Chapter 142 Layers of Him

Chapter 142 Layers of Him
Massimo’s jaw ground tightly as he continued, the words dragged out like shards of glass from an old wound. “We were poor. Dirt poor. I stole when I could. Begged when I couldn’t. Got lucky a few times.”
There was an heavy and suffocating silence between them.
“My mother…” He stopped. For a long moment, he said nothing, staring into the darkness as if it might swallow the memories. “She had… episodes.”
“Some days she’d sleep for eighteen hours and I couldn’t wake her.”
His gaze remained fixed on nothing. “Other days she’d talk so much she barely breathed.”
A muscle worked violently in his jaw. “Then there were days she’d look right through me.” He swallowed hard. “Like she didn’t know who I was.”
His eyes grew glazed, lost in the memory. “She’d cry. Scream. Throw things.”
He laughed bitterly, the sound hollow and broken. “I never knew which version of her I’d get.”
Eloise’s fingers tightened around the back of his neck, anchoring him as best she could.
“Those things you were saying…” she whispered carefully, “from your nightmare.”
Massimo went perfectly still but Eloise searched his face, her heart aching.
“They came from your mother, didn’t they?”
For a long time, he didn’t answer. Then, in a voice stripped raw:
“Yeah.”
He stared into the darkness. “I was ten.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “She’d been gone for days. High out of her mind.”
He swallowed again. “She woke up that evening and just… looked at me. For a long time.” His gaze unfocused. “Like she was trying to remember who I was.”
“I don’t remember much else about that birthday.”
He rubbed a hand roughly over his face. “You hear something like that at ten years old… some part of you never really forgets it.”
Eloise cupped his face with both hands, forcing him to look at her again. “They’re not real.”
A bitter smile touched his mouth. “No, Cara…” His eyes were haunted. “I’m cursed.”
“No, you’re not.”
His gaze searched hers, almost desperate. “Don’t you see? I’m only capable of death and destruction. Everywhere I go, I leave blood behind. There is always death. There is always violence.”
“No!” Eloise shook her head vehemently, tears burning in her eyes. “No, don’t you dare do that.”
He stared at her.
Tears spilled freely down her cheeks. “You don’t get to take every terrible thing that was done to you and wear it like it’s your fault.”
“It is my fault.”
“No!” Her fingers tightened on the back of his neck, desperate and fierce. “You were a child. You were ten years old, Massimo.” Her voice broke. “Ten. You were poor and hungry and scared, and your mother was sick and high and cruel. What happened to her was not your fault.”
He looked away.
She immediately turned his face back to hers. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, he did.
Tears streamed down her face as she held his gaze. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
He didn’t answer.
“I see a man who carries everyone on his shoulders until he breaks beneath the weight of it. I see a man who would burn the world down if it meant protecting the people he loves.”
His throat worked.
“I see a man who stayed awake just to hold me while I slept.”
His breathing became rough. 
“I see a man who was never taught how to be loved and somehow still learned how to love anyway.”
“Eloise…” Massimo’s voice broke completely.
His hands came up, gripping her waist, pulling her impossibly closer as though he needed her near to keep himself from shattering. 
He looked wrecked. So much unlike the Don. Not like the man who made grown men tremble. Just… a wounded little boy wearing a man’s face.
Something inside Eloise’s chest shattered.
She cradled his face between her hands. “I’ll spend the rest of my life reminding you who you are.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“I will tell you over and over and over again until you believe it.”
She stroked his cheek with trembling fingers. “And if those horrible words ever come back… If that little boy ever starts believing them again… then I’ll stand between you and them.”
His eyes snapped open.
Tears spilled freely down her cheeks. “I’ll stand between you and every ugly thing anyone ever made you believe about yourself.”
He stared at her and she didn’t look away.
“You’re not cursed, Massimo.”
His breathing became even more rougher. 
“And you’re certainly not unworthy of love.”
Something inside him cracked wide open.
“I love you, Massimo,” she whispered, her voice shaking but certain. “I love you, even if you can’t say it back right now.”
Her thumb brushed beneath his eye. “I love you.”
Her voice trembled. “I love you. I love you.”
Then Massimo made a strangled sound.  Suddenly he was pulling her against him, crushing her to his chest as though he could crawl inside her and hide there forever. 
He buried his face in her neck, breathing her in like she was oxygen and he was drowning.
He had never felt so ashamed. So undeserving. So utterly seen. Nobody had ever looked at the filth of his beginnings and stayed.
Nobody had ever known the worst of him and loved him anyway.
His chest ached with it.
“Cara…” he whispered brokenly against her skin.
Then he devoured her mouth in a kiss.