•Nolani•
Sometimes when I close my eyes I can still feel cold damp concrete below my head. I can hear the sound of rats scratching in the trash, scavenging for any crumb of sustenance that was left behind. I can smell the stench of feces and urine that hung in the air like a thick fetid cloud and I have that achy empty feeling in my gut— the one you get when you haven't eaten in two days. For a moment I'm back under the bridge sleeping on a ripped bath towel, my Mom asleep at my feet with her fingers wrapped around my ankle in a vice grip. My skin feels gritty, my mouth is dry and my scalp itches but if I close my eyes really tight and pinch the skin on the inside of my forearm I can push all those things away and focus on the sound of the waves crashing against the sand. It was the only way I could fall asleep most nights, the times we weren't near the water were the hardest.
My eyes shoot open and I slowly come back to reality. I blink up at the ceiling and take a deep breath, the bedding greeting my nose with the strong smell of fresh linen. I dig my fingers into the plush comforter and wiggle my legs freely, nothing but silence surrounding me. A relieved exhale leaves my lungs as I rise up from the bed. The wood floor is cold against my bare feet but it's clean and smooth and it feels nice. I go to the en suit and turn the light on, a terrified expression on the face staring back at me in the mirror.
I study my reflection— my clean face, my clean hair. I flash a smile and I'm greeted with beautiful straight, white teeth. Veneers. I'd been so thankful when I could afford them. Being homeless with a flighty mother meant I rarely was able to brush my teeth and when I did scrounge up enough change for a toothbrush and tooth paste the empty pain in my stomach overruled my dental hygiene. Even if I had been able to buy a toothbrush and toothpaste it would've been a waste when my Mom would randomly up and decide we needed to leave. She never let me go back to the place we had been staying and grab the meager things I had collected that I called my belongings, she always demanded we had to move right then.
I shake my head, I'm not there anymore and she's long gone. Sometimes it takes everything I've got to even remember what she looked like or what her voice sounded like but I think it's better that way. I grab my toothpaste and toothbrush and brush my teeth. After finishing up my morning routine I go to the kitchen, my stomach churning from my trip to the past and decide to skip breakfast so I don't have to hug the toilet right after eating. Instead I grab a glass of water and chug it.
When I was placed with my foster parents they ended up putting a lock on their pantry and their fridge because I would sneak into the kitchen while everyone was asleep and eat everything in sight. My stomach would feel so full but I couldn't stop. Even after I'd throw up I'd still shovel food in until there was nothing left. It took a lot of therapy to get through the over eating, I was terrified of waking up the next day and not having anything to eat, terrified of living with agonizing hunger pains again.
The motion detector beeps and Angelo opens the door allowing Alessia inside the house followed by her guard Jamie.
Alessia gives me a small smile, her lower lip wobbling and unshed tears filling her eyes as I exit the kitchen.
"Hey." She says, her voice thick with emotion.
"What's wrong?" I ask in concern.
She rolls her eyes and shrugs. "Nothing I shouldn't be used to. I just needed some time away from Mamma."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
She bites her lip, contemplating the question before replying, "Do you wanna go for a swim?"
I give her a nod. "Sure."
Alessia goes to the laundry room to grab a swimsuit she had left the last time she swam at Giovanni's, while I go in my room and change into my own. A few minutes later and we're soaking up the sun on pool floats.
"I'm getting married." Alessia states unexpectedly, popping the balloon of silence that had surrounded us with a sharp needle.
I almost fall off my float as I jerk my head toward her in surprise. "You're what? Since when and to who?"
"Since always. I've known since I was sixteen that I would be promised to a stranger, a man I don't even know. I'm going to be tied to him for the rest of my life." She sighs.
I frown at her words. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, you're an adult."
She laughs dryly. "God, I wish." Her eyes meet mine, pain dancing in their depths. "We get married to strengthen our family. Giovanni told me the night we first met when you had dinner at Raf's house that he found my future husband, they just have to finish discussing the contract."
The unshed tears in her eyes make them shine like polished copper. How dare Giovanni, her own brother, put that look in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Alessia." I whisper.
A tear trickles down her cheek but she doesn't brush it away. "It's fine. I just... it would be nice to feel normal, be from a normal family but I'm going to be married off to a family just like mine."
"My best friend Jade is from a normal family, I've always been jealous of her for that." I admit.
Some people would say that normal doesn't actually exist but until you've experienced the kind of families we have you can't make that statement. We aren't dreaming of perfection, perfect doesn't equal normal, we just want something slightly less traumatic than being homeless or being forced to marry a stranger.
"I don't know anyone personally in a normal family. I try not to get close to people so I've never really had a best friend."
"Well I'm kind of stuck in this family with you now, so you aren't alone anymore." I laugh lightly.
She laughs along and wipes her damp cheeks. "God, here I am crying about marrying a guy who I know will be wealthy and I'll continue to live a rich and privileged life when you were forced into our life just because you had a one night stand with my brother."
I shrug. "It's not all that bad sometimes."
When Giovanni isn't being mean to me of course. The little moment of honesty we had on the ride back to his house from the gala last night was a breath of fresh air. It felt like I was talking to the person Giovanni, not the public persona Giovanni that he constantly presents.
Her eyes drop to my bare ring finger and I shift my hand under her gaze. I took the engagement ring off as soon as I changed last night and I didn't bother putting it back on, it's not as if anyone's going to see it except the people who know it's a sham. I tucked it back inside the ring box and shoved it in the bottom drawer of my dresser like it might bite me if I didn't hide it.
"You're kind of in an arranged marriage too."
"Except I'm not actually marrying Giovanni, thank god." I retort but the look on her face disagrees with me. "What? Why are you making that face?"
She sighs. "I just don't know what else would happen."
My brow furrows. "What do you mean?"
"Well you're engaged, you announced it to the world." She replies as if it's obvious.
I'm well aware. My social media was flooded with pictures and comments about us. That picture the paps took with Giovanni's hand on my stomach and us smiling at each other looked so incredibly real it made my heart stop.
"Engagements break all the time." I counter, my annoyance growing by the second.
I should know since this is my second one.
"You and I both know you can't take the twins back to your house and live a normal life, not even the normal life for a celebrity." She lowers her voice to a whisper, "He's not going to let you leave, it's not safe."
"I know it's not safe, it's all I've heard since I walked into that bar and told Rocks I was pregnant." I huff.
I was growing beyond tired of hearing about it. It's dangerous, I get it.
"But I don't think you really understand though, it'll never be safe." She pauses, indecision flashing in her eyes and my stomach churns with unease. "He's the head of the Italian Mafia, Nolani. Raf was too, people will kill you and the twins without a second thought, really bad people. This is why I will have to marry whomever I've been promised to and why you can't ever go back to your old life. It isn't safe, there will never be a time when it will be safe for the twins to live a normal life."
Spiky thorns of fear splinter my heart and the breath is knocked from my lungs in a sharp exhale. I thought he had ties to the Italian mafia, I didn't think he ran the damn thing. Oh my god. I gasp for air, black spots dancing in my vision as I try my best to stay atop the float. I tell myself to calm down, that I knew things were bad but damn I didn't realize they were this bad.
"Shit, I shouldn't have said that. I just... you already talked about my family having ties to the mafia so I thought you'd be prepared and you really do need to know because you've got to be aware of what is going on around you and the twins will be in the business even if they're girls so you need to know but... damn it, Giovanni is going to kill me." She curses and my eyes widen in fear. She holds her hands up defensively. "No, no! Not like that! He won't actually kill me!"
I wasn't even focused on that part, I didn't hear anything she said after the words, 'the twins will be in the business'.
"My children are going to inherit the... the... throne to the Italian Mafia?" I whisper yell the question, afraid if I ask it too loud someone's going to pop out of the tree line and take me out.
I don't think throne is the appropriate term but it's the only word my mind could conjure up.
Alessia purses her lips and uses her hand as a paddle to reach the deck. "I'm just gonna go." She mutters, slipping off the float and onto the tile.
She's what!
"Go? You can't go right after dropping that bomb on me?" I exclaim, quickly paddling after her.
She can't ramble things about my babies and joining the business, the business being the freaking mafia, and then just leave! I grip the deck and get off the float quickly.
"Is this why Leo is considered the black sheep, because he chose to become a doctor instead of a criminal?" I question, my thoughts running around in circles of confusion inside my brain.
She stops her abrupt departure and gives me a nod. "When he chose not to work with the Family it makes it look like he's not loyal and if he isn't loyal then he's a weak link. Weakness equals death in our world."
Becoming a doctor is not weak!
I run my hands down my face in distress. "Why are you telling me this? This is going to drive me crazy, it's a terrifying thought knowing my babies will grow up around this life and I won't have a choice in the matter at all."
"Like you said, it's not all bad." She repeats my earlier words and I want to go back in time and take them back.
"I will never allow anyone to force my children to marry someone they don't want to." I grit the words out painfully.
She grabs my hand and gives me a serious look. "The good thing about marrying Giovanni is you can convince him to change things, get away from arranged marriages. He controls everything, every move anyone in the Family makes, he can make whatever changes he wants and there's nothing anyone else can do about it."
Is she... is she trying to convince me to marry her brother so she doesn't have to marry a stranger?
I gape at her in complete surprise at what she's suggesting, "Alessia you're—"
She cuts me off, "He will be a great father, he will love the twins just as much as Rafael would've. He will keep them safe and you safe and you'll never have to worry about anything ever again." Her grip on my wrist tightens and a desperate gleam fills her eyes. "He won't ever let you go anyway, he's never going to let you leave especially with the twins. If you try— just try to get to know him, see if there's even the slightest possibility that you could be happy with him then maybe you could convince him to change things. It has to be genuine because he will know if not, just please try, Nolani, please!"
"Do you hear your self, Alessia? You sound crazy!"
She releases my wrist and runs her fingers through her dark hair. "Because I am, I'm desperate! I'm in love with someone and I cannot marry someone else, I can't! It will kill me, Nolani, I can't live without him!"
If Angelo or Jamie hears her they'll come outside.
I grip her shoulders to calm her down. "Who? Who are you in love with?"
She blinks a few times and then I watch her mask fall into place as she steps back and gathers herself. "I can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
Her eyes shine as her mask cracks slightly. "If Giovanni finds out he will kill him and I mean that literally. He will kill him for having sex with me while I'm promised to another, for even kissing me without talking to Giovanni first about pursuing me."
My nose wrinkles in disgust. "What? That's archaic, Alessia! No one should need your brothers permission for anything to do with you!"
She gives me a smile. "Exactly! Which is why you're going to change things. You're going to show Giovanni how the rules of the Family are absolutely disgusting and outdated. Right?"
Ice fills my veins at her eager words.
"Why do you think I have the ability to change anything?" I ask. "Giovanni doesn't even like me most days, I'm just the stupid girl who slept with his brother and ended up pregnant."
"You aren't stupid, just try. Please try."
I drop my gaze to my bare feet on the tiled deck. "I'll think about it."
Apparently I'm not going to have much of a choice anyway. Giovanni will never trust anyone around the twins, how would I date, how would I ever fall in love? She's right, I'm never going to be able to go back to who I was before I was pregnant. I'm stuck, I knew it before but now it just seems even more real. I can either be stuck as a helpless victim or I can be in control partially, I think the choice between the two options is obvious.
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Hey babe's, so if you don't follow me on IG I wrote chapter 18 yesterday but I couldn't get myself to upload it because I needed this chapter to be before that one. So I moved chapter 18 to chapter 19 and put uploading off for a day to write this. So since I already have chapter 19 done I'll upload it too, so this will be a double upload.
What do you think of Alessia's talk with Nolani?
The next chapter will be up a few minutes after this one!
Today is my birthday, weird to think I'm 27 when I still feel 18 in my brain lol
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— Katy