Chapter 72

Chapter 72
Arianna POV: 

We spent the day playing games, the children laughing and giggling as they ran around on board. Chess games are being played, and books being read. Becca and I talked about what happened after she left. She still hadn’t forgiven Gio and Luca for sending her home while she was unconscious from healing. Having met her mother, though, I knew she understood they didn’t have much of a choice. 

The sun started setting, and we sadly made our way back towards the coast. Red-cheeked and satisfied from a day onboard, we all settled into the cars again. My mind went back to what Agnes’s told me about Giovanni, and as he held my hand passing through his hometown town I couldn’t help but wonder what type of man he would have been. 

Would we have met? Would he be softer? Would he still care for the blonde-haired bombshells that dotted his past? Would he be happier? 

I couldn’t help my mind from thinking of him smiling brightly as he drove some pretty thing up the Riviera, not a care in the world. No idea of the monsters that lay across the ocean, no vendettas. 

I smiled softly to myself, knowing I would give anything to have him like that, even if I never saw it, if I knew this battle was never laid upon his shoulders, I’d be happier. I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, trying to keep that image of him in my mind. 

When we got up to the house, I set about helping in the kitchen. 

“I don’t know why it took him so long to bring you home to me. Look at you, you can cook like me,” Agnese cheered as I cut up an onion. 

I didn’t think it was quite the accomplishment that she was claiming it to be, but I took the compliment with a giant grin and a blush. The idea his mother had taken so quickly to me was everything I could have hoped for. 

We prepared some breaded fish and fresh vegetables with some pasta. Gio came in at some point, popping a bottle of red and pouring a glass for all of us, cooking his mother, smiling sweetly at him. 

“You take such good care of me,” she kissed his cheek. 

He nodded before coming over to me and handing me my glass, our eyes meeting, a fire lingered in his gaze, I wanted to smack him for looking at me like that in front of his family. 

We brought the meal out, the parents wrangling their children to the table, and once again, Giovanni’s father sat at the head, reading his paper. I had noticed throughout the day it wasn’t the same paper; he read papers from all over the world in all different languages, keeping tabs on what’s going on. Right now, he sat with the Chinese paper, going over their reports. 

Gio sat beside his father, and I sat on his right. As much as there was tension between the two men, I could see it behind his hard exterior that Giovanni missed his father. With his brother gone, I’m sure the two valued their relationship more. Except they were big, strong men who didn’t talk about their feelings. 

Matteo set down his paper and clapped his hands, everybody joking to say Grace before we broke bread. 

Not long after the meal started did Matteo turned to me and asked. 

“So, do you think this little plan of yours will work?”  

I was astonished at first, not sure why he had so boldly asked me that at the start of dinner. Agnese rolled her eyes and hugged, muttering to herself as she cut up her fish. 

“I think it’s got a good chance of putting him away, yes,” I told him. 

He stared me down and looked me in the eyes while taking a sip of his drink. “You don’t believe that,” he pointed at me. 

I looked over at Giovanni, unsure of how to proceed., Gio had his hands clenched around his silverware, staring at his father like a bull ready to charge. I placed a hand on his arm, hoping he wouldn’t speak up and start a fight. 

“You are his daughter after all,” he held out his hands as if that explained everything. “You know that your father is a relentless man, and there is only one way to end this.” 

I stared at him, my eyes went cold as I looked at Matteo. I saw then what he wanted from me, I looked across the table at Agnese, who looked at her husband blankly, no love or admiration in her eyes. “Matteo,” she warned. 

“He is a relentless man, but I think there’s been enough blood, surely you agree,” I look at him unflinching. How could he be so desperate for his son to go further into this fight, to continue to lose himself to the shadows? 

When I met Giovanni, he was a different man, only pieces of himself showing through. I don’t know why it was I who brought the feisty, lighthearted man out in him, but I wasn’t going to let that man die. 

“There has been a great amount of bloodshed, yes, but sometimes one drop more is all that’s needed,” 

“We’ve got him exactly where we want him, wouldn't you rather he spend the next twenty years knowing he’d been beaten than dead?” Giovanni interjected, his face red and a vein in his neck popping out. 

I gripped his arm tighter, but he didn’t look at me. 

“I want him where he belongs. He took my son from me. Nothing besides the cold, hard ground will help me,” Matteo spat. 

Agnese stood up and marched off. Matteo cursed under his breath and took a sip of his drink, walking after his wife, a wounded dog. 

Giovanni muttered something in Italian about his father. I only gathered a word or two as he rested his head in his hands. I rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re doing the right thing, whatever comes of this. We tried,” I reminded him. 

He grabbed my hand and stood up, taking us away from the table nobody else seemed to notice as we left the room, and he took me out of the house and to his car. 

“Where are we going?” I asked him, but he said nothing, opening the door for me. 

He drove and dove until we were far from town and his family, his father. We found ourselves on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  I looked at him as he sat there still holding the steering wheel. 

“Be honest with me,” he finally spoke. “Do you think he’ll stay in prison? Do you think we will be safe? Should we get our hopes up?”