Page 87 of My Dark Ever After

I coughed up water until I felt sick and then vomited the meager amounts of breakfast I’d eaten onto the wood floor beside my feet.

This was why Dad hadn’t wanted me involved with his family.

This was why Raffa had kept his camorrista secret for so long.

There was nothing glamorous or comforting about life in the Mafia.

I was not even a mafioso, not even legally bound to one, and yet there I sat, tied to a chair, dripping with water and sweat, gasping like a fish out of water.

My mind had taken me to a place in the subterranean depths of my psyche, a kind of mind palace or safe harbor away from the horrors of what Eduardo was doing to me.

I found myself in a dark wood, the very same one as Dante in the opening line ofThe Divine Comedy. Virgil was there, as he was for the poet, greeting me solemnly and offering me a skeletal hand.

He promised to take me to my lover, but first, I had to journey through hell to reach him.

Now, sitting listlessly in the chair, the heavy drip of water leaching off my hair and clothes and the harsh rattle of my breath a soundtrack to the revelation, I understood something vital.

If this was hell, I would cross it over and over if it meant being with Raffa.

Even more importantly, I acknowledged that this wasn’t just a once-in-a-lifetime scenario. Maybe I would never be waterboarded through a designer silk scarf again, but there would be other times when I would be in danger because of Raffa and what he was.

Loving thecapo dei capiwas not without its risks.

I had firsthand accounting of that.

But God, it was also not without its rewards.

As I dripped dry, a chill settling into my bones, I warmed myself by thinking about all the ways Raffa had loved me.

Buying me an entire new wardrobe, taking care of me when I was ill, letting me drive his Ferrari Spyder, buying me acornicelloto counteract my bad luck.

Trying to save me from himself, even though it hurt him.

It took me a long time to realize I was crying, because my face was already wet.

At some point, miraculously, I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I was jerking awake so strongly I almost upended the chair.

A flurry of Italian shouts echoed throughout the usually quiet house, along with a sound that made my heart take off racing in my chest.

Gunfire.

I never thought I would be so happy to hear that tat-tat-tat of semiautomatic weapons.

When the door flung open, Ginevra was there in what looked like gardening clothes, dirt streaked across her cheek and a huge gun in one hand. Something in her expression flickered with relief at the sight of me before passing into horror and arriving at resolution.

“He’s here.”

I thought it was a sob crawling up my throat like a rat through a pipe, a sensation that almost made me gag, but when it emerged, it was laughter.

Bright, hysterical laughter.

Ginevra stared at me for a moment until a crash reverberated through the house, shaking the walls so that dust spiraled through the air.

“Cazzo,” Ginevra cursed as she hurried to my side and bent to work at the ropes around my ankles.

“Something rammed the house,” I said, smiling so wide it hurt my wet, aching face.

“Crazy man,” she muttered before clamping the gun between her thighs to reach for a knife in her gum boot, cutting through the ropes to free me. “Attacking the Pietra compound in broad daylight.”