Cassio
In the month and a week since her mother’s funeral, I’ve become completely and utterly obsessed with my wife. When I’m not with her, I’m thinking about her, wondering what she’s doing and how she’s feeling. If I’m not wondering about her, I’m watching her. Either in real time through the Knight’s security footage to check in, or scrolling through her social media just to see her face.
Her Instagram is full of old videos and pictures, all of them featuring her smiling face. It’s a mixed bag of club openings, night life, fashion events, and more sedate charity galas. I’ve seen clips of her dancing with friends while neon lights flash around, and perfectly poised photos of her shaking hands with pillars of the community.
She hasn’t posted anything new, of course. I honestly don’t know if she’s even bothered to scroll through her timelines. Though, Jade took the liberty of posting our wedding photos and tagging Ana in them, so everyone is quite aware that Ana Knight is now Ana Moretti. I do hope that my wife will continue to update her social media eventually, for my own benefit. I don’t think I’m going to tire of seeing her face on my phone any time soon. Perhaps I should start taking my own pictures of her, and keeping an album of candids all to myself.
As much as I like seeing Ana in photos and videos, nothing compares to watching her in person. Seeing her eyes light with relief when I join her to sleep at night, and observing the way she hides smiles while Colton and Armani squabble. Every single reaction, no matter how subtle, catches my eye. Her existence alone is utterly fascinating, and I’m self-aware enough to admit that I’ve become addicted.
We haven’t shared more than gentle, comforting touches and soft words, but I feel more connected to Ana than I could have ever expected. I dread having to leave her each morning, but running The Kings have proven to be quite taxing. Even with Gerard’s assistance, it’s a tedious task to keep the men in line. Not to mention our search for the group responsible for attacking the Knight family.
Interviewing Ana about the events of that wretched night was perhaps the worst time we’ve spent together, but she understood the necessity of it. With descriptions of the men responsible, I’m better able to search for any intel I need to figure out who they are, and why they’ve done what they’ve done. I still felt like an absolute asshole when Ana didn’t leave her room for two days following the questioning.
She’s been in better spirits lately, for the most part. But as I come home from a long day of combing through The Kings’ records, I know today isn’t going to be one of her good days. There’s a somberness in the air, and I sense that something must be wrong before I even find Armani and Colton. They’re both drinking tumblers of amber colored liquor, sharing concerned expressions.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, eyes immediately searching for Ana around the common area. “Where is she?”
Armani swallows a thick gulp of whiskey. “She’s in Cole’s room.”
My heart drops. “Shit.”
“She’s been in there for hours,” Colton mutters sadly.
“Not even crying,” Armani continues, shaking his head. “She’s just on his bed, staring at the wall. She didn’t want to come out.”
Blowing out a breath, I rub a hand down my face. “Fuck. Did she say anything at all?”
“Just that she wanted to be alone. We sat with her for a while, but I guess it was too much,” Armani explains.
Rolling my neck, I shrug off my jacket and fold my shirt sleeves up, determined. “I’ll go talk to her.”
Colton gives me a hesitant look. “You sure?”
“He’ll make it better,” Armani answers for me. “Won’t you, Cass?”
My head dips in a firm nod. “I’ve got her.”
Seeing the two of them care for my wife, and slowly growing a friendship with her has been easier than I expected. I’ve become quite possessive of Ana, and if I could steal away all her time for myself, I would. But Armani and Colton don’t set off any threatening alarms for me.
Despite Armani’s reputation for sleeping with any pretty thing with a beating heart, he’s an extremely loyal brother. He’d never go after any of our wives or even women we were simply interested in. And I’m ninety-nine percent sure that Colton is gay with a capital G. I’ve never seen the man with a woman, or even checking one out, though I think most people assume he’s bisexual like Armani.
But that southern gentleman, manly appearance thing doesn’t fool me. Gay men come in all shapes and sizes. I mean, look at my brother Nico. He’s fit, menacingly unapproachable, certifiably psychotic, and he’s been out since he was twelve. He didn’t even attempt to hide it. Uncle Cesar asked Nico about a girl he’d seen talking to him at a dinner event, and Nico simply told him. I remember that day so clearly, hearing the family dinner table come to a halt with five words.
I’d rather have her brother.
After the initial shock wore off, Uncle Cesar and Dad both gave him nods of approval. Armani then welcomed him into the Queer Moretti Club—which Nico held no interest in joining. And no one has thought twice about it since. He doesn’t bring men around, so I’m unsure whether he’s even attempted to be with one, but that’s his business.
On to more pressing matters, I all but run up the stairs to get to Ana. The need to make sure that she’s okay before I begin to spiral.
Sure enough, I find her exactly how my brother described. Sitting back against Cole’s headboard, hugging a pillow to her chest, and staring at the wall blankly. She’s left the door open, and she doesn’t move her gaze when I enter. She continues to sit there, motionlessly, even as I come closer.
Toeing off my shoes, I climb up next to her, legs extended and back against the upholstered bed’s head.
“Thinking about him today?”
Mutely, her chin dips.
“Do you want to talk about him?”
Ana doesn’t immediately reply. Instead, I listen as she takes four soft breaths. In and out, relaxed and slow.
“I shouldn’t.”
“Why not, forza?”
Her lip trembles. “You’re my husband. I shouldn’t speak about my ex-boyfriend, it’s bad form, even if our marriage isn’t real.”
My hand flexes into a fist, and I have to force my voice to remain controlled when I reply. “Our marriage is very real, Ana. I told you as much on our wedding day.”
“O-okay,” she breathes, likely taken back by my stern tone.
“And as for what you should or shouldn’t speak about. I don’t give a shit what’s bad form or not. I’m a widow, Ana. Your boyfriend was killed in front of you. We’re bound to speak of them. It’s healthy to communicate when things are on our mind, even if it’s hard or uncomfortable.”
There’s a difference between dwelling on the past and making your partner uncomfortable, and needing your spouse to support you when you’re feeling emotionally vulnerable. Ana could talk to me for hours about her relationship with Cole Knight, and it wouldn’t change a thing for me. He’s gone, and I’m here now. If she needs to get her feelings out in the open, I’ll always be ready to listen.
“Cole scared me at first,” she admits, biting her lip. “When I met him.”
“Did he?” I ask, relieved that she’s changed her mind about talking.
“He didn’t hide how much he was drawn to me. He was utterly obsessed from the minute we met. He wouldn’t take his eyes off of me and I had no idea how to deal with it.”
I had heard as much from Jade in the past, not that it frightened Ana, but that Cole was immensely infatuated with her.
“The mafia thing was still a shock. I mean, this boy who I knew could kill a man without blinking wanted me and how on earth does anyone hear that and not feel a bit frightened?”
“It’s understandable,” I agree.
“I shouldn’t have let my fear keep me away from him for so long,” she mutters, picking at her nails. It’s a bad fidgeting habit, but at least her eyes have finally left the wall. “I could have had more time with him, if I wasn’t so hesitant. Who am I to mourn his death when I barely let him have me before he was ripped away?”
“You loved him, Ana,” I try to reason.
“But I didn’t!” she cries out, startling me. “I-I was starting to, I think. I c-could have, but I didn’t love Cole, I didn’t.”
She’s beginning to cry now, eyes welling up with moisture as she faces me. I want to reach out and cradle her face, to catch the tears before they begin to truly fall.
“Ana…”
“No, no, no, it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not,” I insist.
“I can’t stop crying all the time, and this ache won’t go away, and worst of all I feel like some kind of grief fraud,” Ana whispers, her voice cracking with emotion.
“Everyone deals with it differently,” I begin, trying to comfort her. She shuts me down with a stiff shake of her head.
“It’s not that, it’s just—” she sniffs, trying to find the words. “I feel like I’ve lost everyone, and I nearly have… but I—”
“Take your time,” I tell her encouragingly, threading our hands together. Her skin is warm and soft, even as a storm brews in her sorrow-filled eyes. “There’s no rush, just breathe, love.”
She takes a few moments to collect herself, breathing as I hold her fingers between mine, feeling her heartbeat in her thumb slow from erratic to steady.
“I just feel like a bit of a cunt crying all the time when what you went through was so much worse,” she admits, her chin trembling.
“Ana, no,” I try to cut in, to tell her that she shouldn’t compare tragedies but she refuses to hear it.
“You lost your wife, your child,” she croaks. “I lost Cole and my mom. Cole and I had barely been dating. And my mom, I loved her so much, but children always lose their parents eventually. I know that, that’s how the blasted circle of life fucking works but I—”
“Stop,” I try to interrupt again and her shoulders shake.
“I can’t stop, don’t you get it?” she wails. “I’m a mess and I don’t know how to make it better. I hate feeling this way and the frustration is only making it worse. How do you stop yourself from being so upset that you’re only making it worse by thinking about being so upset all the time? What the bleeding fuck am I supposed to do, Cassio?”
I react without warning, snaking my arms underneath hers, wrapping them around her waist and pulling her in tight. Legs straddle mine, and I crush her front into my chest. Her shoulders slump and she cries into my neck, accepting the embrace.
“You’re supposed to lean on me,” I tell her firmly, rubbing soothing circles on the center of her back. “You feel whatever you need to feel for however long you need to feel it, but you don’t do it alone. You come to me, and I make it better.”
“I don’t deserve it,” she protests. “You’re still sad, too. I know it. You don’t cry and lie in bed all day, you just deal with it. And now you have to deal with me on top of it.”
When I get my hands on the people responsible for doing this to my wife, I’m going to channel every bit of my brother Nico in dealing with them. They’ve flayed her open in one of the most horrific ways, and putting her back together again isn’t going to be easy.
She’s so empathetic and compassionate, of course she feels guilty for things that can’t possibly be her fault. She’s too young—too good to understand the complex cruelties this world can inflict on us without warning. It makes me want to tear the city apart—rip it open, find all those who would wish her harm and turn them into ash.
I knew coming into this that it wouldn’t be easy, I knew comforting her in her time of need would tug on old wounds for me. But I did it anyway, and I don’t regret it.
Stroking the back of her hair, I try to coax her into calming down.
“You are just twenty years old, Ana. You lost your mother and the boy you were falling in love with on the same day. Your stepbrother who you care deeply for is in a coma, and you’re married to a man you’re just starting to know. You have every right to be as broken as you need to be.”
“But Cassio,” she cries.
I shush her gently, holding her tighter to my chest. “I was twenty-seven when I lost Isobel and Angel. Seven years older than you are now, and surrounded by family to help me through it. Yes, it was horrible and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But you shouldn’t compare our grief and make yourself feel badly for crying and lashing out more than I did. Our circumstances couldn’t have been more different.”
I don’t mention that I was also born and raised as a made man. I was taught from a young age that horrific shit like this could happen. She wasn’t. She was raised like an ordinary girl and thrust into this life. Of course she’s taking this hard. I’d be more worried about her if she weren’t.
“We deal with agony differently, forza. I may not have spent hours on end crying, but I tried to get myself killed more than once. I know it’s hard to hear, but all that matters now is moving forward. You’re not going to feel this way forever. You’ll always remember, but the pain dulls. I swear, it really does.”
Just as I finish speaking, a piercing ring bursts from the phone in my pocket. I’d hit decline immediately on the call, if I didn’t recognize the sound to be massively important.
“Ana—” I start.
She leans back in my lap, sniffing and wiping at her face with the back of her hands. “It’s fine, you can answer it.”
Before she can get off of me, I grab her by the front of her thighs. “Don’t leave. If this is what I think it is, I want you close.”
Her throat bobs, and I reach for my phone before waiting for a reply.
“Cassio,” I tell the caller shortly.
A quick sputtering of words over the line confirms my suspicions.
“Yes,” I speak clearly. “Yes. We’ll be there shortly, standby.”
“What was that?” Ana asks as soon as I hang up.
I make sure to watch her face as I finally deliver a piece of good news.
“Killian is awake.”
