I unlock my phone and quickly drag my contacts up to scroll through until I find her number. Michelle Maverick’s number sits on my screen and I stare at it for a moment. I wonder if the number’s still the same, if she and Zane are still on speaking terms. But my better judgment gets me and I cancel out of the contact’s page before I can push dial. I don’t know if she remembers me, or if she even knows Zane and I are reacquainted, and that’s not something I want to toy with. Surely, his next of kin was called anyway? I guess I will have to find out when he’s more awake; for now, I have to occupy myself.
I flick through photos from over a year ago of Zane and me. The smile I wore when I was with him was the biggest I had ever had in my life. I remember some days, realizing my cheeks hurt from the mere gesture of being unconditionally loved and eternally happy. I was young, in love, and unhinged. Now, I have a questionable temper, a loosened mentality, and an unwitting sense for anything but what I want in life.
“Amelia?” My father’s voice is coarse in the air. I drop my phone in response and sit up straight in the chair. He gives me a slight smile and looks at Zane. “How is he doing?”
I immediately want to call out his guilty conscience, but I can’t do it here. I won’t get Zane worked up with this unwanted surprise. I stand only to charge at him, pushing him from the doorway and out toward the hallway. I remain between both Zane’s room and the corridor with my arms crossed upon my chest.
“You have some nerve turning up here,” I comment, albeit aggressively and sarcastically. “An even bigger nerve to dare ask how he is.” I snort as I speak. “He’s too alive for your liking.”
“I’m not here to argue over Zane Maverick’s living status, Amelia. I’m here to see how you are, see how you’re coping.” He sounds, for the first time in a long time, desperate. “Enzo came home in the early hours and told me that you were staying here. I wanted to give you time, but I couldn’t stay away.”
“This isn’t any of your business,” I state, reminding myself to be the fierce Abbiati. “If you remember properly, he is nothing but just another hit to you. There’s nothing to discuss. My feelings and his wellbeing are nothing to you.”
My father releases a heavy sigh of resignation. "The love you have for him is exactly how I felt for your mother in the beginning. Bambina, I don't want you to be hurt by him again. It took you so long to recover."
"We aren't the same people we were back then," I confess with as much conviction as I can garner. He thinks he can warn me about heartbreak when I have been privy to it all my life. He wants to caution me on matters of the heart when my heart has dealt with more than its fair share of traumas. I know, without any reasonable doubt, that my heart is by far the strongest part of me. It has endured death in all its beauty and mess. It has survived being toyed with, cracked, shattered, and left irreparable. But it has also healed itself and me, and all because I was assigned this hit. I might fear the end result, and I might have no idea how I will play it out, but what I do know is that letting Zane back in so easily was one thing I couldn't resist, and as soon as he was back, I knew it was the best thing I had ever done in my life.
“You have brought hell upon me by issuing me with this mission, but I can’t thank you enough for it. I have my plan, but I deserve to be happy, even if for just a little while. The man who broke my heart is not the man lying in there, Papà. He has changed and so have I. I’m not some naive little girl who fell in love with the first man I met. I’m not her. I won’t ever be her because you broke me of my naivety and you stole what innocence I had left by making me into something I never wanted.” I don’t stop as palpable pain bursts across my father’s expression. “I only keep doing it because you’re all I have in the world. Without you, I have no one. But don’t tarnish whatever little time I have with Zane. You will get what you want, but when I am ready to give it to you. Just don’t pressure me.”
As I finish my speech, I see movement in my peripheral and look to see Zane waking up. Looking back to my father, I feel emblazoned to take command. “You need to leave. Now. You’re not needed here, Papà.”
I see the hurt in his eyes, but he knows the deal here. He wants Zane’s blood; I want time with him before he gets his wish – if I ever do it. Now is not the place for it, though. He grants me my wish and leaves, and I have never seen my father look so downtrodden in my life. I feel bad for bringing such despondency upon him, but there are matters I cannot and will not forgive and forget right now. I turn in the doorway and see Zane looking at me cautiously.
“Was that your father?” Zane asks, looking over at the doorway. He looks back at me, his face scrunched up with the pain he’s in. “He hasn’t put something in my IV has he?”
“No,” I laugh and go back to his side. “I don’t actually know why he’s here, but he knows exactly how I feel about you.”
“Am I spared?” he asks jokingly, knowing his fate is more than sealed.