I glared at the whisky in my hand. Since Emma’s words, every drop had tasted bitter, laced with guilt. What right did she have to judge me? She didn’t know anything about me. Even if I drank a bit too much on occasion, with the shit I had to deal with on a daily basis, this was to be expected.
I set the glass down on the side table and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. In the past, I’d only drunk at parties or to celebrate something with fellow Made Men. Drinking alone had started after Serafina got kidnapped and my friends died because of my idiotic attempt to save her. Alcohol had become a way to numb the guilt, the anger, the worry, the sadness.
In our world, men were supposed to appear invincible. Admitting any kind of weakness was out of the question. Maybe I had a problem, but I was in control. I could stop if I wanted to. But if I refused to drink with company, people would eventually ask why. If I mentioned I didn’t drink at all, they’d think I had a problem. They’d see it as a weakness—something I couldn’t risk. I was in control. Emma was simply sensitive because of her past. I got it. The past clung to me too. I downed my whisky. I was in control, and Emma would soon realize it.
In the following two weeks, I tried to drink only with company and not at home. It worked out except for a few minor slips when Leonas drove me up the wall with a risky maneuver. The brat wouldn’t get himself killed while under my protection.
But my good intentions went to hell when the anniversary of my friends’ deaths loomed on the horizon. Renato offered to join me at their graves, but I declined. This year, I didn’t feel like company. Of course, Emma knew something was up and came into my office the night before the anniversary of the attack on the Falcone mansion and the brutal deaths of my friends.
She was already in a flimsy white nightgown, her curls trailing down her slender shoulders when she moved toward me. I sat in my desk chair, a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the desk and a half-full glass in my hand. I met her gaze over the rim as I downed the rest of the liquor.
Emma’s eyes were concerned, not accusing. I would have preferred her anger. “Tomorrow is the day you lost your friends, right?”
Her voice was gentle and careful as if she worried I’d break down at the mere mention of it. I had never broken down in public. I hadn’t even cried after their deaths. I kept my emotions bottled up as deeply as I could.
“The day they got murdered because of me, yes,” I said, pouring myself another glass. Emma watched but didn’t say anything.
“It’s okay to be sad, you know? Even as a Made Man, it’s okay to be sad to have lost someone.”
Sadness wasn’t at the forefront of my emotions anymore. It hadn’t been in a while. Now it was mainly guilt, regret, and bitterness.
“Mostly, I’m angry with the stupid Samuel of the past,” I admitted after another gulp. Heat spread in my insides, and the numbing effects of the alcohol were becoming apparent.
Emma moved even closer and touched the hand resting on the armrest. “He did what he thought was right. He wanted to protect someone he loved more than anything else.” Her voice vibrated with emotions.
I took a deep gulp, my heart clenching. “And she betrayed me for a man who is incapable of love, a man who kidnapped and brutalized her.” Emotions from the past came up, but I squashed them. Sofia wanted contact with Serafina. Maybe she hoped it would all make sense then, but over the years, every contact with my twin had made her decisions of the past make less sense to me, and it made me regret my own choice all the more.
“Do you want me to come with you when you visit their graves tomorrow? That’s what you’ll do, right?”
“In the afternoon. Their families will visit the graves in the morning. But I don’t think you should come.” It was a deeply personal moment.
Emma curled her fingers around mine. “I might not be able to walk, but I’ll carry your worries as if they’re mine, Samuel. You don’t have to shoulder all the problems by yourself. I’m your wife, and I’m here for you, always.”
I regarded my wife. She obviously wanted to help me. Maybe she needed this even more than I did. I had been pushing her away in the past few weeks—not that I’d allowed her a deep look into my heart before that. I emptied the glass and gave a terse nod. “Maybe then you’ll understand why I feel the way I do.”
Emma smiled, then pried my fingers off the armrest. “Will you come to bed? It’s late.” Her eyes flitted to the now almost empty bottle.
I nodded and got to my feet. I needed to feel and taste Emma to distract myself. The alcohol didn’t do the trick today. Sleep was out of the question anyway.
I returned home in the early afternoon to pick up Emma. She was dressed in a dark blue dress and a cardigan of the same color with very little makeup. Maybe this was her way to pay respects to the dead. I too had chosen a dark suit for once, though I doubted the dead cared what we wore.
We were silent on the ride to the graveyard, and I was glad Emma didn’t try to make small talk. I was on edge, had been all day, and the flask I’d emptied before I’d picked up Emma hadn’t helped in the slightest.
If she could smell the alcohol on me, she didn’t show it. I parked in my usual spot right in front of the south gate entrance. Emma and I followed the fine gravel path I always took, then stopped in front of Arlo’s light gray granite family crypt. It was close to the pathway, so Emma only had to cross a short distance of grass. However, the grass slope was bumpy, so I pushed her the rest of the way until we stood right in front of the pyramid-shaped crypt.
Over the years, the number of flowers put down on the anniversary of their deaths had become fewer, and as I stepped inside the narrow, dark crypt, I didn’t find a single flower on Arlo’s headstone. I put down the white carnations Emma had bought before I’d picked her up.
I shifted to the side so Emma could look inside. The space was too narrow for her. It was the smallest of the three crypts we’d visit today. Arlo’s father had died two years ago during a fight with the Bratva, and his mother had taken her life a few months ago. Now it seemed I was the only one still mourning him. I too only came once a year now.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” I murmured, then motioned for Emma to move back. Together, we left and traveled in silence toward Enea’s family crypt two graves down the aisle.
His grave had two bouquets on it. One from his younger sister and one from his parents. In the past, his fiancée had put flowers there too, but she was long married and had two children. Emma regarded me closely, but my expression was a cold mask. If she hoped to find a crack in it, then her chances were the best at Domenico’s grave.
When we moved on to his grave, I felt a flood of memories rising. I rarely allowed them anymore, but they sometimes still came at night, but on the day of his death, I always let the memories take hold of me. Emma and I entered the white marble crypt of Domenico’s family. His grave was covered with flowers as always, and the photo of him and our group of friends, minus myself, sat in front of it. I got down on my haunches and touched the grave. Briefly closing my eyes, I remembered the look of agony on his face before he died and his cries for his mom and his begging. “I’m sorry, my friend.”
Emma touched my shoulder. I glanced at her. Tears brimmed in her eyes. Tears I would never allow myself. She gave me a small, emotional smile.
“Do you understand now? Can you see what my actions have done?”
“I understand that you’re judging yourself because of what you know now, but I think you would forgive yourself if you reminded yourself of what past Samuel knew: that your twin was in the hands of the brutal enemy, that she was being tortured and possibly raped, and that nobody would risk to save her, except you.”
I shook my head. “Domenico’s mother judges me for both, and it’s her right.”
“Maybe she can’t forgive you for many reasons, but I know you should forgive yourself.”
“I’m not a forgiving man, not toward others and not toward myself.”
Emma touched my cheek. “I can see that. But if you can’t do it for yourself, then maybe do it for us and for the family we’ll one day have.”
EMMA
After witnessing Samuel’s guilt and sadness at the graveyard, I decided to do something. If he wanted to have any chance of fighting his alcohol problem, he needed to move on and forgive himself. But he would never do it because he didn’t feel like he could.
Leo gave me a questioning look when I told him to take me to Domenico’s parents. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I’ll have to ask Samuel.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you have to ask Samuel for permission for every little thing I do?”
“This isn’t a little thing.” He picked up his phone but couldn’t reach Samuel. “He’s questioning someone and not available. We’ll have to wait.”
I shook my head. “Then I’ll call a taxi.”
“That’s not an option.”
“Then drive me there. It’s part of my duty as Samuel’s wife to get to know the families of his soldiers, right?”
Leo looked less than convinced, but he finally started the car. Of course, he tried to call Samuel two more times during the drive.
I wasn’t sure if maybe I was crossing a line I shouldn’t, but I needed to give it a try. Domenico’s family lived in a small house in the suburbs. I didn’t know much about them and had only met Domenico’s mother and brother when she raged in the restaurant. I was a tiny bit anxious about how she’d react, but I was willing to risk her wrath if it meant I could put in a good word for Samuel.
Leo didn’t leave my side as we made our way to the front door and he rang the bell. “I’ll have to interfere if she loses it again. Grief isn’t an apology. It’s been years.”
“Don’t tell her that,” I whispered.
The door opened, and Domenico’s mother stood in front of me. Her eyes widened when she spotted me. She was in a bathrobe and looked slightly disheveled.
“I hope we didn’t wake you,” I said.
She scowled. “Of course not. I prepared my husband and son breakfast before they left to do their duty for the Outfit.”
I could hear that she didn’t think they should still be part of the Outfit.
“I’d like to talk to you if that’s okay.”
She looked at Leo, who regarded her like a ticking time bomb. Then she stepped back and nodded. She left the door open and moved inside. We followed her into a living room. The TV was playing. She sank down in front of it. An ironing board and a heap of crumpled clothes stood off to the side.
I moved closer to her. Leo stopped right behind us. His hovering was unnerving. She looked like someone who struggled with grief and perhaps even depression but not like she would attack me, at least not physically. She met my gaze eventually.
“Samuel misses Domenico too, and I know he’s very sorry.” Leo made a sound that suggested it wasn’t something I should say. Was it really so bad if a man, even one with power, admitted that he was sorry for something like this? “I just thought you should know. I know that doesn’t bring your son back, but Samuel never meant for any of this to happen.”
“Everyone moves on with their lives, even my husband and son. Everyone can except for Domenico and me.”
I nodded. For a mother to lose her child in this way must have been horrible. It was probably impossible to move on from that. “I don’t know if it would help you, but maybe forgiveness would make some things easier.”
She let out a hollow laugh. “Forgiveness? Did you forgive the man who cost you your legs?” She motioned at my wheelchair.
I didn’t correct her that I still had my legs. I smiled. “I did, eventually.”
“He paid with his life for what he did. Forgiving a dead man is easy because he can’t flaunt his happiness in front of you anymore.”
“I would have forgiven him even if he were alive. His death didn’t change my situation.” I never asked Danilo or Dad to kill him, and I wouldn’t have. His death didn’t change anything for me, except for knowing that in addition to my suffering, his family now grieved too. “Is that what you desire? Samuel’s death?”
My voice broke slightly. I was falling for Samuel a little more every day. Maybe I even loved him, and I wanted to see him fully happy. Thinking that someone other than our enemies wanted him dead hurt my heart.
Her eyes glazed over in thought. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “I wish he had died and not my boy.”
I nodded. I understood that too.
She looked up at Leo, who was typing on his phone. “Is that betrayal? You can tell him exactly what I said. I would tell him and his father to their faces. They can kill me if they want, then I’d finally be united with my boy again!”
Leo frowned at her as he lowered his phone, but he didn’t say anything.
I realized she would never give Samuel her forgiveness. That would require her to move on, and she would never allow herself to do so. For her, it would feel like betraying the child she’d lost.
I squeezed her hand. “I don’t understand your pain. Nobody who hasn’t experienced it can, but I am sorry for your loss. I know the things we lose always echo the loudest.”
She swallowed hard and nodded.
Samuel came home early that day, and one look at his tense face as he stepped outside on the porch where I was doing origami told me that Leo had told him everything. Not that I had expected anything less. Samuel probably always got a detailed rundown of my day. I wasn’t sure if it was concern or his need to control everything.
“That was very foolish,” he said quietly.
His quiet rage was always the most potent. I sat up straighter and put the origami flower down. Giorgia had asked me to do them for her wedding as table decorations for their wedding gift. “If wanting to help my husband makes me a fool, then I don’t mind being one.”
Samuel shook his head and squatted before me with a look of intense frustration. “Do you realize how much danger you were in?”
“I visited a mother who’s caught up in grief and depression, not the enemy.”
“Grief can turn men into monsters.”
“Men, certainly. She’s a woman.”
Samuel glared. “This isn’t the time to be witty. What if she’d decided to pay me back and hurt me by hurting or killing you, Emma? Did you consider that?”
“Leo was with me. And killing me wouldn’t have hurt you in a way she might desire. For her to have any chance of getting even, she would have to kill someone you love, like your mother or Sofia. Not me, because you don’t love me.” The words ached, but I didn’t shy back from a hurtful truth. I never had.
Samuel regarded me without saying anything.
“Right?” I whispered, and I wasn’t sure why I did it.
Samuel straightened and looked out over the lake. “I told you she won’t forgive me.”
“She can’t because she would feel guilty. It isn’t even about you anymore. It’s about her feeling obligated to stay in the past and not move on like everyone else.”
“I want to move on, now more than ever, because of you.” He looked me in the eyes, and the look in his made my heart speed up. Samuel wasn’t a man for emotional declarations, but this felt like one.
