Emma
The Donati home was far too quiet come morning. Emma walked the floors, the halls, and throughout the rooms, but it was empty and it rang a lonely song. The longer she waited, wondering why Calisto hadn’t come back like he promised, the worse she felt.
She called his phone, but got no answer.
She texted him, and got the same thing.
Silence.
Nothing.
The cracks in her heart grew to cavernous fractures that were barely able to hold together.
Where was he?
Emma tried to distract herself with cooking breakfast—as the cook had taken time off—but once the food was made, she had no desire to eat. She pushed the eggs around on her plate while Midnight napped in her lap.
Once she gave up on trying to fill her stomach, she took Midnight out into the chilly April morning to let the puppy do his business. Not that it mattered. She had already cleaned the business he left on the bedroom floor.
Still, the worry and loneliness grew. Even when she pulled out the poker chip Calisto had given her and held it tight in her palm. Even when she sat with Midnight at the piano and played a few keys.
She couldn’t get the feeling that something was wrong out of her heart. It had burrowed in to all the fissures there, grabbed tight, and refused to let go.
Emma stared at the phone for the majority of the morning, waiting for it to ring. She just needed something—anything. All Calisto had to do was call her and say he wasn’t coming back, and she would understand.
The silence was a cold killer.
But there was nothing she could do.
Emma amused her pup, took her prenatal vitamin, and watched the phone.
Nothing changed.
The front door slammed hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall. Emma jumped off the couch, waking Midnight up in the process. She patted the pup on his fluffy little head, and left him where he was to see who had entered her home.
She needed it to be Calisto.
It wasn’t.
Ray stormed down the hall, a wild look in his eye. His clothes were wrinkled. His hair looked like he’d been pulling on the strands. The man had never once entered the Donati home without knocking before, despite being Affonso’s underboss in la famiglia. It was a respect thing, and it shocked Emma to see Ray looking so disheveled and crazy.
The awful feeling welled in Emma’s gut again.
“What happened?” she asked.
Ray shoved past her, pushing her into the wall. She yelped her surprise on deaf ears; Ray continued without even looking at her. Emma’s back hit a painting, and it fell to the floor with a crash.
She pushed off the wall, and ran after him. Her heart raced, threatening to jump right out of her throat. She clenched her fists at her sides, her fingernails biting into the skin of her palm with enough force to break the skin.
“Tell me what happened!” Emma shouted.
“Where is it?”
Emma stumbled in her walk, grabbing onto a hallway table for support. Ray turned on his heel just as he came to Affonso’s office across from the library.
“Tell me where it is!” he repeated, shouting for all he was worth.
She blinked, her mouth opening.
Nothing came out.
What did he want?
“Why are you here?” she asked in a whisper.
“I need to know where it is, Emma,” Ray said instead.
Sickness rose in her stomach, threatening to overspill. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision. Another large crack splintered across her heart.
Ray had no reason to be here, doing what he was.
Calisto would never allow it.
Affonso would never allow it.
“Where is Calisto?” Emma asked.
Ray made a frustrated noise, and waved a hand at her. “Stupid girl. How could you possibly know what I need?”
He turned fast on his heel and disappeared into Affonso’s office. The heaviness in Emma’s feet damn near kept her rooted in place in the hallway, but she pushed forward. The quiet whines of Midnight echoed from the living room, telling her the dog was scared to be alone.
Emma’s own heart was whining, too.
Crying.
Sobbing.
Something was wrong.
Inside the office, she found Ray digging through papers on the desk. He tossed them here and there, letting them fall to the floor like he didn’t care at all. He pulled open drawers, and yanked files out to slap them on the desk. Again, he went through the contents, tossing whatever he didn’t find useful to the floor.
“Where in the fuck is it?” he growled.
“What?” Emma cried. “Where is what?”
“I need …” Ray trailed off, grabbing the laptop. He turned it on, and then slammed his hands into the keyboard when a passcode page lit up the screen. “Goddammit!”
Emma shuddered.
His rage was visible in his burning eyes and his shaking fists.
It was the first time Emma didn’t feel safe in Ray’s presence.
“I need to call him,” Ray mumbled, reaching for a stack of Post-it notes on the desk. “I have to.”
Emma went numb all over. The pain finally stopped for a moment, but she couldn’t feel anything at all. Ray wouldn’t need to find Calisto’s phone number. He would already have it. He called Calisto on a daily basis.
But for Affonso … Ray had been out of the loop.
A lot like everyone else.
Even Emma.
“Why do you need to call Affonso?” Emma asked, her tone barely above a breath.
Ray ignored her. He continued searching through the scraps of paper and another drawer of things. He typed on the keyboard of the laptop, trying different password combinations only to fail each time.
Emma found her voice, somehow. “Why?”
The volume of her shout was enough to make Ray stutter in his movements. He stared at her, taking her in as his hands shook over the papers.
“There was an accident,” Ray said quietly.
Emma took a step backward.
No.
“Calisto was driving down the highway and—”
“Stop it,” Emma mumbled, putting her hand up as if to block Ray’s words.
She had backed up to the doorway, and was standing in it. Her heart was beating, but it felt like with each one, total agony was being pumped straight into her bloodstream.
Oh, God.
She couldn’t breathe.
“I have to call Affonso,” Ray said. “He has to know what happened to Calisto.”
“Stop it,” Emma repeated, practically screaming the words.
Stop lying, she wanted to shout. You’re lying.
Ray couldn’t possibly understand, but he was killing her. His words were cutting into her already broken heart and leaving her even more battered than before.
Emma turned on her heel, and ran.
She didn’t know what she was running from.
This whole house was her prison now.
Emma blinked awake, and her entire body protested as she moved off the cold tile of the bathroom floor. The stale stench of her vomit still lingered in the air, and she blindly waved at the toilet to hit the latch and flush the contents down.
She had cried herself into a puking mess.
Then she passed out on the floor after crying some more.
Stumbling onto her feet, Emma grabbed the doorknob and swung the door open. Stepping out into the hallway, she could hear quiet murmurs down the hall coming from the office. She checked the decorative clock on the wall, realizing it had only been a little more than an hour since Ray showed up with his … news.
Was he still here?
She could distinctly hear two murmurs.
Two people.
The closer she came to the office, the better she could discern who was speaking.
“They drove him off the road?” Affonso asked.
Emma could tell by the slight change in Affonso’s tone that he was speaking through the speaker on the telephone.
“There were a few bullet holes in his car as well,” Ray said.
Affonso cursed low. “You’re sure it was the Irish?”
“Who else would it be, boss?” Ray asked back just as fast. “He was playing your games like you wanted him to—doing your bidding. He’d had a meeting with the Irish boss earlier in the day. I wanted to join, I practically demanded he let me go, but he refused. He wouldn’t allow anyone to go with him. I have no idea what happened in that meeting, or how it ended.”
That didn’t make sense to Emma.
She distinctly remembered Calisto saying the meeting with the Irish boss went well. Why would he say that if he didn’t mean it?
“My boy,” Affonso murmured, a sadness thickening his words. “Dio salvi il mio ragazzo.”
“You have to come back, now. You don’t have a choice. Otherwise, you’re leaving la famiglia open to any man, Affonso. I know this was your last hope in getting Calisto to take over, but he might not even wake up.”
Emma truly believed that Affonso loved Calisto in his own way. It was a selfish way, to be sure, but he still loved the man just the same.
“The Irish,” Affonso said quietly.
“Yes.”
“Kill them.”
Ray coughed. “Pardon?”
“Kill them—all of them,” Affonso said darkly. “I want them gone.”
“Boss …”
“Kill them!”
“What about Calisto?” Ray asked.
“I’m coming home. Soon.”
“His doctors need someone here to sign papers and make decisions, Affonso. Like I said when I first called, he’s critical and he’s in a bad way.”
“Do not let them make decisions on his life until I am there,” Affonso demanded.
Critical wasn’t dead.
Emma clung onto that one simple hope.
Some people might believe that hanging onto hope was useless in most situations, because miracles didn’t happen. She couldn’t allow herself to let go if it wasn’t the end yet.
Calisto wasn’t gone.
Not yet.
She spun on her heel and left the men to their phone conversation. But her heart was screaming so loud. She only wanted one thing.
Calisto.
Emma stood outside the intensive care unit, scared to enter the room just in front of her. The lights had been dimmed, and the curtain was pulled around the bed. It was just luck that Calisto was situated in the same hospital that her doctor was located. Under the guise of needing to have more bloodwork done, her driver took her.
She sneaked away from him the moment she could and went to the intensive care unit that she had heard Ray telling Affonso about.
Now, she was terrified.
Emma didn’t know if she could handle seeing Calisto black and blue, swollen and nearly dead. But she couldn’t just walk away now that she was here.
Right?
Shooting a look back at the nurses’ station, she noticed that all of the women and men working there were gathering around a screen and laughing at something. They were thoroughly distracted.
Emma didn’t want to draw attention.
Quickly, she stepped into Calisto’s hospital room, and drew the shades on the window to give herself a bit more privacy. She listened to the beep of monitors and the hiss of oxygen sing their rhythmic, life-saving tune.
It took her another two minutes before she could step around the curtain. And when she did … her heart shattered all over again.
Calisto was wrapped in gauze and casts. A ventilator tube was shoved down his throat, and his face was cut, bruised, and swollen. His right arm was in a cast, as was his left leg.
Emma choked on nothing but air and her tears.
“Oh, Calisto,” she mumbled.
She stepped forward, taking his left hand in hers. Gently, she squeezed his hand and rubbed the back with her thumb like he would do to her cheek when she was sad about something. Hanging above his bed was a familiar item.
The black rosary with a silver cross.
The one she had given him for Christmas.
She still had his with the golden cross.
He must have had it when he was run off the road. Apparently, his vehicle had flipped seven times before coming to a stop on its roof at the bottom of a steep embankment. How he survived, she didn’t know.
Emma pulled the poker chip from her jeans pocket. She held it tightly for a second, and then she replaced her hand with the poker chip. She closed his fingers around the item, hoping that when he woke up, he would know she had been there.
It killed her, but she had to go.
She couldn’t stay.
“I’m sorry, Cal,” she whispered.
Emma kissed two fingers, and pressed them to his cheek.
Her heart hurt.
It was constant.
Blinding.
Deafening.
She didn’t want to feel like this.
“I love you, Calisto. I love you.”
Two more days passed by in a deadly silence.
It was a cold quiet.
A stillness and hush that came with no peace, and no answers.
Emma woke up alone. She slept alone. She walked the halls of her home alone.
On the third morning, she stared at her reflection in the mirror and cleaned another round of tear stains from her cheeks. It wasn’t like she wanted to get out of bed and do anything, but she didn’t have much of a choice. Every night, she set Midnight up in the kitchen in a large kennel. He was slowly getting used to holding his bladder for long enough to make it to the morning.
Emma didn’t want to ruin his training with her sadness.
He was just a pup.
And he needed her.
Throwing on something suitable to wear outside, she quickly made her way downstairs and to the kitchen where her pup would be waiting with his fluffy wiggles and his tiny tail. Midnight was one small bit of happiness in her sad world.
And yet again, it was something Calisto had given her.
The moment Emma rounded the hallway and stepped into the kitchen entryway, her heart dropped into her stomach, and the bile spilled on the back of her tongue.
Affonso sat at the kitchen table, glaring at the pup he was holding by the scruff of the neck. Poor little Midnight wiggled and yelped in all his eight inches of length. He twisted and turned in Affonso’s hold, his sharp little whines and barks having no effect on the man.
Affonso kept glowering at the dog.
Apparently, Emma’s entrance had not gone unnoticed.
“What on earth is this creature?” Affonso asked.
Emma swallowed back the sickness in her throat. She had hoped he would at least call to let her know when he would be arriving home, but he hadn’t. Obviously.
The shock finally wore off.
“He’s my puppy,” Emma said. “He’s not a creature. Don’t hold him like that, you’ll hurt him.”
Affonso scowled, still holding Midnight’s scruff as he dangled him over the kitchen floor. “This is not a dog. It is a rat with a lot of hair. A rat that shits on my floors and chews things, for that matter.”
Ouch.
“He does not, Affonso. Put him down. He’s just a baby.”
“Where did you get it, Emma?”
Emma chose not to lie. “Calisto gave him to me because I was lonely. He found him starving and frozen nearly to death behind his new club.”
Midnight continued to bark and wiggle. Finally, the pup caught the side of Affonso’s thumb with his sharp baby teeth and bit down hard enough. Affonso dropped the dog with a curse. Midnight hit the floor with a yelp, and scuttled toward Emma.
She dropped down and picked Midnight up, glaring at Affonso. The pup calmed the moment he was in her arms.
Affonso lowered his gaze. “I didn’t mean to drop the ugly thing. He bit me.”
“He’s just a little dog, and I like him.”
“Calisto brought him, you said?”
“Yes,” Emma replied quietly.
“I’ll let you keep him, but if he chews on my shoes, I will flush him down the toilet.”
Emma clenched her teeth, forcing herself not to respond.
“I was told Calisto looked after you while I was gone,” Affonso said after a while.
“I guess.”
She wouldn’t say much else.
“Good, I hoped he would.”
“You could have let me know you were coming home,” Emma said.
Affonso cocked a brow. “This is my home, too. I didn’t realize I needed to make you aware of my comings and goings.”
“It would be nice, that’s all I’m saying. You up and left without as much as a goodbye, Affonso.”
“I’m sure you didn’t mind, sweetheart,” he drawled, sneering.
Emma didn’t even bother to deny it.
Affonso stood, fixing his jacket and picking up a folder on the table.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Things,” Affonso said, offering nothing else.
“Are you going to the hospital?”
“In a little while.”
“Can I go?” she dared to ask.
Affonso spun slowly on his heel, eying her curiously. “Why do you want to?”
“Calisto is … a friend. I worried about him. I was hoping to see how he was doing.”
“Well,” Affonso said, waving a hand high, “… he’s awake now.”
Emma’s heart leaped high.
The relief was like a drug.
“Is he?” she asked calmly.
Somehow.
Affonso nodded. “But that is the least of my worries. Seems the accident and his head injury has done a number on my nephew. You might find he’s … not quite the same, Emma.”
She didn’t understand.
“I would still like to go,” she said. “Please.”
Affonso didn’t seem suspicious of her request.
Emma figured that was for the best. Her pregnancy was just one of the things she would have to keep quiet about until Calisto was better and she could tell him. He needed to know first, and then maybe they could figure something out.
“I don’t see why not,” Affonso said.
“Thank you.”
He pointed at her. “But not dressed like that.”
“About two and a half years?” Emma heard Affonso ask just around the corner.
“Seems that way,” the doctor answered.
She couldn’t fully comprehend their conversation. She had only heard bits and pieces of it as she paced back and forth outside of Calisto’s private hospital room. After waking from his coma, and becoming stabilized, the doctors had approved him to move into his own room.
Emma still hadn’t seen him yet.
“What does he know?” Affonso asked.
“Mostly everything. His family, his name, age, the year—barring the fact he’s missing two and a half years—he answered correctly, if it were that time and not today.”
Emma’s brow furrowed.
What did that mean?
She was pretty sure she knew, but it terrified her.
“You’ll have to go about explaining what’s happened in the time he’s missing,” the doctor said, sympathy coloring up his tone.
“Is this common?” Affonso asked.
“For amnesia patients, yes.”
No.
Emma sucked in a hard breath, and willed away the tears.
No.
Calisto couldn’t have just … forgotten two and a half years.
That wasn’t possible!
“How so?” Affonso asked.
“Was there something that happened two years ago to Calisto that would make his brain want to essentially … erase the event?” the doctor asked, posing the question quietly. “This event would have needed to be extremely traumatic for him in an emotional way. Something that might have changed his very person—who he believed he was, even. It might have affected his entire outlook, his ideals might have taken a different direction, or something of that nature. It would have literally been life-altering.”
Affonso cleared his throat. “There were a couple of things.”
“Like what?”
“His mother dying, for one. He was very close to her.”
“According to him, his mother is alive,” the doctor said.
Affonso swore under his breath. “And I’ll be left to explain to him that she’s dead.”
“It would be best if it was someone he cares for, yes.”
“He … said he cared for me,” Affonso said slowly, not even posing it as a question.
“He’s been asking for you since he woke up,” the doctor replied.
Jesus.
That was not the Calisto that Emma knew. He would not ask for Affonso. His love for the man had been tainted when he found out the truth about his mother and Affonso’s past.
“Huh,” Affonso murmured.
“You seem surprised.”
“It’s been a rough couple of years, that’s all.”
“Ah,” the doctor hummed. “I see. Anyway, no this isn’t that uncommon. His brain has done what it’s supposed to do, and essentially protected itself from something that hurt it greatly.”
“And his memories, the lost years, what of them?” Affonso asked.
“It could filter back to him over time.”
“How long might that take?”
“Some people take days to regain things, others weeks, more months, and some take years,” the doctor explained calmly. “It’s hard to say. Certain things might trigger his memories, and give him flashbacks that could fill in some blanks. The swelling on his brain has gone down in the last two days, and that in itself should have brought maybe a few things back. It usually does, for the majority of amnesia patients.”
“But not him,” Affonso said.
“Not him.”
Emma couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
She refused to.
Her stomach rolled, and her heart splintered as the emotions overwhelmed her. If Calisto had lost two years of his life, he wouldn’t even know her.
He wouldn’t remember what happened to his mom.
He wouldn’t know the things Affonso had done.
And her … he wouldn’t remember their stolen moments, his sweet words and the things he had done for her when her life had been falling apart. He wouldn’t even be able to recall the fact that they had been sleeping together for months.
How could she explain to a man who didn’t know her that she was pregnant with his child, and married to a man he was now back to adoring like a king?
Oh, God.
Calisto wouldn’t love her—Emma needed him to love her.
Emma didn’t believed it.
No way.
She spun on her heel and pushed open the door with the curtains drawn. It was Calisto’s room. She had to see it for herself, without Affonso’s presence watching her every move.
Calisto sat shirtless on the side of the bed, flipping the poker chip between his fingers while he held the rosary in his other hand. He didn’t seem to notice Emma enter his room.
For a moment, with the way he stared at the items he was holding, Emma thought he might remember.
He might know.
Calisto turned to her, his face less swollen and bruised than it was just days ago when she had visited. His brow crumpled as he took her in, but he still smiled.
In his confusion, he still managed to give her one of his sexy smiles.
“Hi,” Calisto said.
Emma’s mouth was dry. “Hey.”
He tipped his head to the side, like he was taking her in for the first time.
Like he didn’t know her.
Emma knew it then.
She knew his next words.
She could see it in his soul-black eyes.
This was not the man who loved her.
This was not the man she had met, learned, and fell in love with.
This was the man who came before her.
A man who loved a liar, and didn’t know it yet.
Emma’s soul fell apart as Calisto spoke again, still staring at her like it was the first time he’d ever seen her. It felt like someone had shoved their hands inside her body, and just ripped what was left of her heart away.
Three words.
That was all it took.
“Who are you?”