

“She left him because he has always been incapable of remaining faithful and the emotional abuse got too much for her. She endured it for me and my brothers, but there comes a time when everyone breaks. She couldn’t take it any longer.” I sucked in a breath. “When he tracked her down, he beat her to within an inch of her life and then he paid off his doctors to keep her alive. She’s been this way ever since.”

“When was this?”

No one spoke about my mother. Most people had no idea she remained under my father’s roof, trapped in purgatory. They assumed she disappeared and none of us had disputed the assumption.

“Almost ten years ago.”

Ari stiffened.

“T-t-ten years?”

I nodded. I’d just turned twenty-five. It was a day I could never forget. Seeing her battered and bruised body in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of her, keeping her alive. It destroyed my faith in my father. It was why I did everything in my power to help those who had been dealt a similar hand by the world. Why most of the women who worked at Desecration were survivors who I’d given choice back to. My mother had no choice, but they had one now.

I’d allowed Ari a choice when she came to me. Be mine or walk out the door. She kept choosing to stay even when everything got tough. Even when I pushed her away. She never gave up on me. On us when there wasn’t an us to speak of. I didn’t want to coerce her into a relationship with me. It wasn’t the type of man I was.

“Yes.”

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