Our love is the strongest thing in the world.
Chapter Twenty
Aida
I wake the next day sensing that my Arturo isn’t beside me.
All night, I woke up to claw across the silk sheets and grab onto him, feeling the heat of his body, burning beneath the muscles. Or hug closer to him if he already had me in his arms, laying my cheek against his chest so that I could hear the rumbling of his heartbeat.
To confirm that he was there, that yesterday with Mom and Dad – and when he turned into a beast to save me – wasn’t all a little girl’s fantasy.
No, it’s real, it happened.
He’s mine.
And I’m his.
The sun is glowing through the silk curtains, already hanging above the horizon, the room flooded with the curtain-filtered sunlight. I sit up and look around at the floating red motes, letting out a yawn.
After everything happened – not to mention the wild way Arturo unleashed on me last night – I’m still tired despite it probably being almost lunchtime.
I dress in some sweatpants and a hoodie, my best bet if I want comfortable clothes around the estate. Arturo wouldn’t want anybody seeing me in a bathrobe.
That’s just for him.
And it feels so good to be his personal plaything, my womb blazing hotter and firmer each moment, silently telling me that she’s doing her work. She’s taken Arturo’s seed and now she’s going to paint us a future with it.
I make my way through the house, heading down to the main balcony. Arturo likes to eat out there. Otherwise, he’ll probably be in the gym or in the city for work.
I hear him as I approach the balcony, his voice raised, and another man’s voice beneath it.
I freeze when I reach the door.
The other voice belongs to the man who kidnapped me, the man in the leather jacket who tapped the silencer of his gun against the glass.
“Aida,” Arturo growls from the other side of the door. “It’s okay. Come here, please. Nobody is ever going to hurt you.”
I walk onto the balcony, finding Arturo stood with his back to the railing, his hands behind his back, clean shaven and ready to do business in his dark blue suit. His silver hair is swept, and his near black eyes glint as he stares at me, and then nods at the man sitting between us.
At first, I think I’ve made a mistake. This man is completely bald, as though he’s shaved recently. His cheeks are sunken. He looks broken. But then I look closer, and I see I’m right, it’s him. He has the same eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” Elmo says. “Aida, Miss Capullo. I am so, sorry.”
“Tell her what you told me,” Arturo grunts.
Elmo licks his lips, wringing his hands. Jackal brushes up against me and I absentmindedly let my hand move through his fur. The big dog gives a rumble of protection. I tickle his scruff, letting him know it’s okay, and he settles down.
“I was forced to kidnap you by the Peacekeepers. They threatened my niece in California. They even kidnapped them once. I’m sorry. I was a fucking junkie, an idiot. I’ve been a junkie for too damn long now. When they took me – when they broke me out of that cell – do you know what I did after I finally fought them off and won my freedom? I locked myself away. I waited for the shivers to pass. I waited for my self-respect to come back. I knew if I went out into the world, I’d find drugs and use again.”
“And then he returned here,” Arturo says, “to accept his punishment.”
“Punishment?” I mutter.
Arturo nods gruffly, his eyes hard.
“Whatever you want done with him, that will be his fate,” he snarls. “He scared you. He betrayed me—threats or no threats. But kidnapping you is by far his worst crime. So it’s only fitting that you choose his punishment.”
“But if he never kidnapped me,” I say, “we wouldn’t be together.”
Arturo grinds his teeth, then sighs. “No, Aida. I don’t accept that logic. It doesn’t excuse what he did.”
“He did frighten me,” I say, glancing at him.
He looks so sunken, so lost.
“Do you believe him, Arturo?” I say, turning back to my man. “Do you believe it was the drugs? Do you think he can change?”
Arturo is silent for a long time, his eyes off in the past.
Finally, he nods.
“I think so,” he says. “But it’s your choice.”
“He’s going to do voluntary work for a drug rehab institution for five years,” I say. “If he stays clean that entire time, he can rejoin the Family. Let something good come from what he did.”
Arturo nods matter of factly. “You heard her, Elmo.”
Elmo slides from the chair to his knees, his head bowed, his hands clasped in front of him as though in shackles. I glance at Arturo, wondering if this is normal in the mob. But he looks as confused as me, his eyebrows knit.