LOREN
After spending some time with the kids and dogs, I found myself alone for the first time in a week. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I glanced around the room, observing the details. My life had changed so much, and I hadn’t had time to process any of it. I feared I was one wrong look away from falling apart.
Brian had shot me. Jude had been kidnapped. My father had died. I wasn’t a practicing therapist anymore. I got married. I was a mom.
In a weird sense of things, my life was all the things I’d expected it to be all those years ago. Granted, I’d never imagined being married to five men, with three of them being in the mafia, but I found myself liking the turn of events. In fact, everything I’d wanted had come true in a way. It just looked slightly different.
I was married—to five men.
I lived in a big house—with a mafia family.
I was a mom—to an abandoned foster kid. Plus, a stepmom to Levi. We gave blended family a whole new meaning, and I loved it.
Those things in of themselves were amazing and were probably what was keeping me from swirling to the bottom of the barrel.
Because the rest, it was a lot to take in.
Death and mayhem were a regular part of my day now. I didn’t know if the fact I was okay with it said more about me than I wanted it to.
The two hardest things I hadn’t completely dealt with were my father’s death and the loss of my job.
While I hadn’t been close to my dad, it felt worse because I’d been robbed of the chance to get to know the real him. Another victim of Dayton’s skewed view of reality.
When I really thought about it, it made me furious he’d taken that from me. I had such a deep ache in my soul, and I wondered if it would ever be repaired. Some things weren’t capable of being healed. We just had to hope they scabbed over, and we could move on.
And now, I didn’t even know who I was. My sense of identity had been taken from me too. Before, when everything else had fallen apart, I had it to cling to, and now it was gone.
How did I crawl out from this rubble? How did I rebuild when I wasn’t sure which direction to go?
Was this even something I could fix? I honestly didn’t know. Despair sat heavily on my chest, the familiar feeling wanting to wrap its arms around me, promising me a return to the dark abyss I’d grown so accustomed to.
I was tired. So tired of dealing with everything that it felt comforting for a minute to let myself fall back into the inky darkness, letting everything around me fade away.
As I laid back on the bed, whispered promises of avoidance swirled around me, the fog falling into place. I could just stay here for a while and let everyone else figure it out. I was owed that much.
Closing my eyes, I drifted off, letting everything on the outside fade into the background.
* * *
A hand fellover my face, pushing my hair back, the soft caresses feeling at odds with the torment I felt inside. I blinked open my eyes, trying to make sense of the dark shape next to me.
“Bellezza,” Atticus said, alerting me to his presence. “The knee-jerk question I want to ask you doesn’t seem right for this moment. I know you’re not okay, but I want you to know that you don’t have to be.”
He stared at me with his dark umber eyes, and I saw his love shining back for me. It was something I’d never found with Brian—the perfect reminder this wasn’t the same. In fact, I wasn’t even the same. The emotions might feel similar, but that was it. They were fleeting, ever-changing with circumstances.
Whereas the strength of my character and the love of these men weren’t. That was what I needed to grasp a hold of with every fiber of my being. We’d all come this far, our hurts and pains, battle scars that shone brightly of the true warriors we were. We didn’t have to be broken here. Together, we could stand strong, supporting one another.
I wrapped my arms around Atticus, pulling myself into his lap. He sat back against the headboard, holding me. I hadn’t realized it was what I needed, but once he hugged me, the dam broke, and I shed all the tears I had been holding in.
It was the first time I’d cried with an audience, but I’d never felt more cared for and supported. Atticus didn’t rebuke me. He didn’t shush or tell me it would all be okay. He just held me, letting me get it out and providing me with his strength when I was low.
When they finally began to slow, he handed me a tissue, and a weird sob laugh combo emerged. Blowing my nose, I dabbed my face with another, wiping away the remains of my heartache.
Placing them on the bedside table, I immediately went back into his arms, wanting the comfort and warmth he emitted. His voice surprised me when he started to talk, and I leaned into his chest, enjoying feeling the deep rumble through my entire body.
“I never got to mourn my mother, something I regret knowing what I do now. At the time, I hadn’t been sad because I thought she’d abandoned me, and I filled the loss with other things to occupy myself. With everything we’ve uncovered, I find myself thinking about her more. I can hear her laugh at times in Imogen’s. I can see her smile in Nicco’s, and I can see her love for her children in you.”
“But I thought they both had different mothers?” I asked, not getting his meaning.