Bound by the Past (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles 7)

I kept holding her even as she became cold, even as the silence in the room echoed loudly in my head. Night fell outside and then it became light again, and I still cradled her in my arms. Steps sounded in the house. Slowly, I slid my arm out from under her body and put her head down on the pillow. After I pulled out the syringe and thrust it into the bin, I kissed her eyelids and stood.

I couldn’t look away from her lifeless body, even though the sight of it crushed my heart.

“Master?” Zita called, and for a moment I considered sending her away so I could be alone with Carla’s body and my sorrow, but I couldn’t hide like this forever. I couldn’t do what I wanted—lay down beside my wife again and wait for death to claim me as well. Life needed to go on. I wasn’t sure how it could though.Ines squeezed my hand under the table as she kept on her conversation with Mother. I didn’t react to her attempt at consoling me, instead I excused myself and headed for the gardens, needing to get away from all the people who pretended they cared about Carla’s death when all they wanted was to get into my good graces, knowing it was only a matter of time before I’d take over as the Boss officially from my father as well.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this angry but without an outlet to release my emotions. Carla’s death had been like a cluster bomb and since then my insides felt frayed, torn, irrevocably damaged. My sorrow hadn’t diminished, if possible it had grown in the days since I’d killed her and with it my fury, my need to share this agony the only way I could, by inflicting it on others.

Steps raised my protective walls but I didn’t have to mask my face into one of calm, it always was. My muscles seemed perfectly frozen even as my insides burnt with emotions that threatened to unravel me and with it possibly the Outfit.

Pietro stopped beside me, not saying a word and stared up at the night sky like I did. After a couple of minutes, he slanted me a look. “We’ll stay for a week. Your mother is happy to have the twins around and Ines thought it would do you good to have family close by.”

I gave a terse nod.

“Dante,” Pietro said quietly, angling his body toward me and I knew his words wouldn’t do what they were intended to do even before he spoke them. “If you need someone to talk, you know you can come to me. You don’t have to bear this loss by yourself.”

One hand curled to a fist at my side, I nodded again, and Pietro finally retreated.

The night sky seemed endless and foreboding tonight. I wanted to believe Carla was up there somewhere, looking down at me. Maybe it would have offered me a flicker of consolation if I believed in an existence after death. I didn’t, and consolation was unreachable. The images of Carla’s lifeless body, of her casket being lowered into the dank soil slithered through my mind like poisonous snakes.Two days later, my parents invited the Scuderis over for dinner and despite my need to be alone, I attended the gathering. There was no one at home waiting for me and my duty to the Outfit bound me to be present. It wouldn’t do good to appear weak, not so shortly before my rise to become Capo.

Ines, Pietro, and the twins were there as well. The Scuderi sisters were too old to play with them but Fabiano was only a year older and so he joined Serafina and Samuel in a corner of the room after dinner to play. I barely listened to the conversation, even if it was about the Famiglia and how to assure peace with them.

“A marriage would bind us. Salvatore is eager to find a beautiful bride for his son Luca,” Father said.

“He’s interested in Aria,” Rocco said. “An immediate wedding preferably.”

My gaze turned to the girl who was chatting with her sisters on the sofa. She was fifteen, too young for marriage and too innocent for someone of Vitiello’s disposition.

“That man killed his cousin with his bare hands. I’m not sure if a union between him and one of our girls can be the foundation of peace,” Ines said.

Father’s brows tightened with disapproval, and Mother made a small shush noise toward Ines. “Your opinion isn’t appreciated at this table, Ines. You better concern yourself with how to please your husband and control your children, especially your daughter, she needs to learn her place.”

Serafina was brawling with the boys, holding her own despite her angelic appearance.

In the past, Ines would have ducked her head but as Pietro’s wife, she only had to obey him, not Father, and Pietro didn’t appear annoyed by her speaking up.