Chapter 1
Johnny
Basilica of St. Mary’s Cathedral
June 2019
The crowd was quiet but respectful. Even the man at the front of the room, holding his head high with a serious expression, was professional. I did not meet his eyes. I hadn’t met anyone’s eyes since walking in three hours ago.
There was too much emotion tied up in this day. Too many responsibilities that flooded me, that would soon consume me, to be distracted by the glare currently directed right at me.
Fuck him, I thought, relaxing against the plush cushion behind me, slipping my own scowl back to that asshole. Our gazes met, and I tightened my jaw, letting some of my frustration over this day filter out into my glare.
He had leveled a lot of blame at me over the years. It was time I sent some back.
Ahead of him, the children came, their voices low, somber. Then their song began, and the hymn filtered into the rafters, the echo of each note hitting the high ceilings above. I excused myself, torn by the memory of that song and what it had meant to me as a kid. What it meant to me as a man hearing it on this day, in this place.
I called off my guard and my sister as I moved through the crowd, ignoring the stares I got, bypassing well-wishers until I found myself alone. I was sufficiently secluded to let the emotion of the day peek out, just enough that I could breathe and not implode. I needed a release, some outlet that would distract me. Something that would keep me from screaming, cursing everyone in the room who did not feel what I did.
But there was no one. There was nothing.
There was only this sorrow and the blister of loss.
Or so I thought until I laid eyes on her.
The back row was empty and shaded in darkness. There were twenty minutes before it all began, and I had time, plenty of time, to find solace, some small semblance of peace alone in this spot. I would sit there, maybe, when the people moved through the doors, when the ushers cleared the aisle.
And then the group of nuns passed beyond the confessional.
Shock and surprise overwhelmed me.
Of course, she would be there. The children were hers. She guided them. They were her saving grace. They were her absolution for the sin I’d led her to. And the man, that glaring, angry man at the front of the church, he was hers as well. Duty. Honor. These were things that I had not made her forget with my mouth and my tongue, my touch and my taste.
Christ, she was such a temptation. Even now, sitting alone three rows from the back, her body rigid, her posture perfection. She was Sophia Loren made young again, brought into the twenty-first century to tempt and torture me just by being, existing. I could no more ignore her than I could disregard a da Vinci painting.
“You’re a kid. You don’t know what love is, Sammy. You need to forget about me.”
I’d set flame to that perfect piece of art. Scorched it with a lie because I knew she was too perfect, too pure for me.
Even now, all these years later, I saw the look on her face—the devastated expression that told me I’d crushed her.
All that beauty fractured with one lie.
It broke her.
It destroyed me.
The last time I saw her had unhinged me. It had been years, but Sammy had still managed to devastate me with a look. The restaurant had gone silent as she’d faced me, looking perfect, looking fierce, all the rage and hatred of a decade fuming in those beautiful green eyes as she glared at me. Then, she slapped me right across the face.
But today, in this holy place, at this time, she should know I would find her. I was better prepared this time. I could wait. I could watch and see her pristine self. A perfect vision in her black dress and black hat, clutching her red rosary beads as she closed her eyes and prayed.
Not for me. No. Never. But maybe for Cara and her husband or the baby, my infant nephew. Maybe for our father, who’d never learned the truth of his son’s greatest sin.
I moved, motioning to my bodyguard, Angelo, when he approached, motioning toward the rows where she sat, and I knew my man understood.
I wanted silence.
I wanted privacy.
Angelo would make sure that happened.
I slipped into the pew behind her, watching her profile, the long, closed lashes as they fell against her high cheekbones. They’d been dotted with tears the day I broke her heart.
“Why are you doing this, Johnny? I love you. I ache from how much I love you, and I…I could make you happy. I’d do anything to try.”
We could be happy. We loved each other. We could be happy, but we’d never be safe. I knew that. Even as a kid, I knew that much.
Sammy’s perfect, succulent mouth seemed to be in a perpetual pout, moving now in quick time as she muttered prayers under her breath.
“Hail Mary, full of grace…” I heard her pray.
The words pulled a smile from me, the only one I’d had today.
“My sister thanks you,” I told her, looking forward, over the crowd, knowing she heard me.
Her prayer stopped, and Sammy tilted her head to the left. A silent acknowledgment that she knew I was behind her.
“And I thank you for your prayers,” I told her.
“Your father was always very kind to me,” she whispered.
I nodded, remembering how much my father thought of Sammy. How concerned he’d been when she’d chosen not to enter the order.
“And my uncle,” she finished, pulling the smile from my face.
“You disgusting, vile, filthy boy! Taking advantage of my niece! Stealing her virtue!” her uncle had screamed at me long ago.
The old priest hadn’t been wrong.
I had taken advantage of her.
I’d let her take advantage of me over and over again, but I couldn’t make it right.
Not like he wanted me to.
Not like she wanted.
What kind of husband would I have been to her then? She was supposed to go to St. Agnes, go into the order, not become some capo’s wife. In the end, money settled it. Money that wasn’t mine, but money that kept the priest sated and Sammy off to a private college in Maine. But the priest hadn’t let me go unshamed. He never told my father what happened, but he cursed me just the same.
“You are no son of this church, Johnny Carelli, and a bad Catholic. You shame your father’s good name and your blessed mother’s sweet soul.”
I looked to the front of the church, spotting Sammy’s uncle. Thankful his eyesight was too weakened with age, that it was likely he could not see me sitting so close to his niece. The old man might refuse to perform the service if he knew I spoke to Sammy.
“My father loved you both very much.” I tightened my grip on the pew and leaned against it. “He thought highly of the work you do with the children and the…”
“What do you want?” Sammy no longer tilted her head toward me.
What did I want? What a loaded fucking question.
In a word? Her.
All of her.
Again.
Always.
I wanted a do-over.
I wanted her to see me and not be disgusted, but I knew that was a pipe dream. I’d settle for civility, but even that would likely be a stretch.
“Sammy…”
“Today is a sad day for our community, and I know you must be hurting.” She turned her head, looking toward Cara sitting in the front pew closest to our father’s casket, Kiel next to her, holding their baby. “Your sister will need your guidance and comfort. I would think you’d want to give her that today instead of trying to torment me.”
“Torment?” My voice cracked.
At that, she turned, gaze moving up to look at me. “It’s what you are best at.”
A flood of memories came back to me. A thousand lost moments I held deep inside my heart when I needed them. Sammy’s head bent in prayer the day I first saw her, wearing a white dress and gloves as she knelt on the prayer bench and black streaks stained her perfect face.
Then later, years later, that day in the library, her breath heavy, her bottom lip wet, plump like a grape on the vine, her scent fresh, hot as I leaned closer, wanting her so much, having her want me, but knowing it was a sin.
God, how I’d wanted to be a sinner that night.
“You should leave,” she said, pulling me from my memories, reminding me where I was and why.
“I will,” I told her, tired of the distance that my guilt and her anger had put between us.
Her uncle was old and mean. He’d be dead soon, and Sammy would be left with only her grief and rage. If I didn’t intercede, there would be nothing left of her but bitterness. I knew firsthand she held too much fire for that to happen.
“On one condition.”
“I don’t need to meet your conditions,” she said, not bothering to look my way when she answered.
I sent Angelo a grateful smile. It was a blessing to have such diligent staff. He unraveled every secret, gave me every advantage I needed. “Your lease is up next month on the children’s center, correct?”
Sammy jerked around, finally showing me her full face, more beautiful than I remembered. Even more striking than it had been when she screamed at me on the street outside Così Buono weeks ago. “What did you do?”
I leaned forward just to get a whiff of her scent. It had been too long. “Trying to make amends.”
She stiffened when I reached for her, my courage failing me when Sammy squeezed her eyes shut as though the idea of my touch would be torture.
“Believe it or not,” I told her, leaning back against the pew again. “I’m trying to help.” I pulled out a card from my jacket pocket, offering it to her as the choir at the front of the church began to sing another hymn, this one calling congregants to their seats. “We have a lot to discuss. When this is over.”
She didn’t take the card, just stared down at it.
I placed it on the pew next to her leg before standing, offering a nod to my sister when she turned in her seat, her gaze searching for me. “Thank you again, Sammy, for paying your respects. It’s always good to see you.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
I leaned down, grinning when she looked away from me. “Don’t worry, amore mia. You will one day very soon.”
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