heat waves

Heels clicking against the tile, Giorgia’s step barely hitched as she snagged a basket. She’d been on the go since 6am, mouth running even if every other part of her slowed down for the crawling drive to Charlottesville. Call after call. The job might have been as much a cover, a band aid for a wound she needed to disappear, as anything but it was still something she believed in. Now, it was something beyond Emiliano’s immediate grip.

La libertà. Freedom. A dream once before it had been ground out beneath the heel of those slick hand made shoes.

Ignoring the fact that her own were just the same, albeit cleaner from not allowing herself to leap down into the trenches with the Agnelli foot soldiers … and him. Was it trailing into Roxxi’s life that had hooked him firmly into her thoughts or the end of her marriage? Freedom of one sort leading to what – who – had never found it. Dark brows knotted for a moment, another hitch slowing her step, before the voice buzzed tinnily out of the ear pods she wore beneath the screen of dark waves.

Giorgia lifted her right hand and pushed them firmly into her ears like that would drown out the static of her own thoughts. She shoved the dark waves of her hair away from her face with the back of her wrist. ”What was that about the LeBor case? We submitted our recommendations to Judge Harrison this morning didn’t we?” At the news that the courier had gone out at 11, Giorgia sighed. The paperwork had been ready at 9, the pick up booked three days ago to meet the judge’s schedule. ”Has Harrison’s office confirmed receipt? A delay now and he’ll push it so far down in his books we won’t see it for a year.” If she was still here then.

Corrine’s voice trailed off again, words tossed at someone else in the office she’d abandoned two hours ago. ’The rest of my things are arriving from New Orleans this afternoon, I’ll work on the go’. The promise tossed out light with the sweetening of a smile. Lies of course, the things had all been packed up in the back seat and trunk of her Porsche when she’d driven out of New Orleans. Most of what had been in the house she’d shared with Patrick left behind, what had been his tossed in ragged trails through the house. Shredded by claw and a temper that had burned sun bright for weeks. Pride might have been hard to hold onto these days but she could still make a good show of it.

Stopping by the racks of fresh produce that ran down that first aisle, Giorgia frowned faintly. The suite at the Grey Haven was adequate, a small kitchen, an opulent first bedroom, a second she’d had the hotel set up for an office for her. Everything she needed handled without a peep of complaint from the woman at the desk and the glossy British owner. As it should’ve been for a place that was supposed to be nothing like home.

She plucked up one of the figs from their bed of rippled cardboard. Ugh. Out of season in this corner of the world but not even ripe enough to let her fool herself that the humid bite of summer might still have been lingering on. ”Cos'è questa merda.” At the squawk of confusion and protest that came down the line Giorgia hissed out a sigh. ”Not you. I’m in a store, trying to fill the fridge. Do they bury this stuff half the winter hoping it’ll get better?” The rock hard fig was tossed back, the others in the tray picked through until she had four that would at least be tolerable for the prosciutto e fichi she’d been craving. Curled up on the sumptuous sofa in the suite, the figs and honey sweet against the salt of the ham, the wine going down by the bottle tonight, the rest of the world held outside by the black out drapes. If Roxxi had been at all glad to see her she might have tried to mend bridges with it but the saltiest bite since she’d reached Mystic Falls had been from her own sister.

A pang in the pit of her stomach as Corrine babbled away in her ear, apologetic now. Giorgia’s expression softened slightly as she turned away to look for the tomatoes that would make a weak but tolerable bruschetta for lunch tomorrow. She’d barely been here five minutes, didn’t have them trained the way her old team had been yet.

Dark eyes drifted up from the vine tomatoes that were already wilting, along those trays in search of something fresher, fixing on rangy shoulders, a dark hood pulled up. The fist closed over her head, squeezed, as it always did at just an impression of him. A tall figure in a crowd, a flash of dark eyes or a smile so soft and bright it had rivalled those hazy summer skies they’d drifted through the park under – always enough to hit her with that painful reminder of what Emiliano had crushed. Nemo was in his trenches, unable to fight free of his guardian’s tight, greasy grip.

The betrayal of his turning his back stung a fresh each of those times. It did now, her jaw going tight and that static coming back in as she snatched the tomatoes back anyway. Green eyes going misty enough that she had to blink to bring the strings of onions back into focus. ”No, it’s fine,” she croaked down the line. ”Just follow up with the Judge’s assistant. The proceedings need to start as soon as we can get them scheduled, we can talk Harrison a-“ Not even managing to finishing the explanation.

The static popping, clearing her hearing between words so that croak came through clear. No. She hadn’t heard it in more than a decade, wouldn’t have known it again if she did. So sure of it in every part of her except for her stomach. It flipped the way it had the first time he’d said it. Lips pressed together tight, no room for a peep to escape. Fingers curling tight around the handles of the basket as she glanced aside, those willow green irises peering through the screen of hair. ”He sent you?” she asked tightly as the pained laugh started. ”Not enough to torture me as it was. Nemo.” Something wistful and pained in the sound of it. Another squeeze in her chest as the first pink worm of a scar on what had been a beautiful face caught her eye. ”Why?” she croaked back, shaking her head. Emiliano the figlio di puttana. Had it been those hard hands that had put those marks on him, tearing apart all he could? The thought was enough to fill her mouth with the taste of bile.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1159

Emiliano had once beaten that pretty face black and blue – and it had been a pretty, even beyond puberty, with those midnight sky eyes and the dip in the delicate point of a chin that she’d traced with a fingertip as they had finally kissed – would he have felt a single regret at tearing it to pieces? The sick feeling hit hard and fast as Giorgia let her eyes skitter over those vivid and violent scars and away again. It was all too easy to see Emiliano half turned, eyes burning red as he ripped at the boy he’d seemingly never wanted with razor sharp claws. The only wonder was that he hadn’t bragged about it.

There had been a sort of glee on his face when she’d marched into his office, head held high, her dark eyes barely able to meet his. Emiliano had known that Patrick was cheating, had known and hadn’t said a word. If it had been anybody cheating him there wouldn’t have been enough left of them to develop scars. They’d have been carried away in a bucket, Emiliano’s reputation firmly intact as word of that got around.

What had happened to Nemo hadn’t. If Roxxi had known, or any of her sisters, they had kept their mouths shut. Perhaps out of the goodness of their hearts – although with Roxxi it had seemed as though the goodness had been boiled down to something bitter rather than the sweetness that had been there like powdered sugar when she had really been small. They would have known that it would break her heart to see it, even if he had broken it first.

Two veils of tears did nothing to hide the damage, or the light that brightened in his expression like the sun coming out from behind a thick wall of bruise black clouds. Emiliano lurked behind them like Zeus, ready to throw lightning bolts and drive them apart again. Giorgia almost looked over her shoulder for him, the same way she had done with Roxxi. Then she had joked about Emiliano not living up her ass, but now it was almost a fear he was. More than a decade ago he had gotten his claws into Nemo and as far as she knew, they had never let go.

The basket suddenly felt heavy as she found it in her to ask. The pained laugh began an agonising band around her chest. She wanted to throw the basket and the awful figs across the aisle and tear herself free of it but Giorgia knew she didn’t have the strength. ”Cazzate,” she bit out. Her lips, painted carefully that morning but now bare given how much she’d worried at them with her teeth peeled back in a sneer. Nemo hadn’t done anything without his say so since they had kissed, all the defiance smacked out of him as she had screamed.

Why? The question popped again in her head. If it had been Emiliano looking as though he had been torn apart and put back together again like a jigsaw she would have had her answer. Emiliano had broken Mikey Buckley, had stolen what life he did have as a lizard, he’d tried to break Chase too only that had failed. What did Nemo have to do with it though? He had not been the one to lead Mikey into that store or the one to bite him. Cazzate. Bullshit. All as much bullshit as what had spilled from Patrick’s lying lips.

She could tell from the hitch in Nemo’s voice that some of it was a lie. He had been terrible at hiding things, every thought flashing across his face and she had seen them all – once upon a time.

The voice squawked in her ear suddenly. Corrine. Giorgia started, the tomatoes tumbling across her basket as she reached out to thumb the headset off. ”Just speak to the judge’s office. I’ll call you back.” The ’not now’ was bitten back. If Emiliano had called in New Orleans she would have to take it then and there no matter the situation but this was not home, Corrine’s eyes wouldn’t go cold and hard as onyx if she cut her off.

Pressing the basket between her thigh and the stands of produce, Giorgia let the pain bite at the emotions. His wellbeing was not hers to cry over now, it hadn’t been since she’d screamed for Emiliano to stop, for Nemo to turn back to her, to see her, please, all those years ago. ”He sent me nowhere,” she said, with steel in her voice. ”There was a job here, it was time I saw my sister.” It was time to run from the rubble of her marriage. She squeezed her fingers tighter around the handle of the basket as Nemo’s fingers curled around his wrist, no ring to cut into her as her knuckles went white and her heart leaped into her throat. ”Have you seen her? Does Roxana know you’re here?” Roxxi had mentioned nothing, perhaps she wasn’t the reason … oh.

Chase Buckley and his brother had mysteriously picked this town in all of the country to hide under a rock away from the Agnellis. Roxxi’s town. Chase, the man Nemo swore had done this to him. Was it real retribution or just another chance to try and make Emiliano love him the way he did his own children – supposedly.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 906

That broken croak of a voice that she’d longed to hear again after Emiliano had dragged him away from her had thrown her. The bustling world of the lacklustre grocery store drifting away, the whine of a sudden vacuum rising in her ears until she wanted to clutch at them to break herself free of the cage that had sprung shut after she’d lived in it for the last decade believing that the door was still open. She hadn’t slipped out of it when she’d left New Orleans, it’s bars merely stretching to give her that feeling of freedom. There was a louder click, the locks thrown as she saw the frown furrow those dark brows. They were both still imprisoned by Emiliano, tortured by the appearance of freedom and their inability to break free.

Explanations would have to come later, not for him, for the office, but they would be easy to gloss over. His weren’t. Giorgia felt the claws close around her throat as she divested him of the idea that Emiliano had picked her up and plopped her down like a pawn on a chess board. He might as well have done, Emiliano could have masterminded all of this. He was twisted enough to add to that pain in her chest. She wanted to drop the basket onto the tile and clutch at her chest like the widening cracks in her heart were something she could hold closed through sheer will.

’Tell me you finally got free, that he hasn’t pushed into this. Please!’ The plea stopped up in her throat as his fingers settled on her. Once upon a time Nemo would have let them slide down to her own, that squeeze a reassurance, now it was a jailer’s touch she wanted back as it fell away.

The tears burned at the back of her eyes as she let out a huff of breath. It wasn’t a laugh, there wasn’t enough relief or amusement for that. He wouldn’t even look at her now, disappearing behind the cover of that hood, hands retreating until there was barely an inch of skin on view. ”So, Emiliano has no idea you’re here? You finally ran.” Hope wedged up against the sick feeling in her throat but for just a moment. He hadn’t come here to look for her, or even for freedom. He’d come here for the Buckleys, like taking revenge on the man who had done that – Giorgia’s eyes rose to the scars clad in shadows now and the burn in her eyes intensified – would somehow bring him closer to all he’d ever wanted. A family. Their family.

Another small sound broke free at the apology. A decade ago it would’ve been everything. A chance at what they might have had, a band aid for that gaping wound in her chest as Nemo had chosen Emiliano and a life of never being enough over being her everything. She wanted to scream, to shove him away but her heart had always bled for him. His mom … After she had gone Emiliano had been the closest thing to a parent, a rotten father, a monster, but something to fill that hole. ”You would have been better off if he had gone. He did this … not Chase or Mikey … him. You should take the chance and run now, get out from under him.” The please stoppered up again as she pushed the basket aside. It rattled against the stand of produce, sending avocados, probably as underripe as the figs rained down, tumbling across the tile like cannonballs.

Giorgia stepped close, her hand rising so cool fingers could slip beneath the cover of his hood. It did nothing to soften the blow of those scars and everything to hide the tenderness beneath that Emiliano and the Buckleys hadn’t been able to carve out of him. ”Please go. Away from here, away from them. Find a life without his shadow over it. You can do that, for me?” Fingers fumbled up at the purse that dangled at her hip, trying to find her wallet. He could have every last dollar in it – Emiliano didn’t pay, not that way – a ticket to anywhere and maybe he would be safe. Nemo just needed to find the strength to take it, strength he hadn’t had when he’d walked away from her that first time.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 731