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“Believe me, Enz, you’re one of a few keeping me going,” I tell him honestly, offering a small smile to aid the sentiment. “Without you, I’d be a goner.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Lia,” he vows, pulling me into his arms for a quick hug. “Now, let’s get your leg fixed up.” Enzo puts his hand out for me so he can pull me to my feet. I haven’t even answered; I know he wants to fix me in as many ways as possible.

“Hey, Enz,” Zane calls out from the doorway. “Mind if I take over?”

I look up, my lips falling apart as I stare at the man before who is humanity personified to me. In this house, he is the purest by far next to Manuel. Sure, he has lashed out and exerted some Dio Lavoro attitude, but he’s saved from a body count. He hasn’t sullied his name or tarnished his conscience. His armor wears chinks, but his love is fierce and unmoved from winning its battle.

“Sure,” Enzo agrees, still holding onto me. “Make sure she sleeps, please.”

“My bed’s covered in blood,” I fret, quietly remarking on that small worry.

“You can come into my room.” He gestures out of the door, obviously to his door adjacent from mine.

I nod, sniffling as Enzo finally pulls me from our spot on the floor by my bed and to my feet. He takes me across the room, handing me delicately to Zane as if I’m made of glass. Once I’m captured in the embrace of the man I love, Enzo leaves to grab the supplies he brought up from downstairs.

“We’ll take this to your bathroom and I’ll take the bedding downstairs,” Enzo commands lightly.

It happens hastily as we move rooms, and I watch as Zane prepares to clean my mess of a leg up. He’s tender with his touches around the wound, even gentler when wrapping my leg up to help staunch the bleed with a few layers of gauze.

“I think that’ll do,” he comments, an ounce of pride filling his voice as he looks at his handiwork. This is the first time he’s spoken since Enzo left. “Hey, sweetheart,” he calls to me personally, vying for my awareness that’s clearly scattered elsewhere around the room. “You’re looking a little lost.”

“How much did you hear?” I ask, biting my lip as nerves bubble in me.

“I was sitting outside of the door for a while,” he indirectly tells me.

“Oh,” I reply, softly and a little embarrassed. My gaze drifts off, lowering down his body until it hits the white tiling of his bathroom.

“I needed it,” he promptly replies and takes my hands to pull me up to my feet from sitting on the toilet. “I love the honesty and vulnerability you still hold, Amelia. It’s refreshing.” He dots a kiss to my forehead before leading us from the small room and over to his bed.

We sit on the bed and silence beckons. The dark room is barely lit and the only noise is that from the fan in the room, but apart from that, we just sit in contemplatively dangerous silence. When it becomes too deafening, I know I have to break it.

“Look at the mess we’ve made, Zane,” I murmur softly, speaking quietly. “How do we come back from this?”

“Easily,” he tells me, taking my hand in his, “with each other. Like Enzo said, you need people to fight for you. I’m one of them, too.”

“But how long can you do that?”

“Forever,” he claims, his tone is hard and convincing. “This isn’t some battle you have to deal with on your own. You have people who, regardless of what you say and do, will forever be here, in your corner, willing to step forward when you lose the will to do it yourself.”

I close my eyes; my breathing rattles in my chest for a moment, and I decide it’s time for total honesty.

"I felt you," I murmur at him. "Every day I felt you with me. I tried so hard to hate you, to forget about you, but you’re buried deep inside me." I swallow hard as my tears build that lump in my throat once more, and I dare myself to look at him, even if for a second. “Zane, it's like you blew my heart apart and rebuilt it with only you inside. And I hate you." I close my eyes, not willing to see that hurt I’ve caused him without finishing. “And love you for it all at once.”

“Amelia,” he tries.

“You built this life around me, gave me so much optimism of a life outside of this, and then you tore it down.” I look at him, not covering up any part of what I’m feeling. He needs to know how he left me reeling. “I make it hard for you now because I need to protect myself, but it’s not what I want.”

There’s a moment of deliberation where Zane ponders what I’ve said, completely takes on what it is I’ve said before rubbing his jaw and setting his hands back down onto his lap, keeping his entire body language open.

“You are hard work to understand, Amelia. You blow hot and cold on me and I know I should run, but I can’t. You are worth the hard work.” Zane’s statement is brisk and mirthful, but a delightful change of the mood in the room. “But you’re the only one who I would work this hard to keep believing that this is the point of no return. There are no more broken moments or denying our love. There is no backing away or running off. I’ve done it twice before and both times told me exactly how fucked up life is without you. I don’t care if it takes forever for you to love me wholly again. I will still be here, combating every woe, denial, and struggle you present me with. I will make you love and trust me again.”

“Slowly,” I whisper to him, cutting the moment short. I have to believe in my own decision to allow our newfound relationship to flourish over time, not rapidly evolve like before. “We have to take it slowly.”

“Slowly,” he reiterates my own litany.

As I turn to him, I listen to my inner voice, the one that usual reprimands me and keeps me from doing stupid things, but right now, it’s telling me to show Zane how I truly feel about the situation. I have to prove that even if I want to take it slowly, I am willing to love him again.

Gradually, we’re instinctively pulled toward one another, our eyes watch one another, and our bodies speak volumes as we come together with blissful intention. As his lips tenderly unite with mine, his hands reach to caress my face, cradling me into stillness. My eyes flutter closed as I become unbidden to Zane. All feelings that have been dragging me down seem forgotten as the man who will forever be locked in my fearful heart, enraptures me. But for the first time in what feels like a tiresome eternity, I embrace exactly what it is I’m feeling for the man I’ve blown hot and cold at endlessly –
love
. My sorrow ignites as passion burns brightly until my entire soul rages into a bright fire. As the flames course through me, I find myself realizing there’s been a change in our course.

I know this isn’t our ending, we’re far from that, but I can believe this is our true beginning.

After too many false starts, my heart is open wide to the opportunities Zane can present me with. No matter the scar, the burden, or the guilt, Zane is the key to seeking forgiveness. He’s my only get out clause to this life.

The thought causes me to reach up at his shirt and wrap my fingers around as much of the material as I can possibly muster. If he’s my one true hope, I am not letting him go just yet.

There’s always tomorrow to tell him everything I’m feeling.

“I swear we cannot get a quiet life in this place,” I grumble as I hear a loud resounding crash from upstairs. I continue to the inhale the scent of my coffee hoping it’ll hit my bloodstream quicker, seeing as digesting it isn’t helping me much.

“I saw him snorting some cocaine out back,” Enzo remarks, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Great,” I comment and take a huge gulp. I swallow, savoring the heat as it races down my chest, and look at Enzo as I set the cup down. “He’s really gotten out of control.”

“You’re telling me,” Enzo grunts back. I take note that he’s well aware of Giovanni’s spiraling nature. “I understand that Zane is quite the kick to the ego, but Giovanni seems to just be sitting around and taking it all when we’re public.”

I cringe as I hear what I assume to be a mirror shattering.

“Apparently, in private he’s really working his emotions out,” I add sarcastically. I finally forget about my coffee and ponder Giovanni’s latest behavior. “He’s angrier, that’s for sure, but he’s not kicking up a fuss when he’s shown up. He’s just given up on trying to claim that top spot. He does make a lot of backhanded comments, though, which has me worried.” My mind begins to wander and as I sit back in my seat, I voice aloud a thought that has pondered on my mind multiple times. “Unless he’s planning something and this is just the beginning.”

“I don’t think so. He seems to just be having a temper tantrum.” Enzo’s confidence is a shocking bolt of optimism and I watch him as he remains by his comment. Usually, Enzo is good at spotting key warning signs that Giovanni is going to slip on his most psychotic side, but apparently not today. “So,” Enzo begins and I sense a massive, unwanted subject change coming, “how you feeling after last night?”

I knew it!
I think wryly to myself but decide to enlighten him, so I shrug. “I have a killer headache, my brother is creating a stampede, and I’m no closer to finding a way to forgive myself than I was.” My eyebrows furrow as I watch that pity consume Enzo’s bright green eyes. They’re luminous with all the wrong emotions I like to see Enzo owe. He’s never meant to carry around the weight of my issues so prevalently. “Don’t give me that look, Enz. I’m not a quick fix.”

“I never thought you would be,” he counters, taking a leisurely sip of his drink. “However, I do think Zane is a big help.”

“He is,” I reply, smiling coyly I look away. “He really is. I know we’re a long way from perfection, but him hearing everything last night made it feel like we’re one step closer.”

“Ah, so you are a quick fix,” Enzo teases, wagging his eyebrows at me playfully. His smile replaces that look of pity he had allowed to manifest and now he’s just looking at me as if I’m not some lost cause. “You needed to accept that Zane is a help not a hindrance.”

“He’s not budging and I’m tired of denying myself everything,” I admit tenderly and reach back out.

“I have so much chaos going on inside me; I don’t want my heart to confuse anything else. Not when I’m sure of what I feel. I am done telling myself that I don’t love him. I am so done telling myself that him being here is wrong. I know his reasoning for being here, I know his reasoning for sticking by here and all the time he loves and believes in me, I can’t give up.”

I watch my brother’s face brighten, and for the first time since I came back from Italy, I properly see hope restored. In seeing that, I feel a little hope flutter to life in myself. Maybe I needed to break down to see what was really around me? I needed to lose my facade and see reality because living in the shadows and denying myself the right to feel what I wanted only blackened my view of the world. I was more dangerous refuting what I really wanted than I ever would be if I fought against every negative thing I disagreed with.

I thought coming back angry and cold would solve every problem in my life, but it doesn’t. It never would and it never will.

“So, now I have you back on the right tracks,” Enzo interjects my thoughts. “Maybe, you just need to go back to your roots. The one that Madre set,” he trails off, carefully watching me. “What do you think? Mind if your big brother kidnaps you?”

I try to figure him out. Usually I can read Enzo and Carlo alike, but I fear I’m losing my touch.

“See if you can shut that brother of yours up,” our father interrupts, walking into the room with a fearsome stomp in his step. “His mood swings are really starting to fucking tick me off.”

“Actually, Enzo is taking me out,” I begin to tell him, not willing to deal with the beast upstairs.

“Well, good, we can all ignore
him
then,” my father dryly remarks about Giovanni. “Zane is coming with me today.”

“I am?” Zane asks walking into the room. “I was hoping for an easy day. I was going to treat Amelia to a day out.”

My father waves off his idea with a swift hand gesture. “There’s time for that later. I have our ride outside; we’ll grab a coffee while we’re out. Bye, bambina, Enzo.”

“Okay then,” I say, ignoring my father as he takes his time to leave. His belligerent need to pick us all up and drop us as he pleases is something that really drives me insane. Bit like when I used to pick between being Daddy’s little helper and being that expendable delinquent. As he leaves the room, in a fouler mood than what he arrived, I give Zane a smile as he silently begins to leave, to which I receive a cheeky wink and turn back to Enzo. “Do we really need to go out? Can we not deal with the beast upstairs and just stay in our pajamas, eating ice cream and watch films all day. I have some poison left somewhere; we can slip it in his morning coffee and be done.”

Enzo looks ready to accept my deal, but then replies, “No.” He laughs, half mirthlessly, but he can’t contain how much my idea of silently killing Giovanni was a good option. “It’s a good deal, but you’ll love it, you’ll see,” he pushes, but I pull and refrain from budging. “Look, you can stay here and feel the wrath of Gio, or you can come with me and start to find some way to come to terms with what you’ve been made to do.” He then sits back in his seat, clearly able to guess that my deliberation won’t take half as long as I want to draw it out as. “Lia, it’s entirely up to you, but if you don’t walk, I’ll make you.”

“Fine,” I say, sighing. I give in by draining the rest of my coffee and standing up. “Let’s do this.”

He jumps up, fired with enough enthusiasm, forgetting about his own coffee. “You won’t regret it. I promise.”

Famous last fucking words, Enzo Abbiati!

***

As I look up at the enormous church, my Catholicism mocks me.

My sinful demons that trail my every move roll around on the ground in hysteria and they have every right to! My brother brought me to our old church. One where we attended mass, came to keep the peace, and came to offer a helping hand. That all changed once my mother died. That day, when my father strangled the life from her, he refuted his own religion, rejected any idealism of goodness, and became a beast that switched on his love for us when it suited him.

I look back up at the church, and the aging brickwork makes me feel inferior. The delicate beauty of the stained glass windows and wonderment of all the saints and sinners that have crossed paths with this house of God has me overwhelmed. I have no right to go into a place of worship which is created for those who are worthy of a heavenly afterlife.

“Are you actually crazy?!” I exclaim, looking at my brother as if he’s grown a second head. “I can’t go in there!”

“Why not?” he asks me, his tone blasé, and he throws in a shrug as if this is really no big deal. This is a very big fucking deal! “We were raised Catholic. Maybe if we strived for some goodness, we might find some.”

“Religious goodness isn’t going to save our souls, Enzo. Not when we live with the devil him-fucking-self,” I snarl, keeping my tone lower than usual. “Going in there and confessing every one of my sins will take me until old age.”

He laughs at me. Apparently, this is more comical than I fucking first thought!

“Don’t laugh!” I say, punching him hard on the arm. “Murder, theft, extortion, use of explosives, seduction, a bit more murder, torture. Oh, and the normal Catholic morals of living don’t promote promiscuity or excess alcohol consumption! We’re the biggest hypocrites ever going in there! God, Enzo,” I murmur, cursing in vain, putting my hands on my head in despair. “You do realize that we could go up in smoke just walking through the door.”

Now he laughs harder than ever. “Chill, Lia. I walked through the door only yesterday, and I didn’t even singe an eyelash.”

“Yeah, well your track record is practically squeaky clean compared to mine.” I feel my entire face fall. The shock that remedies up causes me to doubt my brother – he comes to church?! “But hang on! You came here yesterday?!”

Enzo’s lips twist into a coy, half smile. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lia.”

“That’s not fair,” I tell him, pouting. “You know everything about me.”

“Then it’s time you knew everything,” he says, gesturing to the stairs up to the weather-worn church. He begins to lead the way knowing that I won’t be able to resist following – and I don’t.

We walk in, yet my steps are slower and more hesitant than Enzo’s. The church’s omnipotence is crushingly overwhelming. The grand pillars that line either side of the church and the glorified whiteness that paints the walls are all awe-inspiring, but it’s the familiar smell of incense that I remember from my childhood that humbly brings me back to the ground. This place is everything that I remember, but the calmness it offers is something I have never felt before. Obviously, in my adolescence I was unable to appreciate the effect of such a place.

“Good morning, Father.” Enzo’s voice reverberates around the hollow shell of the church, ricocheting from the vast corners and empty space.

“Enzo,” Father replies, his face lighting up. “I’ve told you to call me Andrew time and time again.”

“Something I should know?” I ask, curiously looking back and forth between the pair.

“Enzo, here, is one of the church’s biggest helpers,” Father says, proudly taking a moment to put an arm around my brother’s shoulder.

“You should know,” Enzo begins to state, and it unnerves me at how bashful he’s become. “Carlo and I come here to help out. We help the church give more to those who need it. Money, food drives, charity runs, you name it.”

“You and Carlo?” I ask, feeling my brain fog with confusion.

Father begins to laugh. “I swear Carlo almost lives here.”

“He does,” Enzo agrees, chuckling himself. “Andrew, I thought my sister could do with some time in the confessional.”

No
.

Now, I feel stricken. How do I open up to a stranger? Even worse, how do I open up to a God loving man who has the right to condemn me? It’s one thing to confess things to my brother who lives the life I do with me and another coming clean to Zane, but to a Father who’s taken oaths and pledges to do God’s work on Earth?

“Andrew used to work for Carmello,” Enzo suddenly interjects. “He knows all about what we have to do.”

“It’s why I became a Father. I wanted out of that lifestyle, and I wanted a way to give back. After all the things I witnessed, I wanted to be someone people could find solace in. I want you to know there is a life after and we are all allowed to find some peace from our suffering. In God, I found forgiveness, so I know others can if they give a little of themselves up.” His persona is comforting, not like the other Father who used to work here. “Here we believe wholly in redemptive suffering. We are all worthy of lessening our penalty for our sins. Looking for forgiveness is a good start.”

“Lia, you don’t have to become some religious freak, but just truly opening up and letting someone else in, who isn’t family. Someone almost impartial.”

“Whatever you tell me will stay within the ways of this church,” Father Andrew adds, trying hard to ease my mind. “You don’t have to be in there long. You confess for however long you want to.”

I close my eyes as I finally cave. “Okay.”

“I’ll find something to do while I wait,” Enzo comments, backing away from us, clearly knowing if he stays I will back out.

“You know what to do, don’t you, Amelia?” Father Andrew asks and I bite my lip not wanting to seem ignorant. “You prayer to the Holy Spirit first, and then, you wait in the confessional booth.” He begins to lead me over to a row of pews just right of the booth. “Carlo’s out back,” Father tells Enzo as he starts to guide me closer to the confessional booth. Stereotypically, they’re wooden boxes with red curtains and I can only imagine that once I’m inside, Father Andrew and I will be separated by a slim piece of wood, made to distort vision, but not sound. “Settle here and I’ll show Enzo where Carlo is, and then, I’ll be back.”

“Okay,” I whisper, slipping into the pews.

I watch my brother begin to walk away, and for the first time in years, I clasp my hands together in prayer and close my eyes. I haven’t spoken to a higher deity in so long, but the moment I do, a calm aura overtakes me and I allow myself to speak freely, hoping someone, somewhere will hear my mental prayer.

Please, give me the strength I need to seek the forgiveness I strive for. Give me the light to repent and shed myself of the guilt I carry around. Give me the strength and grace my brothers possess and the valor my mother fought every day for. Give me the fearlessness to admit that I am allowed to repent and seek freedom.