That's a sorry state of affairs to be caught in.
"Lia, what's wrong?" Enzo breaks into my reverie and I look up at him. I can feel my eyes trapped in a wide stare, frightened to admit the truths that trouble me. "Dad and Gio are out on business. What's wrong?" he prompts after my silence.
"I still love him, Enz," I mutter miserably and try to cuss away the tears. "It’s been over a year, and I am still as in love with him as I was when he kicked me down. How do I kill him?" I ask and find my heart begin to pound with the dilemma. “He got me exactly how he used to and there was a moment that I truly believed the last year had never happened.” I give a small smile as I remember those happier times. “He says he still loves me, that he regrets ever leaving me, and I almost fell for it because I still stupidly love him.” My rambling doesn’t stop there. “If I don’t kill him, my father will disown me, and Zane is bound to when he finds out what I am. But if I kill him, then I will lose him forever.”
“It is a predicament, but if he loves you he’ll forgive you for what you’ve been forced into,” Enzo comments. He’s always been quick to clear my mind of uncertainties, to sway my negatives toward a positive route, and to always make me see things how I refuse to. “And if Zane is like he used to be, then damn girl, you’ve met your soul mate. You’re the luckiest of us trapped here. You found your match, and I think Papà knows that. So take it slow and I’ll deal with the consequences. This is no ordinary hit.” I look at my eldest brother and feel appreciation wander through me. He might have been the one who’s seen it all, killed more than he wishes to count, and sits as the top heir to our father’s throne, but he’s the one who understands how much myself and Manuel are being pressured into doing in order to keep some sort of top ranking in our father’s eyes. “And didn’t Papà say that Zane was looking into some of his business? Wasn’t that a reason for Papà to get you to kill him?” I nod my head. “Well then, Zane will have some understanding of what our father’s capable of. Play this at your rate, Amelia.”
“What...get a tiny piece of my forever and then kill it off?” I ask him dryly. I’m striving to find the funny side of this fate I’ve been given even though I could cry at the horror story I have to create. “Papà thinks I’m some heartless woman who kills because men do wrong to her father, but I’m not. I do it because I’m scared of what will happen if I don’t. I kill because I want my father to forever believe I am the perfect Abbiati daughter and no one can come close.” I sigh, hating myself for the bare truth of my own existence. I don’t live for myself. I live for Salvatore Abbiati – I live only because of him. “But if I kill Zane, I won’t recover.”
“That was quite well done,” my father’s praising ignites in the air as the doors to the living room fly open. Mine and Enzo’s conversation goes to the side for a later date. “Your brother here managed to keep our business intact and kill three snitches.” He doesn’t say hello, just grabs two crystal glasses, and pours out whiskey into them both. He passes one to Giovanni and takes a gulp of his own. “You deserve that one, son.”
“Good kill?” Enzo pipes up, giving Giovanni a head nod of appreciation.
“I was only standing guard when I heard them all talking. I didn’t even think,” Giovanni begins to gloat. “God, it was amazing. It was actually exhilarating to take charge like that.”
“How’s the Maverick case going?” my father asks. He falls into his old faithful armchair and ignores Giovanni’s triumphant speech. “Am I any closer to hearing music to my ears?”
“No, sorry,” I apologize and look up with hope my father isn’t looking at me with utter disappointment. When I look, he gives me an encouraging wink. “I met up with him earlier, and well, it’s a lot harder than I had ever first thought.”
My father waves away my concerns by giving me a small smile. “Well, Bambina, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I just don’t expect you to spend an eternity killing a man I could have dead by sundown.”
“Let me kill him,” Giovanni bargains, cracking his knuckles. “He won’t be breathing by the stroke of midnight if I got my hands on him. I don’t care about him. No need to worry about emotions fogging what my true job is.”