Cassio
Soft sobs wake me out of a light sleep, my senses all snapping into clarity with immediate precision. Ana’s bedroom is dark, save for the city light trickling in through her tall windows. In the shadows I see her body tossing and turning, rolling around beneath her blankets.
Getting to my feet, I stride over to her side, ignoring the soreness in my shoulders from sleeping on her couch. When I peer down at my new wife, I see the unmistakable glow of her skin, slick with sweat. Tears are streaming down her face, even as she remains in a fitful sleep.
“Shit,” I mutter quietly, feeling a familiar sense of grief settle in my gut. It’s like her pain and sorrow is seeping into me through the air and I need to brush it off.
Memories threaten to play around in my mind, but I can’t lose myself in the past. I have to take care of Ana. Right now, nothing else matters.
Steadying myself with a deep breath, I lean down and reach for her biceps. Trying not to startle her, I caress her skin and squeeze.
“Ana,” I whisper gently.
She whimpers in her sleep, face scrunching in sadness. Her sobs quickly grow louder and her chest rises and falls faster. She’s terrified or panicking, and I need her to wake up.
“Ana,” I say more firmly. “You’re dreaming, you need to wake up.”
When she makes no move to open her eyes, I grimace.
Fuck it.
Pulling back her covers, I climb into bed next to her. My arms surround her from the side and I firmly tuck her small frame against my body.
“Ana,” I repeat, mouth brushing against her ear. She’s practically vibrating in my hold, shaking and crying so hard it makes me want to kill someone.
Feeling me so close finally causes my wife to startle, and she flinches away. Her eyes slam open wide, fear and tears filling her caramel gaze.
“It’s just me,” I whisper quickly, holding her tighter so that she can’t scramble away and hurt herself accidentally. “You were crying and breathing hard, was it a nightmare?”
Her bottom lip wobbles, and without answering, she throws her arms around me and buries her wet face into the crook of my neck. Ana crushes herself into me so hard that I wince.
“Shhhh, I’ve got you,” I coax, rubbing her back slowly. “You’re safe here. All the guards are awake and alert, Armani and Colton are in the living room still awake. I’m right here. No one can hurt you.”
I’m not lying, I had already woken up some time ago to check on things and was pleasantly surprised to see our ship running so smoothly.
“They a-already did,” she cries, stuttering through the words.
Her words hit me right in the chest. “I know.”
“It h-hurts, Cassio.”
I know. God, do I know…
“We’re going to hurt them worse,” I promise her. “They’ll suffer in ways you never thought imaginable.”
More tears roll down my neck, and she breathes out a long breath, trying to calm herself. Minutes pass and she still cries, but she’s no longer hyperventilating. I keep holding her, rubbing her back, and trying to settle her with soft comfort.
I haven’t felt so close to another person in far too long, and I wish it were under better circumstances. I wish Ana didn’t have to be plagued with such despair, but I’ll continue to wrap her in my arms for as long as it helps.
Sounding impossibly sad, she whispers, “I miss my mum.”
Her voice has cleared up, and her breathing has mostly evened out.
“She was Catholic, wasn’t she?” I ask. “You wear the necklace for her?”
Ana sniffs, nodding into my neck. “Y-yes.”
“Then you know that she’s watching you,” I tell her, hesitant to go this route of consoling. “She’s in a good place, even if we wish she were still here. Even if it was too soon—”
“Way too soon.”
“Yes, forza,” I agree. “Far too soon.”
I don’t know much about Vivian Knight, but I know she wasn’t even forty years old. Much too young to die as a healthy woman. And from what I’ve heard, much too kind to be targeted in the way she was.
“I love my mom,” Ana whispers, her small voice cracking as she pulls back a few inches to look at me. “I can’t even process that she’s gone… that it happened like this.”
Tentatively, I reach out to brush some hair from her eyes. Her face is puffy and red, and still wet with fallen tears. “I understand.”
There’s not much else to say, and she’s heard enough I’m sorrys to last a lifetime.
“Do you?” she asks, a single fresh tear dripping down her cheek.
“I loved my mother too,” I reply simply.
Ana freezes, processing the statement. “I forgot yours has passed,” she admits, sniffing back her emotions. “How did she..? No one ever talks about it.” When I don’t immediately answer, she shakes her head. “Sorry, that was too personal.”
“It wasn’t,” I disagree. With a stranger, it would be. But Ana isn’t a stranger. “All of my brothers, we had complicated relationships with her. Apollo doesn’t speak about her, Matteo won’t even call her mom, and Nico hardly interacted with her while she was still alive. That’s why we don’t talk about it, not because it’s too sensitive or too personal.”
“Oh.”
“She wasn’t a bad mother, as far as bad mothers go,” I preface with a slight wince. Matteo might disagree with me, and that would be his right. But our mom could have been a million times worse.
“After she had Matteo, she had this weird mood shift. She told Dad she didn’t want any more kids, so their relationship was effectively over.”
“Which is how Jade came to be,” Ana concludes.
“Exactly,” I concur. “About eight years later, Apollo and Dad found her in her bathtub, both wrists slit up to her elbows.”
Ana gasps, eyes going wide with horror.
“She had a brain tumor,” I continue, not fazed by past grief. This loss was buried a long time ago. “We didn’t know, of course. No one did. For a year she went to every specialist out there, pretending to be on vacations or shopping trips. But when every doctor she saw agreed it was terminal, she decided to end her own life before the tumor could.”
“That’s so sad,” Ana murmurs.
“It was pretty fucked up,” I admit with a shrug. “Leon was hit the hardest. He was always her favorite.”
“Parents shouldn’t have favorites,” she grumbles like she’s angry on my siblings’ behalf.
“It’s not always that simple,” I tell her, shrugging once more. “She was raised to be a perfect mafia wife. Having babies and living a lavish life fueled her. Once that was done, so was she.”
Ana frowns. “But Dante wouldn’t—”
I sigh, cutting off her protest. I already know what she’s trying to say. It’s what everyone says. Dante Moretti wouldn’t treat a wife that way.
“He wouldn’t,” I agree. “He didn’t. But one man can’t untangle years of conditioning. He loved her, as much as she allowed.”
A man doesn’t watch a beautiful woman giving him nine children and feel indifferent. That’s what Dad has always said, and he meant it.
I hadn’t meant to go into such detail, but the information seems to be distracting Ana from her own pain. I’ll tell her as many stories as she wants if it keeps her from sobbing uncontrollably.
“He tried but it was never enough. He even tried to stop having kids after Elio and Emilio,” I admit. I only know this because of Apollo.
“He was worried that the pregnancies would be too much for her but she cried and cried until he agreed to continue for as long as she wanted. Being a mother was her dream, even though she couldn’t quite figure out the loving part.”
Clearing my throat, I shake off old memories threatening to filter in. “I’m sure if you asked each of us, we’d have a different answer. But I mostly feel sorry for her—Dad too. She lived a painful life and he tried so hard to make it a good one.”
“That’s tragic,” Ana breathes. “Even if it could have been so much worse for both of them. Arranged marriages… they’re hard to predict.”
“They certainly could have been dealt worse hands,” I agree.
She nods solemnly. “I could have been, too. So, umm, thank you for—”
“You don’t need to thank me, Ana,” I remind her.
She doesn’t argue, even though she looks like she wants to disagree.
“I don’t want to plan her funeral,” she eventually admits in a broken whisper. “I don’t think I can.”
“I can do it.”
Her wet eyes burst open. “You would do that?”
“I’ll work with Gerard on it,” I tell her seriously. “All you’ll need to do is attend. I’ll take care of it all.”
Her breath shutters and she tucks herself closer to me. “You promise?”
“I promise, Ana.” Brushing some dark strands that cling to her face away, I softly wipe away her tears. “You don’t need to worry about a thing.”
“T-thank you,” she croaks. “Anything for Cole should be Killian’s decision. I think he wanted to be cremated, but I can’t possibly do that before he’s awake, can I? Can his body be stored for that long?”
“I’ll make sure of it.”
I understand why she wants to get all of this out now, it’s probably the thing that’s bothering her the most at the moment. If she purges her worries, there’s a chance that she’ll experience a bit of the relief she so desperately needs.
“Agnes will be here in the morning. Does she know?”
I don’t tell her that it is the morning. Probably around four or four-thirty. But the sun isn’t up, so I know what she means.
“Gerard contacted her,” I start to explain. “We told her to take time off, if she needed it, or if she was scared to come in. She insisted on coming to take care of you, though she promised to give you space.”
I won’t have this woman making my wife cry, even accidentally. She can see Ana if Ana requests it, and she can cook for her, but I will not allow her to burst in here and make anything worse.
“I hope she’s nice to you,” Ana says in a small voice. “She can be a bit overprotective sometimes.”
Oh, you poor thing… you haven’t seen overprotective yet.
But you will.
“I can handle it,” I assure her, watching as her eyes become heavy. “Get some more sleep, hmm? I’ll be right here.”
“In the bed?” Ana asks, grasping me by the wrist.
“If you want me here.”
She breathes out, nodding. “Don’t leave.”
Never.
