Omertà

Chapter 19: Tears

My cell phone flashes and rings sometime after 4am, waking me up from my restless sleep. I grumble and roll over, pulling the pillow over my ears. I wait until the ringing finally stops and I sigh peacefully, ready to fall back asleep. Almost as soon as it stops, the ringing starts again and I growl in frustration, sitting up and squinting at the screen.

Dimitri's name flashes across the screen.

My eyebrows knit together in confusion as I answer the call. I put the phone to my ear and immediately hear static, shouting and gun shots. His signal isn't very good.

"Hello?" My voice is thick with sleep, confusion and worry.

"Annabelle, it's me. " Dimitri sounds panicked and almost scared. I hear a loud crash from the other end and more yelling.

"Dimitri, what's going on, are you okay?"  I frantically ask, worried.

"Annabelle, the ships sinking. We're under attack. I don't know how, but I'm going to make it out of this alive. I'm coming home to you, Annabelle."

I blink tears out of my eyes in confusion and fear. Fear because I didn't know if I could believe him this time. I didn't know if he'd really back. I didn't know if he'd be alive in the next hour. Confusion because he was supposed to be safe. He wasn't supposed to leave me this quickly.

"Annabelle, say something." He jolted me out of my thoughts.

"Dimitri, please don't die. Please don't leave me. I need you too." I choke out, holding back a sob.

"I'm glad you didn't come with me." He jokes, trying to make me life.

I barely smile. I hear another crash and more yelling from his side of the line and blink more tears from my eyes.

"Please come home." I whisper as the line goes dead.

I let out a muffled sob as I put my phone down. I curled up on my side, pulling the covers up to my chin and quietly cried myself to sleep.

A knock on the door stirred me awake. I rubbed my swollen eye lids and groaned at my pounding head ache.

Marcos opened the door slowly and walked towards my bed. He didn't have to say anything to me for me to know what he was about to say; his face gave everything away.

"He's dead, isn't he?" I ask numbly.

Marcos winced and gave me a pained look of sympathy. "I'm so, so sorry, Annabelle."

It was at that point that my mind checked out. It was as if I went into autopilot. I spent the next week numb and mute, going about my day like a robot. Everyday was the same. I would wake up and lie in bed all day, skip breakfast, skip lunch, eat a little for dinner and throw up whatever I couldn't hold down before going back to sleep.
I didn't cry once since hearing the news. I couldn't. I didn't have the mental or emotional capacity to deal with his loss. I was incapable of coping with the grief, so I turned it off. The men who I once found so intimidating and scary avoided me like the plague. It was like I was a bad omen or a ghost.

Of course, I knew they wouldn't let me stay now that Dimitri was gone, so I wasn't surprised when Alessandro called me into his office on the seventh day.

"Annabelle." He greeted me once I was seated in front of him.

I stare at him blankly.

Alessandro sighs. "Look, Annabelle, everyone here is grieving. I'm grieving. Teresa's grieving. Everyone. I lost my son, Teresa her brother and everyone else their friend. But you... you're not grieving. You've given up. You've lost weight. You're not grieving properly. That's why I've decided to send you home. I trust you not to break omertà."