“Are you celebrating Christmas with Remo and his brothers?” she asked.
I stiffened. I hadn’t expected that question. “I don’t really celebrate Christmas.” I hadn’t in several years. Not since my sisters left for New York. I didn’t care for the holidays, but now that she’d mentioned it, I realized that Christmas was only a week away.
“Me neither. I will probably work,” she said with a small shrug.
“Won’t you celebrate with your father or your mother?”
She stared out of the windshield, fidgeting with her shorts. “I used to. A long time ago. When I was little we managed two or three nice Christmas evenings. The rest were a mess.” She sighed. “After my dad abandoned us, my mother was busy working all the time to get money for crystal. She forgot things like Christmas or my birthday. They weren’t important to her. And my dad…” She shrugged. “I suppose he was glad to be away from us and the responsibility.”
She still hadn’t mentioned her mother being a whore but I allowed her that small reprieve. “That’s why you shouldn’t feel responsible for your father. He isn’t an honorable man. He should protect his own flesh and blood and not offer it to someone in exchange for a debt.”
She flushed. “You know about that?”
“Soto told me.”
“It’s not easy to abandon him. I still love him despite his flaws, I can’t help it.”
I grimaced. “Love is a weakness, a sickness. You’ll see where it gets you.”
Her blue eyes searched mine, still looking, still hoping. “You can’t mean that. Love is what makes us human, what makes life worth living. Love is unconditional.”
She said it with so much fervor that I knew she was trying to convince herself as much as me. “Do you really believe that? Do you think it turned you into the person you are today? Because love definitely didn’t make me who I am. Blood and hate and thirst for revenge kept me going. They still do, and so do honor, pride and loyalty. So tell me, Leona, did love form you?”
Leona pressed her backpack against her chest. “Not me. But nobody ever loved me like that,” she said quietly. “My parents always loved their addiction more than me, and there was never anyone else. So I suppose love didn’t form me.” She looked me square in the eyes, challengingly. Did she expect pity? She needn’t have worried. Pity was an emotion I’d given up a long time ago. I was furious. Furious on her behalf.
“Then what did?” I asked.
Chapter Twelve
“Then what did?”
That question threatened to unravel me. “I don’t know,” I admitted. I looked down at the scars on Fabiano’s chest, at the tattoo on his wrist, appraised the confident way he held himself. Pride and honor. He oozed it. His body was a testament to his convictions, to how far he’d come. And I?
I let out a small, empty laugh. “Hope for the future kept me going. I was a good student and I worked hard. I thought I’d have a bright future after high school. I thought I’d go to college, get a law degree, and become something more than the daughter of a…” I swallowed the word ‘whore’, not able to admit the truth to Fabiano. “…drug addict. But I’m failing.”
Fabiano’s face still showed no pity and I was glad for it. There was something dark and fierce in his eyes. “If you don’t fight for what you want, you won’t get it. People like us don’t get their wishes handed on a platter to them.”
How could he compare us? He was strong and successful, admittedly not in the conventional sense. But he had what he longed for. The Camorra was his passion. “You are a born fighter. I am not.”
“I wasn’t born a fighter. I was formed into one by the shit thrown my way over the years, Leona.”
I wanted to ask him about his past, but he was always so cautious when he mentioned anything related to it. I let out a breath. He leaned over, cupped the back of my head and kissed me. I sunk into the kiss. I needed it now, needed to feel something other than desperation. His tongue danced with mine and his scent engulfed me. I closed my eyes, allowing my body to relax. He pulled back. “I will fight your battles for you now, Leona. I told you I’d protect you.”
And I nodded, as if my approval meant anything. Fabiano’s overwhelming presence, his unrelenting possessiveness, they were something I’d never encountered before. My parents had never displayed any kind of excessive emotion toward me. I had been an afterthought for them. Sometimes useful, sometimes bothersome, never something to waste too much energy on.
Deep down I knew Fabiano’s attention would come with a price. I’d pay for surrendering to him in one way or another. But right in this moment I couldn’t care less.