Admitting to addiction meant weakness in the eyes of a Made Man. It made me furious. This was simple physics. Even if they considered themselves stronger than other people, they were still bound to nature’s laws, and their bodies craved whatever drug they were addicted to. Maybe their strength made it easier for them to resist, but perhaps it made it harder because they never sought help.
Seeing Samuel struggle with his demons alone, thinking he needed to do it alone, broke my heart. I wanted to help him, but I wasn’t sure how. Should I set an ultimatum? Should I put a virtual barrel to his head?
I touched my bump. I needed to do something for our baby’s sake. For Samuel’s sake. For our family’s sake.
Maybe I had been foolish to think that my pregnancy would give Samuel the push he needed to stop drinking, but it had only made him more secretive when it came to his consumption. Maybe he thought I didn’t notice how often he snuck down to his office at night or how he had an array of chewing gum and even mouthwash in his car and probably his office. But his office was always locked nowadays. I hadn’t cornered him about it yet, still foolishly hoping things would solve themselves.
In December, I finally gathered my courage. There were only three more months until my due date, and I knew time was running out if we wanted to tackle Samuel’s problem before that.
Samuel and I had dinner together like every evening. Samuel had his usual glass of wine, never more, at least not in my presence, but I’d smelled the hint of alcohol on him when he’d returned earlier. My sense of smell had improved over the course of my pregnancy, so it was almost impossible to keep something like that from me.
“I know you’re drinking when you’re not home,” I said quietly.
Samuel’s expression darkened. “Emma—”
“What if you’re intoxicated when I go into labor?”
His gaze slid down to my prominent bump. “I could still drive you, and I’ll stop drinking once your due date is close.”
Did he really think it was as easy as that? That he could just decide when to stop?
“What if the baby comes early? Or what if it comes many days after the due date? Can you stay away from drinking for weeks? Do you really think it works like that?”
“I’m not an alcoholic, Emma. I like a drink or two, especially on stressful days, but that doesn’t mean I have a problem.”
So that’s where we were at? Back to complete denial? I wasn’t sure what to do. Deep down, I knew I couldn’t leave him, not just because our world didn’t allow it but because my heart simply forbade it. I didn’t want to leave Samuel alone. I wanted to be his anchor.
“Your friends fought for you. And you lived. Honor them by allowing yourself to live fully. Do it for us and our baby.”
I hoped my speech had gotten through to him. I wasn’t sure what else to do at this point. He thought he was in control. He thought admitting he wasn’t would make him weak.
I never saw Samuel drink a single drop in the following weeks, but my intuition told me he was hiding it from me.
I needed to know for sure.
So when Danilo and Sofia came to visit us for Christmas, I approached my brother.
“Can you teach me how to pick a lock?” I asked casually.
Danilo gave me a worried look. “Why?”
“Because it could come in handy one day. Children sometimes lock themselves in. I want to be able to open a locked door.”
Danilo’s suspicion remained. “Why didn’t you ask Samuel?”
I was treading dangerous ground. I trusted my brother, but he and Samuel weren’t friends. They were civil toward each other, and their relationship had improved since their hunting trip, but they definitely didn’t go out of their way to spend time with each other. If I revealed Samuel’s alcohol problem to Danilo, Samuel might see it as betrayal, and it probably was. Still, I wished I could talk to someone about it. It was a heavy truth to carry.
Eventually, Danilo showed me how to pick a lock with a professional pick, and he even gave it to me. I wondered if he had his suspicions.
Later, after dinner, which Samuel missed because of work, according to him, he cornered me. “Is Samuel keeping any secrets from you?”
I gave him an amused look. “All Made Men are, right?”
“There are secrets that need to be kept and secrets that don’t.”
“Perhaps.”
“Are you worried he’s cheating on you?”
My eyebrows shot up. That was his first thought? “No,” I said without a hint of a doubt. “Samuel has made his stance on that matter clear from the very beginning.”
Danilo made a doubtful face.
“That’s not what’s going on, Danilo. Please trust my judgment.” I really didn’t need Danilo to cause any problems. Samuel was already pissed because I had said he had an addiction.
“I do. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I know,” I said and pecked his cheek.
I was glad when Sofia and Danilo finally left for their hotel, even if I’d enjoyed their presence. I was too eager to try out my new skills. Despite my guilt over breaking into Samuel’s office and thus breaching his privacy, I saw no other way. I trusted my gut on this, and it told me that Samuel was keeping his drinking from me. I needed to know this for a fact to make up my mind about what to do next.
After three tries, I managed to unlock Samuel’s office door and walked inside. The smell of alcohol hit me immediately. I rounded the desk and found an empty bourbon bottle beside the desk chair. When I opened the drawers, I found several more bottles of whisky, bourbon, cognac, and wine, most of them almost empty. None of these bottles were cheap. Maybe Samuel thought there weren’t any sophisticated drunks and tried to deceive himself into thinking he was in control. As if alcoholism only manifested in the form of cheap liquor. I swallowed hard. Maybe I should have waited inside the office and confronted Samuel, but I couldn’t bear being in the room where Samuel had hidden his secret. I locked the door again and moved into the living room.
I felt disheartened and at a loss. What could I do?
Samuel was a man of great pride and honor. How could I get through to him? I knew I needed to do something. I couldn’t let things progress as they were.
Eventually, Samuel would get himself killed either through the alcohol or because he couldn’t function in a dangerous situation.
It was not just Samuel’s life that was at stake. Our life as a family too.
When Samuel finally came home close to midnight, I had come up with what to say, a convincing speech, but one look at his face told me he’d had a bad day. And I knew what that meant.
My smile was tight when he came toward me and kissed me. I smelled spearmint on his breath. His habit of chewing bubble gum during the day had set off my alarm bells, and today, my fears were proven right. In the beginning, I had even tried to convince myself that it was an innocent new habit to distract him from his desire to drink, but I knew deep down that it wasn’t to take the place of one addiction but to cover up one.
One look into his eyes told me he had drunk quite a bit. Far more than the days before. If he weren’t such a trained drinker, he probably would have had a slur and trouble walking, but as it was only the less controlled way of his mimic and the look in his eyes revealed the truth.
“How was your day?”
“I visited the graveyard today. It was meant as a final goodbye. Now that we’ll be parents soon, I thought it was time to let the past rest.”
Ah, so he wanted to dull his pain with alcohol. My heart ached for his anguish, but at the same time, I felt angry, so very angry because he lied to me, because he was forcing me closer to a decision I didn’t want to make.
I loved Samuel. I loved him so much, but I was at a crossroads, and only one road allowed me to stay with him. Could I really give him an ultimatum like that?
Could I not? Could I let our baby be born into a household with an alcoholic father? What if he lost control because of it one day? I didn’t believe it, but wouldn’t it be negligent of me not to think about it?
Samuel cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair, squinting toward his office door. “I need to work for a couple more hours. Maybe you should go to bed.”
I pressed my lips together. “I think you should come to bed with me.” My eyes pleaded with him to follow me. Don’t force me to make a choice my heart won’t survive.
Samuel shook his head. “I really need to work. Things will calm down again soon.”
Another lie. This wasn’t about work. He would drink while locked in his office.
I followed Samuel into the hallway and watched him head for his office door. When he stopped in front of it, his eyes settled on the lock. He smoothed a finger over it. Had I left scratches in the metal?
This was my chance to say something.
He dropped his finger and reached for his key. “This is for your safety,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. Nothing about locking that door was for my safety. Rage bubbled up in me. He met my gaze. His lies met mine. Neither of us said anything for a couple of heartbeats. “Sleep tight.”
I nodded and turned around, then wheeled toward the elevator without looking back.
Tears prickled in my eyes, but I fought them.
It took more than an hour for me to fall asleep, but my sleep was fitful, and eventually, I woke up. At first, I wasn’t sure why, but then I realized my nightgown was wet. I froze. My first thought was that I had wet myself. In the very beginning, after my accident, that had happened on occasion, but that was years ago. I turned on the lights, and panic filled me. I was bleeding. For several heartbeats, I couldn’t do anything but stare, filled with terror. I touched my belly as my pulse raced in my veins.
I grabbed my phone and called Samuel. The phone rang several times before he finally picked up. “What’s wrong, Emma?”
His voice was rough, not slurred but definitely more drawn out than usual. My heart sank.
“I’m bleeding.”
“What? I’m coming up.”
I moved toward the edge of the bed, trying not to panic. With an anterior placenta like mine, bleeding wasn’t entirely uncommon. My doctor had warned me that this could happen.
Samuel staggered into the bedroom, his hair disheveled, his trousers and shirt wrinkled as if he’d slept on the floor. Remembering how I’d found him once at the beginning of our marriage, I knew this wasn’t completely unlikely.
Samuel came toward me, his eyes taking in my bloody nightgown. “I’ll take you to the hospital.” When he bent over me to pick me up, a wave of alcohol hit me. I scrunched up my nose. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m fine. I just had a glass of brandy to wind down.”
“You’re drunk, Samuel. Call Danilo. He can take me to the hospital.”
Samuel’s eyes flashed with anger. “I’m your husband. I’ll take you. I’m in control.”
I pressed my lips together, fighting an onslaught of emotions as he carried me down the stairs.
“Samuel—”
“I’m fine! We don’t need Danilo.”
I shook my head again. “You aren’t fine!”
His gait was steady despite the heavy note of alcohol on his breath and the slightly feverish look in his eyes. Maybe he could drive. But a warning voice in my head reminded me of the past. Fear gripped me.
“Samuel—”
He put me down on the passenger seat and buckled me up. “We’ll be quicker if I drive than if we wait for an ambulance or for your brother to arrive. We need to get you to a doctor as soon as possible.”
He was right but still…
I touched my belly, focusing on my baby.
Samuel got in the car and started the engine. My stomach constricted. Hazy memories from a crash long ago that changed my life resurfaced. My bodyguard had also smelled of alcohol. It hadn’t been the first time he’d been drunk on the job. I had noticed the stench before, but he’d never had trouble driving before.
A vivid image of the car swerving to the side, of a truck heading our way, and the lights blinding me shot through my head. After that, everything was black. It was the moment that changed my life forever.
I swallowed hard. My instincts screamed at me not to let Samuel drive. But if I called Danilo or Pietro, they would know something was wrong, and they’d figure out that Samuel had a problem with alcohol.
I couldn’t betray Samuel like that. Right?
Samuel drove too fast.
I clutched the seat, fear clogging my throat. “Samuel, slow down.”
“You need help,” he muttered.
He drove way too fast into a curve, and the car swerved toward oncoming traffic. The headlights of a car blinded me. I screamed, raw fear ripping the sound from the depths of my body. Not again.
The car jerked to the side, barely missing the other car. I was flung against the door, then we jolted to a stop.
Samuel breathed harshly.
“Emma? Emma, are you okay?”
I blinked, trying to breathe in and out as a myriad of images I hadn’t remembered up until that point flooded my mind. Being stuck in a wreck, my bodyguard trying to talk to me, the acute pain in my head. Blood everywhere.
Samuel touched my shoulder. “Emma?”
I unbuckled myself. We were on the side of the road, parked at a bus stop. Samuel shook me slightly until my eyes focused on him. “Emma, say something.”
He had a cut on his temple where he must have hit the side of the car. Blood was trickling down his face.
The other car’s driver got out of his car and gestured wildly at Samuel.
“I’m okay,” I pressed out.
Samuel nodded, then he grabbed his phone. “Dad, I need you to pick Emma up quickly.”
An ambulance arrived before Pietro did. Samuel sat silently beside me, ignoring the other driver who tried to argue with him.
“I’m riding in the ambulance,” I told Samuel.
“I should come with you.”
I wasn’t sure if I wanted that. I knew once the shock had lessened, I’d be furious. Not just at Samuel but also at me for getting into a car with a drunk driver. I should have known better. He should have too. But he was in denial of his problem, and I wasn’t.
Samuel regarded me. “Or I could drive there. I can’t leave my car here.”
“You should ride with your dad,” I said as the paramedics helped me onto the stretcher. I explained that the blood on my nightgown wasn’t from the crash, but I wasn’t sure if they believed me.
“It’s too dangerous for you to ride alone,” Samuel said with a frown.
“Getting in a car with you was too dangerous.”
SAMUEL
I swallowed hard, guilt burning a hot trail through my insides. The disappointed and hurt look in Emma’s eyes almost killed me. I pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before I told the ambulance driver to be extra careful and explained the consequences if he wasn’t.
Dad arrived when the ambulance pulled away.
I felt almost sober by now. I had definitely drunk a bit more than I should have tonight. It had been a shitty day.
Dad touched my shoulder. “What happened?”
The usual lie lay on the tip of my tongue, but I was fucking tired of lying. I’d put so much energy into deceiving Emma…and she knew. “I drove drunk today and lost control of the car.”
Dad frowned. “You should have called. Come on. I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
I sank down in the passenger seat.
When I rubbed my face, it came away bloody.
I hadn’t even noticed I was injured. That was why the paramedic wanted to take a look at me.
“Has this happened before?” Dad asked carefully.
“Me driving drunk?” I asked with a hint of dark humor.
“Yes.”
“I don’t remember the last time I didn’t drink something,” I confessed. It felt good to admit it, but at the same time, shame crawled under my skin like cockroaches.
Dad slanted me a look. “Samuel?”
“I think Emma is going to leave me. I lied to her. I almost killed her today.”
“Why didn’t you come to me sooner? I’m your father. You can tell me anything.”
“Dad, I’m your heir. I’m a Made Man. A man should be able to hold his liquor, right?”
Dad grimaced as he pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. “That’s just something I said. It doesn’t mean you should get drunk every day.”
“I’m not drinking to get drunk. I hardly ever get drunk anymore. I just drink to function.” I laughed bitterly. How was that for staying in control? Samuel Mione, the ice king, losing control of his life and body. A shame. A fucking disgrace.
“We’ll grab a coffee or two before we head to Emma. You smell of alcohol. We need to get you sober before you see her again.”
“I am sober. Or as sober as I can be.”
Dad grabbed my arm. “Dammit, Samuel. I lost Fina. I won’t lose you.”
I nodded mutely. Fina.
“Is this because of her? Did you start drinking because of her?”
“Because of the friends I killed. Because of my inability to protect those I care about. Because I lost her to a madman. The list is long, Dad. The funny thing is Emma makes me happy. But I still drink.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t stop,” I admitted, then shook my head. “Because of the guilt, because I’m scared to mess up and get Emma or our baby killed. I almost did today.”
“You need to stop.”
I nodded. I knew that. What if it was too late? What if I’d already lost Emma?
