Giovanni
“Gio.”
Shaking my head, I growled. “Not now Tesoro.”
I felt as if my heart was breaking.
When my parents died, I thought I knew pain, but nothing could have prepared me for the loss of a brother.
Not my Lorenzo.
Oh God help me.
How do I accept this?
Sitting back down, I wept. My heart hurt. Grabbing my chest, I rubbed the pain, hoping to ease it. Nothing worked. I felt the pain throughout my body as if someone was crushing me. I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if the air was being sucked out of the room.
He was so young. Had his whole life ahead of him. He just found love. He was going to be a father.
No. I refused to believe this. I couldn’t. It had to be a mistake. My little brother wasn’t gone. Not like my father.
Dear God, please tell me this was a mistake.
My family was disintegrating before my eyes and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The pain was never going to end. Death had become a constant vigil, waiting in the shadows to make its move.
The fault fell on me.
I led our family to where we were today.
My brother, my fun-loving, sarcastic, selfish brother, was gone along with his beautiful wife and unborn child. But my pain didn’t end there. Reggie, Catarina, Colin and Giorgio.
Gone too.
Six beloved family members were gone in a blink of an eye. I couldn’t take much more. How much more blood could I endure on my hands? How was I going to tell the others? Aunt Daniella? Her son was gone. She had just got him back, along with a beautiful daughter-in-law and grandson.
My beloved Reggie.
This was too much.
If the world wanted me broken, it succeeded.
I didn’t stop her when she sat beside me, her arms coming around me, holding me as I wept. I hated her seeing me like this, but I couldn’t help it. Now wasn’t the time to be strong when I felt my world was falling apart.
Even the strongest crumbled.
Grabbing her, I held her tight, holding onto her strength like a lifeline. I needed her. So much she would never know.
We were the same in many ways. Our lives were bathed in blood, despair, violence. Yet, for some reason, we survived. Why? What was it about us that made us different? Why did we have to live with the repercussions of our families? When was this madness going to end?
Every laughter, every smile, every argument filtered into my head. All the happiness, the tears, the brotherly love. Every trial Lorenzo overcame, the man he strived to be, his devotion to Donatella…for what? So, he could have his life cut short by my decision?
That was the hardest part.
Knowing this was all my fault.
I couldn’t remember if I hugged him goodbye.
Did he know that I loved him?