Chapter 73

Chapter 73
Giovanni POV: 

I should have realized the effect of having her in my home. Seeing her cook with my mother, watching her dote on my younger cousins, helping their mothers and fathers wrangle them around the boat. 

Watching her and Becca gossip and plan outings, even seeing her stare down my father as he criticized our plan. She wasn’t afraid of him, she wasn’t even intimidated. She looked him dead in the eyes and stated her beliefs. 

I thought it would be a good thing to see her with my family at least once to imagine what it could be like. Instead, it filled me with an overwhelming dread. She fit perfectly, it was like we were made for each other, every fast set of our lives, interlocking like pieces in a puzzle. 

How are we supposed to return home after this? How was I supposed to put her back in that fight, knowing how beautiful life could be? 

I was a fool to bring her here. 

So when I drove to the coast after the fight with my father, and I looked at her, I had to ask, I had to know that she was sure, if she was sure, then maybe we had a chance. 

“Do you think he’ll stay in prison? Do you think we will be safe? Should we get our hopes up?” I asked her, I sounded like a little school boy, begging his mom to tell him that nothing was going to hurt him. I felt childish and weak, as if I were quivering behind her knee. 

She sat there, staring back at me, eyes wide, and a shocked mouth slightly agape. She pondered what to say for a second, opening and closing her mouth, trying to find the right words. 

“ I think we have to try,” is all she managed. 

I sat back in my seat, staring out at the coast of my home. I hadn’t been home in years; I actually never thought I’d see it again. I agreed a long time ago to die in this fight. 

I looked back at her, her hair glistening in the moonlight, her eyes is shining with questions that she was dying to ask me. 

If I were a good man, I would’ve turned back and taken her home and sent her on her way. If I were unselfish, I would keep her as far away from me as possible. Instead, I had dragged her into this battle and locked her by my side, chaining her to me. 

I should’ve said right then and there, we can’t keep this up if we want to win, we have to part ways. I should’ve told her that I cared about her way too much, that we were giant weak spots for each other, and he would exploit us. 

I was on the verge of saying all these things when I stared at her and I caught her eye. There it was, lingering in the depths, hope. 

She was hopeful, she wanted to believe that we could do this. She was desperate to think that we would come out on top. Tries I might to make myself out to be the villain, she had followed me willingly every step of the way. She had come running to me for safety and sanctuary. 

Yes, we should’ve been smarter; we should’ve kept our boundaries clear. Instead, we had inch closer and closer to each other until we had toppled over and fallen deep into this abyss. 

So instead of turning away from her like I should’ve done many times, I made it worse. 

My mouth moved before I could stop it. 

“Marry me,” 

She sat back against the car door with a thud, her eyes unblinking and her face flushed. She sat there staring at me for what felt like ages, every passing second a hundred years. 

“Giovanni?” She asked me. “Are you serious?” I tried to get a read on where she was going with this. 

Was she excited? Mad? I had done this without thinking. She was going to turn me down, I’m an absolute idiot. 

“Are you serious?” Her tone turned warm. 

“Of course,” once again, my mouth moved first, but this time I wasn’t nervous. My mouth was dry, my heart was racing, but I wasn’t nervous. 

I had fought men, tortured, and robbed, but asking her to marry me was the most afraid and the most certain I had ever been in my life. 

“In a monastery not far from here,” she answered me. 

I stopped, not sure I understood. I expected her to continue, to finish what she was saying and get to answering the most important question I’d ever asked. 

“You asked me once,” she explained after my extended silence. “Where I’d like to get married,” she told me. “My mother was an orphan, she was raised in Italy in a monastery that shouldn’t be too far from here. That’s where I’d get married,” 

The air left my lungs. Was that yes? 

Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes,” she finally said. 

We had locked ourselves into the falling elevator at this point, but as I leaned over the seat and kissed her. 

I ignored the warning signs as she sat in my lap laughing and smiling the brightest I had seen her. I focused on the thought of her walking towards me in a white dress. Flowers in her hair, no cares or worries in the world. 

I kissed her and held her as we looked up at the stars in the sky, and I thought for a second we could return here and make a life for ourselves.  

I promised her she could pick out whatever ring she wanted. She could have anything she asked for so long as she kept her promise to be my wife. 

It was my grasp to keep onto this idea that we didn’t have to end this in a flaming wreck. I wanted the taste of life with her, all the glimpses I’ve had, and I was anguished at the thought it would never come true. 

After all the time with my family, seeing how well she fit in my life, with my people. Holding her own, basking in the sunlight. I couldn’t escape the thought of more, more mornings with her in my arms, more days hearing her life, more nights spent in the kitchen. I wanted all of her, greedy and ravenous as I was.  

I held her to me, kissing up and down her neck, claiming her once again as my own, and she gave herself willingly, greedy in her own right. Which made this all the worse, it would be one thing if this angel of mine cursed my name, but the fact that she saw good in me made this fool's errand all the more painful. 

I was well aware that we were trying to do the impossible, capture the devil without any bloodshed. It would never happen Al Lee were going to do was piss him off, but if we could, if I could get her to marry me and live a life without putting her in any more pain. I could die a happy man. 

As I said, it was a fool's errand, and if I had truly wanted to keep her safe, I’d have left her in Italy.