Chapter 84

Chapter 84
Giovanni POV: 

She’d been frozen on the bench, but I pulled her up into my arms and spun her around. I felt like the world was off my shoulders, as if I’d been encased in concrete for a decade, and then suddenly I was free. Like I had been thrown into a lake and my body was floating. I wrapped her in a tight hug, cheering. Applause erupted around the courtroom as he was hailed away. 

Guilty on all accounts. I’m going to have to find a photo of his face as they sentenced him. Life in prison no no chance of parole. 

We were free. We had won. 

We ran out of the courthouse like it was burning. If I never had set foot in another one again, it would be too soon. 

“Where should we go?” I asked her, hoping that she would tell me to book the first flight to Italy. 

We didn’t have to stay here anymore, we can go home. She would never have to feel this lonely or frightened again, she could be safe and held with a family, my family.

“Take me out,” she stated, simply ordering a night out on the town, and I thought, yes, we deserve that first, at least let’s celebrate with the people, and then we’ll head home. 

We should’ve gotten on the first plane out of there, left all the problems to them. Mosley was a big boy; he could handle it. 

No, no one said she put on a stunning blue dress and put her hair up, walking out of the house looking like something out of a magazine, the girls I used to date would comb through jealously. 

We went out to the place I had first taken her to, back into that corner room, this time my arm was around her, no invisible line keeping me from her. 

“When do you wanna go?” I couldn’t help myself. I asked her right away. When does she want to leave this god awful city and go home? 

“We can get out in the morning if it’s so important to you,” she didn’t seem bothered by the idea, she rolled her eyes at me. I could see the smile on her face, a playfulness that hadn’t crept out in a long time. 

We’ve never had this never had a night where there wasn’t some existential dread hanging over us. A bogeyman hiding in the corner of our dates at every turn was now gone, and we could enjoy each other’s company without fear or anxiety. 

“ I can’t wait to see you walking down the boardwalk in a summer dress,” I told her. “No care in the world,” 

“ I have to buy a summer dress then,” she placed her hand in mine with a coy smile. 

“As many as you need,” I grinned. “One forever every day of the year,” 

She shook her head with a small smile and a breathy snort. “ I won’t need that many besides, I doubt your family will still like me if I squander the money you make on clothes,” 

I shook my head. “ I don’t think my family could dislike you if they tried, but even if they did, I wouldn’t care.” 

I meant it, too. I meant the world to me that my mother looked at her the way she did and that they had fallen into such an easy friendship, but even if my mother had told me to throw her off a cliff and run for the hills, I wouldn’t listen. I was tired of her in every way; she was the future that I wanted, and nothing was going to stop me. We were like a boulder running down a hill, all the momentum, no brakes. 

“My mother will rejoice as you keep me happy. You’ve brought me home to her. I don’t think she’ll allow you to do anything for a month,” I chuckled. 

“ I’m glad I can make her so happy,” she smiled. “ Lord knows what you do if I gave her a grandchild,” she had mentioned it as a joke so flipantly, and I saw her freezer. She said it, blushing, and looking away, sputtering some excuses, she said she didn’t mean it. 

I simply grabbed her hand and gave it a small peck. “All in good time. Whatever you want, I will get for you. You’ll be my wife, and if you want 1 million children, I’ll give you that,” I promised her.

She almost recoiled at the mention of 1 million children. “Maybe not quite that many, but I wouldn’t mind a few,” she corrected me, blushing. 

“All right, a few,” I laughed. “ I hope you realize that you will be living in my parents' house. It’s more than big enough, and we’ll have our own entrance and everything. You haven’t seen nearly half of it,” I explained, realizing I had never told her I didn’t have my own place in Italy. 

“That’s all right with me. I’m used to having family around, so it doesn’t bother me. She’s smart, and then she opened her mouth. “It’ll be nice to be around relatives. You don’t want to kill us,” 

I laughed and nodded my head. “It will be nice to have nothing to worry about for a short period.” 

“Just you and me waking up in each other‘s arms every morning, I don’t think I could imagine a better end to this,” she looked so helpful. 

Of course, it would’ve been then that Marco came into the room. I turned to ask him to join us and sit down for at least one celebratory glass of champagne. Then I saw his face. 

A deep, remorseful sorrow was in his eyes, color drained from his skin, and his lips were held together in a tight seal. 

“Something happened,” he announced.  

I wanted to say, I couldn’t believe it, but time froze after he said that my body went rigid, and I knew with a certainty that we seen this coming all of that doubt that I had tried to push away over the last couple of weeks all of those moments where I thought perhaps we should’ve just stayed there with my family Perhaps I should’ve done what my father said all of it fell into place like pieces and a puzzle telling me exactly what I have known all along that this would never have worked. I was a fool in a dream, and it was time to wake up, time to fight the good fight again, this time with guns and blood. Someone wasn’t walking out of this alive. 

Her hand fell out of mine with a thud on the table. “We should probably get going then,” she didn’t look at me, but I saw a teardrop fall. 

I grabbed your hand as we drove to the city. Marco is filling us in on the way and the attack on the convoy that was taking him to prison. Now he was free. Free and dangerous and coming right for us. 

We made our way into the police station, everybody running around like they were chickens with their heads cut off, like they had no idea what to do on a day like today, you know, there was nothing they could do. We were the ones he wanted; he’d come for us, there was no stopping it. 

“ I’m sorry,” The detective told me as he spotted us. 

I was sorry to, if only we could’ve stayed in the dream a little while longer.