Page 70 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

“Gio, leave her alone. Yesterday was the first time she had left her room this week. This is progress. Music is like therapy for her, so we need to let her do this. Okay? Come on. Come back to bed.”

A frustrated huff followed. “The Russians are coming tomorrow, and she still hasn’t said a word to anyone. What are we supposed to do?”

“Give her time and surround her with love. That’s all we can do,” Liv whispered. If I cared enough to look, I knew he’d be running his hand through his peppered hair. But I didn’t look. This was more important.

I played the passage again, listening as the haunting melody climbed before dissolving into the unresolved chord at the end of the phrase that made me want to scream. Wrong again. It felt too forced. The harmony behind it was empty.

I rubbed out the progression and rewrote it for what must have been the hundredth time.

If I didn’t figure it out, he’d fade away.

I couldn’t let him fade away.

Their footsteps retreated down the hallway. Fresh tears burned as I lowered my fingers to the keys and played the section again. The melody needed to ache, haunt and despair just like me. It needed his darkness, anger and grief. And then end with tragic love.

But it still sounded flat. Everything was flat.

I slammed my hands on the piano keys and closed my eyes as a tear slipped out.

At least I could feel him when I closed my eyes. His lips against my skin, his warm breath at the nape of my neck in the mornings. He didn’t just leave his fingerprints on my body. They were soul-deep. Sometimes at night, his touch felt so real I could take myself back there. To the bunker. To his bed. To the feel of his body warming mine and his hands playing with my curls.

For five days, I hadn’t left my bed. It was the easiest place to pretend. I could spend hours lying there with my eyes closed, seeing only him. Those glittering onyx eyes that burned into my soul. His perfect, bowed lips were permanently set in a scowl or pout until I forced that rare, devastating smile onto his face.

When I slept, I’d dream of him, too. But the pain of waking each time made it unbearable. It was a vicious, unfair cycle driving me to insanity.

I needed something more. Something that let him be with me while I was forced to stay awake. Something that made me feel everything he made me feel. I needed to keep him alive.

I let out a slow breath, forced my eyes open, and tried changing the notes again. When it didn’t work, I slammed the piano lid shut and gritted my teeth to muffle the scream.

You’re overthinkin’ it, Little Monster. Take a break.

I stood up, pacing towards the tall windows overlooking the poolhouse and stables. I hadn’t been outside yet. The things that used to bring me joy only left me feeling empty. And fake. Because I wasn’t that person who used to get up at the crack of dawn and take her horse for a ride to watch the sunrise. My twenty-three-year-old niece, Liliana, had assured me she’d been looking after Mina well and riding her regularly. Not that I’d asked.

All my family had taken it in turns to sit by my bed and hold their one-way conversations. Liliana had been with me the most, second only to Sani, whose presence caused me more pain than comfort. I assumed the plan was to push Liliana on me because she was the sweetest and kindest among us, and it was impossible to be annoyed by her. That’s what I used to think, anyway. I might find her unbearable now. It was hard to tell. I didn’t have the energy to care enough to know.

I was scared I’d feel nothing for anyone or anything but this hollow, weightless numbness ever again. Even music didn’t help. And I didn’t want to disappoint Maddox. The papers he’d pressed into my hand after I’d stabbed him broke my heart all over again when I finally found the courage to read them. One was the composition I’d been working on in the bunker, the one I’d named Monster. This was his song. The one I’d written about and for him. The one I’d promised I’d play for him one day, when we were both free.

It had to be perfect.

But like the dark, addictive melody living inside me, he was everywhere and nowhere. I was the ghost haunting his soul, trying to hold on to every part of him, every memory.

I turned and slid down the wall, sitting on the polished marble floor with my back against the curtain. Unfolding the other piece of paper Maddox had given me, the one stained with his blood on the back, I choked back a sob that always rose when I saw his slanted handwriting. He knew how much I loved poems, and he’d written one of his own just for me. At the top corner of the page, it said,

You’re asleep, and I’m sitting here watching you like a creep. I can’t stop thinking about what you said. You want to know me, but I won’t let you in. But you are the only person I trust. I’ve just never talked about it or had to express shite like that. It’s hard. But knowing how much you like them, I’m gonna try to write you a poem.

Don’t laugh if it’s shite.

I pressed the poem to my chest and leaned my head against the wall as another wave of grief hit me. No matter how many times I read it, it ripped me apart and made my heart swell. You could take any possession from me, but not this. You’d have to prise this from my cold, dead hands before I gave it up.

The sound of Mamma’s emergency alarm cut through the night’s silence, and I sat motionless for a few moments. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to see her yet. The alarm meant she’d pulled the red cord in the bathroom. Her nurse would wake and help her.

Go help her, darlin’. You’ve missed her.

I stood, listening to his phantom voice as if it were a God guiding me, and headed past my exhausted bodyguard, Ivano, in the corridor towards her wing.

Quietly, I let myself into her living area and padded barefoot across the carpet to her bedroom. Through the gap, the nurse was easing her back into bed, speaking softly and with kind eyes. Mamma was mumbling incoherently, words probably meant for no one in particular, or for someone long gone. She often spoke to the ghosts of my papi and my stepfather, Marco.

I stayed in the doorway and observed. Her white hair had thinned since I’d last seen her and was sticking out in all directions as she laid her head on the pillow. Something she would have been horrified by if she’d known. That cracked my already broken heart a little more, knowing her appearance had always been her armour. She never had a hair out of place, nor a crease in her designer outfit. No matter what she was dealing with on the inside, the world would only see the poised, elegant woman she portrayed.