I don’t even calm as Zane fully rouses from his slumber and now sits up wondering what the fuck is going on. My grief is transcending into something far more dangerous than I could have imagined and far quicker than I had anticipated. My denial is swept aside for a quick assault of anger. I don’t know how long this will last, but I can only allow absolute consumption.
“You do not get to act like you’re the only one solely to blame in this! He trusted me to protect him, too. He told me so, Enzo. He trusted us all, but me, I was the one who kept him safe. I kept him so safe that I couldn’t even reach him when he needed me most.” I inhale with difficulty, my stomach seizing as I do so and I swallow hard on the howl of pain that begs for release. “He lay there calling out for me, Enzo. He needed me most at that moment and I couldn’t even get to him.” Heated tears of fury begin to fall and I can feel my entire body beginning to suffer from this lack of calm Zane fought for me to be in even in the midst of my newfound heartache. “I won’t ever forget how he cried out to me while he lay there dying. So, don’t you dare stand there playing a blame game like you’re the only one involved!”
“I was meant to save you all! That was my battle,” Enzo quietly declares, not reacting with the feistiness he usually keeps alive in him.
I didn't think my heart could break more than it is right now. This moment eclipses how I felt in the aftermath of my mother's death, and when Zane left me doesn't even shed a piece of light on this feeling. Enzo losing his fight is what kills me most. He has taken the blame for Giovanni and allowed it to destroy the man he has become. My brother is the one who gave up his life and his love to be here for us and in return, he’s had his faith stripped from him. My strong, heroic, and beautifully courageous brother is now nothing more than a shell. He no longer embodies a ferocious fire that could outshine any enemy. He’s lost, vulnerable, belittled by reality for the first time in my entire life, and that scares me.
This reality is becoming warped. I want to wake up from this fascicle gauntlet of plaguing emotions. I want to pinch myself from this dreadful slumber and leave the nightmares haunting me behind. But, instead, I only remain living in the moment – trapped, tortured, suffering.
“There is no way I can fix this anymore.” He hangs there on the spot. He’s dead behind the eyes, swallowed by his anguish and the idea that he deserves to condemn himself most. “I can’t fix this when I had to watch you both bleeding out. I fought for you both, but it wasn’t enough,” Enzo continues, persecuting himself furthermore.
“Enzo, you got yourself hurt trying to save them,” Zane interjects, almost acting as a negotiator.
“But it wasn’t enough! I could’ve done so, so much more! I could’ve saved them!” he bellows, wincing at the tension that overcomes him. “I will never be enough to save us when I allowed Manuel to be gutted and left for dead.”
I feel my stomach drop as he mentions that one callously, evil word. My brother was physically tortured to a slow death and now another is mentally torturing himself with the culpability he feels he has earned. The self-reproach he values so highly is going to splinter him into so many shards, he‘ll never find peace again. And the worst part is I can’t even save him when I am dependent on someone else to hold me together.
“Evil will always win,” Enzo murmurs, desolation befriending him. “We were brought up to believe that and I stupidly favored being the hero over just going with it. How am I meant to run the business when Papà dies when I can’t even keep our own alive? How do I bear to look at myself in the mirror when I know all I’m going to see is Manuel looking back me?”
Enzo is only angering himself more by the second. He’s on the brink of no return, teetering on the point of being forever a wounded man by Manuel’s death. His tone is rugged, sharp, and hits me square to the heart the more this conversation drives onwards. He’s now an angry man, and I wonder what it will take to disperse such heated emotions.
As one tear falls, so does another until the onslaught is something I can neither prevent nor stop now that it’s started. Death once brought my family together, proved who was true family and who wasn’t, but now it’s tearing us apart. Carlo is grieving on his own; Enzo, too. I have no idea how Bruno is coping with the news, nor how my father is dealing with this sudden twist in his family fold. I sure hope the Dio Lavoro never anticipated for this riptide to crash into this.
“What happened will never leave us,” Zane jumps in, now taking command as all hope becomes lost. “That day will very much live with me forever, but only because it has shown me that you have to cherish every moment. I was stupid to not live like that after my mother passed away and it’s easy to forget to be thankful, but we all got another chance. It’s a chance that Manuel doesn’t get, but it’s a chance we can use to really change the direction we were all leading.”