Page 98 of Unfettered

“Please, Curoe Mio,” I whisper. “Come here.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

I shake my head. “You won’t. I need to hold you. Please.”

Allesandro crawls onto the bed. It’s tight, as we’re not small men and the bed is narrow, but when he curls into me, with his head on my shoulder, and his arm thrown over my lower abdomen to avoid hurting my surgery scars… It’s everything.

I’m sure my arm will go numb as I wrap it around him, but I don’t care. I cradle my heart as much as I can, and let his tears soak into the soft shirt I’m wearing.

“I’ve got you. Va tutto bene, Amore Mio. Non ti lascerò andare. Lo prometto.”

Allesandro’s sobs shake my body, and the jolts make my still-healing wounds hurt, but the physical pain has nothing on the emotional hurt coursing through me.

“Shhh. I got you. You’re safe with me, My Love. It’ll be okay.” I whisper words of comfort to him as I hold him as tightly as possible in this position and condition, hating that I can’t do more for him.

Eventually, he cries himself out, and I think he’s fallen asleep, only for him to whisper against my skin. “They don’t want me.”

“That’s not true.”

He adjusts himself so he can meet my eyes, and the tears in his cut me to the quick. “It is. They… They wanted me cast out, at best, dead, at worst, when I was Allesandro. Now, I’m trying so fucking hard to be Sandro, and that’s not good enough for them. They…they don’t think I’ll be a good PA for Daddy. They want me to be Il Padrone, but…but they don’t understand how that’s not me. It never was. I hurt them, broke them so badly, and they’d rather I not be here than be myself.”

“Hey.” I shift on the bed, pain flashing through me. Allesandro must see it on my face, as he makes a distressed sound, but I stop him when he tries to get up. “We need bigger fucking hospital beds,” I grumble. Grabbing his chin, I force his eyes to mine once more. “You’re beautiful inside and out, Cuore Mio. They don’t understand, and you can’t make them. It’ll take time, but they still love you. I have faith in that.”

He shakes his head. “Antonio and Ignacio are so angry…”

I swallow back a sigh. “I’m sorry. That’s my fault. If I had never done what I did⁠—”

“No. You weren’t yourself. You were breaking, but I know your heart. You did what you thought was your only option at the time. You need to stop carrying the guilt of your trauma.”

“So do you, My Love,” I tell him. “They only know the person you were when you were hiding from your pain and trauma. They’re scared. But give them time to get to know you, the real you, and they’ll see how beautiful and perfect you are.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how. I’ve done nothing but try, all this time…”

“Shhh.” I wipe the tears from his face. “You’re good, Allesandro. You’re strong, you’re fierce, and you’re loved. So very loved. Ti amo così tanto che mi toglie il respiro. Your Boys…they’re hurting. They’re finding their places in this new Council, but they're also trying to keep what they knew for so long together. You never showed your vulnerability to them before. It’s not so different from me trying to reconcile the man who raised Roman with the one who hurt him so badly. I… We’re going to see Marshall, maybe you and the Boys need to as well?”

He shrinks into himself. “What if they never learn to accept who I really am?”

I brush my fingers over his cheek. “If they love you as much as I believe they do, they will. They just need time. They don’t know how much pain you’ve carried around, and it probably hurts them to know that they didn’t fully know you at all.”

He licks his lips, his eyes closing as he whispers, “Tennant and Javi got me out of there… I…I didn’t know what to do or say. I tried so hard, but it wasn’t enough…”

“Shh, it’s okay. You can’t force them to see it. You can’t break yourself open for them, or close yourself off because they’re uncomfortable. All you can do is be yourself, and let them see who you really are.”

“What if who I am still isn’t enough? Not that I really know who or what I am.”

My poor Allesandro. Everything in me hurts, and I want to protect him from whatever is causing him pain, except I know he’ll kill himself in order to get approval from his Boys. And that is unacceptable.

“Tennant will help you, and Javi. They’ll help the Boys as well. There’s not a chance in this world that Tennant would have opened himself up to you if he didn’t think you were worthy. If they can’t see that? Well, he’ll show them the error of their ways.”

“I don’t want him to hurt them. They’re still part of me. But Daddy…” He cringes.

“Hey, don’t censor yourself on my behalf. I might not fully get it, but I’m working on it. For Roman’s sake, and for Carter’s, and yours. I’m glad you have Ten and Emilio. Don’t worry. Tennant loves hard, even if he hates the word. He’ll help you as much as he can. I will, too.”

He meets my gaze. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, or Daddy, or Lio…or any of them.”

“You’re you. It’s as simple as that, Cuore Mio. The Boys, they’ll come around. Because I know you. You curated your family into what you wanted it to be. You chose and fell for only the strongest, which means, they might be stubborn, but they’ll get through this—you all will.”

He whimpers, and I hold him as close as the bed and my injury allows.