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I force a small smile. “Just tired from work. Long day.”
His brows pull together, a flicker of concern breaking through his previously tense expression. “Come, sit down.” He gestures toward the living room with one hand, placing his hand on the small of my back with the other to guide me in.
The plush couch I sink into feels like it might swallow me as I lay myself back to relax.
Elio crosses the room over to the kitchen, taking out a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator and holding it up for me to vet. My throat tightens as I nod, directing him to bring it over to me.
“Drink slowly,” he says, unscrewing the cap and handing the bottle over, the faint hiss of escaping air interrupting the silence in the room.
“Why do you push yourself to work so hard?” Elio asks, leaning against the back of a chair, arms crossed. His tone is softer now, and his dark eyes are fixed on my face. “When this is all over, things could be different. No work, no stress. Just you and the good life,” he continues.
“You don’t understand,” I begin, the tone of my voice betraying the perfect front I’m trying to portray. “When I was little, my mom…she…” My throat tightens, but I push the words through, “She died of cancer. It was just me, my dad, and my brother after that.”
Elio doesn’t move, but his gaze sharpens, his jaw tightening like he already knows where this is going.
“My brother,” I continue, “used to act all tough, like nothing could touch him. But he wasn’t. He was… soft. Sweet, even. He was an investigative journalist.” The words stick in my throat, causing a momentary pause. “Hardworking to the core but power-driven. He wanted to always be the one in charge. My dad always said he lived his whole life with an unhealthy gush of adrenaline. Just before he died, he got his hands on something, something big, about a politician. He told me it was dangerous, but he never got the chance to explain.”
The words no longer find free flow as my hands grip the couch like it might steady me. “He got mugged. At least that’s what they said, but it wasn’t random. I know it wasn’t. And now the case issealed. Shoved under a rug like it never happened. No one talks about it. Not the cops, not the press. No one.”
Elio moves closer in soft steps. He kneels in front of me, wrapping his arms around my waist.
“You are the strongest woman I know,” he says, reducing his voice to a whisper, “Non permettere mai anessuno di spezzarti(Never let anyone break you).”
His unexpected show of sweetness throws me a little off-balance. When I first met Elio, I thought he was just some arrogant, entitled jerk who was putting up a front, pretending to be a saint before everyone, while being the utter opposite.
But listening to him say those words to me with that genuine glint in his eyes, especially opening up to me earlier about how he was deprived of his mother at a very young age and how he missed his father’s love, made me realize that deep under his cold, ruthless façade, there is a part of him that could feel, hurt, understand and …even love.
His childhood has made him into the man he is today. I can imagine how lonely it must have been for him, how he always had to pretend to be okay even when he wasn’t. The thought of him having laid out in the cold or gotten scorched in the sun without an idea of where his next meal would come from… it was all too much for a child to bear. It all begins to make sense.
No wonder he’s so uptight and tense. Growing up, he only learned how to survive. He never learned how to live and love.
For a moment, I let myself lean into him as I let the warmth of his words settle the raging storm inside me. He pulls me away from him, steps forward a little to glare at one of his security personnel lurking around, then pulls me back into his arms a little more tightly than before. I’m about to ask what the issue with the security guy is, but then my stomach churns again, the nausea hitting me with great magnitude. I pull away immediately.
“I just… need to rest,” I croak when he eyes me wearily, schooling my features. He arches his brow even higher and looks like he’s about to say something, but I don’t wait to make sense of his reply. Hurriedly, I ascend the stairs and make a beeline to the bathroom in my room before the contents of my stomach begin to spill out of my mouth.
***
My heart is pounding in my chest like a wild animal trying to escape its cage. My eyes hold the two red lines staring back at me from the strip in utter shock.
Pregnant. I’m pregnant with Elio Donatelli’s child.
Well, congratulations on such a great fuck up, Aria Abruzzi!
The words resound consistently in my mind, yet I cannot fully grasp the reality of it. My palms roam my abdomen, as if by doing so, I can somehow reach for the unborn baby and check the validity of this pregnancy test.
“Arrrgh!”
A loud sound of guttural groaning fills the air while the shock from it causes the test strip to clatter to the ground.
What just happened? Could it be Elio? Is he hurt?
The sound comes again, louder this time. I doubt that it’s Elio; his baritone voice is lighter, but I pick up the strip, tuck it into my waistband, and head back into the living room quickly.
My feet stop in their tracks. There’s blood everywhere.
Elio has the collar of one of his men in his hands. The man’s face is barely recognizable and slick with red; his facial features have been punched into misalignment.
Elio’s eyes are darker than a fearsome storm about to devour the earth.