to the moon

’I’m sad you didn’t make it back to New Orleans for Christmas. I know we didn’t leave it all in a good place, but maybe we can move on from what happened. Call me, OK?’

Giorgia laughed as she reached out to delete the message. Not sent on Christmas morning when she’d failed to walk downstairs at the house to find Pat in his spot around the tree again. There’d been no way she was going to open herself up to that, even if there was a chance he’d be there.

Would Nemo have risked sending a message like that when he was in the snake’s nest? With eyes and ears operating at Emiliano’s paranoia levels it would only take a single slip to have the snake turning as he had done before. She’d expected that crooning, taunting call to come at any time. The only thing that might have distracted him from it the video that had been leaked by a foolish child. Even that wouldn’t have lasted. Emiliano had been determined to keep his step-daughter and his son, not that there was an ounce of that corrupted blood in his system. He would say what was allowed, he would give them every freedom they could enjoy, anything outside of his permission Emiliano would crush.

Roxxi certainly hadn’t had a call home, although who would have dared to do it? The line had been drawn under her sister, although Giorgia doubted that Roxxi believed that. She had likely spent the holiday wrapped up in Chase Buckley’s arms, shutting out the foul world she’d crawled from, ignoring the fact that it clung to the detective and his brother still. As it would Nemo if he slipped from Emiliano’s clutches again to return to her.

Looking up as she parked in the lot at the back of her building, she hoped to find the lights on, that sign that her moon had made it back out. Nothing. Yet. Giorgia’s stomach ached faintly. For years his absence had been a hole torn through the heart of her. Her marriage had left something hollow and thin enough to see through patching it, but that was gone, replaced with what should have been there the whole time. Climbing out of the car, with the briefcase of work she still had to wrap tonight clutched in one hand, Giorgia reached for her throat with the other, fingers at her throat, closing around the part of him he’d left with her before he’d left. He might not be waiting for her tonight, but he would be back, she trusted that this time.

The elevator rattled up slowly, depositing her at her floor with a clank of its doors. Giorgia gave her a little groan as she opened the apartment door – quieter, although her heels clacked against the baseboard as she kicked them off inside the doors and hung up her coat. There’d be no note either, no sense that he’d been here, that warmth that came with knowing that he had been in her space, almost close enough to touch missing for now. The ones that had been left were in the drawer of her nightstand, her gaze going to it as she dumped her briefcase on the end of the bed. She’d reread them while he’d been gone, the fish, like the necklace imprinting on her like his touch, like the tattoo once had.

Giorgia didn’t need to look in the mirror to see the patch of clear skin where it had once been. She felt it as keenly as his touch – her second biggest mistake, falling in love with Pat a distant third. Her suit was hung up in the closet. It had been a shame to wear it on what should’ve been a holiday spent with him here, the world shut out, the window and its blinds down as they reunited, but there had been a fresh case and no reason to push the work on it tomorrow. The shirt – not one of Pat’s, she’d clawed those to pieces – was slipped on, covering that clear skin.

Her fingers were still on the buttons as she stepped out of her bedroom, leaving the briefcase behind as she padded past the bathroom door, left cracked after her shower earlier. The window …

Hope swelled in her chest as she saw it, swelling up in her so big that she didn’t sense him. If she’d thought Nemo had finally made it back, was waiting there for her, she might have caught his scent, or heard the thumping beat of his heart. His fingers were cold against the back of her neck, leaving her flinching, yelping as he grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her down. Giorgia fell back into him, bare feet slipping out from under her as she twisted awkwardly. Hitting the hallway floor on one hip, she tried to twist, grunting as her bare knees barked against the boards.

Not Nemo. Not any of Emiliano’s men that he recognised, although there had been plenty slinking around in the shadows of the house, not welcome far enough into the circle to come near the family. Snakes, like him, hissing as she slammed the heels of her hands into the pit of his stomach, claws sprouting from his fingers raking at him. His belt sagged, a thin line of blood soaking through the thick dark fabric of his sweatshirt as he raised a foot and kicked at her. The boot caught her in one collarbone, the delicate arc of it snapping, her lip splitting as she fell back. Giorgia flipped her hair back from her head, tried to scramble back, but he was here.

The sob rolled out of her as she looked up to see Nemo coming towards her. The man’s shadow fell over her, one of her arms coming up to defend herself from the next blow just long enough to rip at his ankles and down him. Nemo was there first though, power tearing out of his with a single word. The man flying back towards her apartment door as she slid into the dining room. He was there as she curled, expecting to slam into the edge of the table, a warmth at her back, a shield against the blow she would’ve taken.

Giorgia pressed herself back against him, her arm curling along his. The whimper rolled out as her collarbone snapped itself back into place. She felt his cheek against her hair and pressed herself harder into him. ”I’m alright. I’m going to be alright. He barely got to touch me. I …” I’ll heal. The words stuck in her throat, the taste of her blood seeming to fill her mouth again as she saw the man start to rise. Nemo was already turning them, his shoulders angling to take the blow if it would come. No!

Her fingers clung to him, her lips peeling back from teeth longer than human ones as she snarled at him. ”He should be down already,” she rasped softly as the man started to laugh. He should have been behind bars, rotting there for what he’d done.

Oh, it looked like she’d found herself a little friend, one who’d protect the bitch, of course. They always clustered around the saints while guys like him were left with their asses hanging out in the wind. They never wanted to know about them until trouble came and then, well. ”You gonna pull the Harry Potter act with me again?” he asked, laughing as he rubbed a hand over the back of his head. ”Tough luck pal. You should’ve got hands on.” His hand dipped behind into his pocket for the blade, popping it out of the shield of the hilt before he flung it towards them, already scrambling up his knees. A few minutes longer and he’d have used it to cut the bitch’s throat.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1319

Safety was Nemo’s arms around her, the broad span of a chest that had been her pillow as they’d snuck out to lay in the park with the stars overhead and the moon that was a sliver away from full hanging like a lantern. Giorgia could see it behind her closed lids as she clung to him, the stars spinning around her. The world spinning around them in the maelstrom of Nemo’s power. He was the calm in the centre of that storm, anchoring her against him with the fist that knotted in the fabric of her shirt.

Giorgia closed her eyes, trying to drive the sting from them. She could still feel the man’s hands on her, his touch lingering after the bruises that hadn’t even had the chance to bloom faded and the split carved through her lip by his boot closed up leaving those spots of blood behind. Her hand locked around his wrist, fear hollowing her out with the echoes of the last night Nemo had held her like this. She braced herself, ready to hold on this time if those hands closed on him, tearing him away, beating him until all she had left was the trail of blood drops on the floor, forming a path she wasn’t allowed to follow.

If the man had been truly downed, she would have stayed there until the hollow eventually filled with reassurance and she was sure that Nemo wouldn’t be torn away from her – or her from him. If he’d been killed. Like the cockroach Roxxi had accused her of being, the man hadn’t been crushed by those first blows. Bleeding, laughing, he levered his way up and Giorgia allowed herself to be pushed around Nemo’s body. Her hands curled at his sides, clutching at him as that stocky body unfurled. ”No!” The shriek felt as though it tore out of her, ripping her heart from her chest, her claws from her fingertips as she tried to push past that restraining hand to get between them. She wasn’t losing him, couldn’t.

The blade stopped. Her heart stopped.

For a breathless second Giorgia just stared, her hand still dragging at Nemo’s arm like she could draw him back from the lethal point he was taking in her place. Then the blade flipped, a quick glitter of that razor edge as it flew back the way it had come and hit the man with a wet thud that immediately had her feeling sick. She let out a moan, sinking down on the edge of the table as Nemo walked towards the man. Ain’t my style. Hurting people had never been his style, even if he’d done everything – almost everything – Emiliano had asked of him. Those hands were made for tenderness, long, delicate fingers curling around hers, making everything feel as though it would be alright. This time it wasn’t.

There was no laughter now. A croak of agony gurgled out of the man, the blade seeming to have stolen his voice for a moment along with the eye that was nothing but pulp and a slick of blood and fluid rolling down the side of his face now. ”S-should’ve k-killed the bitch. Slit her throat. Yours t-t-too.” Fingers fumbled their way along the floor, trying to find their way to one of those skinny ankles. Giorgia saw the anger flash on the man’s pale face as Nemo lifted a foot, his hand clutching the way hers had at the leg of his jeans. He screamed again, the sound surely loud enough for someone in the building to hear. More of those scarlet splashes spattering his face before the blade plunged into the side of his neck and everything stopped.

She couldn’t watch, not the way Nemo did. Giorgia wrapped her arms around herself, curling forward as though she could hold back her fear if she just wrapped herself tightly enough around it. The twitch ran through her like the bolts of electricity her sister could produce at will now as Nemo rushed back towards her. Swallowing hard, she unfurled, a leaf that wouldn’t crumble to dust in his hands as he gathered her in. Giorgia curled her fingers into the dip of his spine, clinging. Her forehead pressed to his chest, her eyes slipping shut. She could still see him behind her closed lids, the blade quivering in the air, like a single breath would’ve released it, allowing it to slice through flesh already so scarred.

”You stopped him....” The words were barely a croak. Eyes already shimmering like mirrors with her tears fixed on his face as Nemo looked down at hers. She wanted to shake, to allow herself to fall into his hold, but Giorgia forced herself to nod. ”Thanks to you. He didn’t hurt me, didn’t have the chance to.” Not much at least. He would’ve found she wasn’t the sort of woman who was easy to take down, not once she’d had her feet back under her. The blade might’ve carved into her, drawing more of those rubies to the surface, scattering them across the floor like the river of them streaming from the man now, but she would have healed.

The brush of his thumb over her lower lip was enough to loosen the bands of fear around her chest. Giorgia slid her hands back to his sides, curling around those lean hips as she looked past him. The body was still in her peripheral vision, her eyes locked on her bedroom door. ”He must have already been here when I got home. I came in, took a shower. It was closed when I came home...” She twisted in his grip, her frowning deepening as she stared at the window he’d exploded through to rescue her. ”When I came out it was open. I thought you were here, that you’d made it back from them. He was behind me, he grabbed me.” The feel of his fingers was still on her skin, leaving her shuddering again. ”Why would he do that? Why would he send one of them after me now?” Because she hadn’t gone home to lock herself back in that cage. There was one way to drive the bird back there – scare it.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1033

In the hollow centre of her bedroom, Roxxi had been the one to hold her after Nemo had been dragged away for the final time by Emiliano. Her sister was shorter, softer in some ways as she’d been gathered in, harder in so many others. She’d fallen apart there, unable to string together anything but the plea for him to be brought back, wishing that it was Nemo’s hand that smoothed over her back and brushed her hair back from cheeks that ran with tears for hours. He was her safe harbour, her love, her moon. And then he hadn’t been hers at all.

Giorgia could feel the imprint of every hug there would’ve been on bones that felt hollow now. Echoes of what had been taken by the greed of a man who had deserved none of what he’d possessed. The scars carved deep by what Emiliano had taken from her again. The love that he’d never been able to entirely drive out of her, even if the claim her moon had placed on her skin had been burned away.

Regret tried to swim up through her as Nemo’s touch eased from her lip to her chin to draw her gaze up to him, but Giorgia pushed it down. The time to rue what had been lost was past. She had him now, she would keep him as long as there was breath in her lungs and her heart still beat, fast as a rabbit’s in her chest. Giorgia pushed it down, trying to weigh it in the depths of her mind with the relief Nemo’s proximity brought her. She didn’t want to consider what might have happened if he hadn’t arrived, what he would’ve find if it had taken just a few moments longer. Eyes gone flat in death couldn’t carry regret, or hope, or love.

All three emotions had flooded through her, that wave cresting highest with hope, when she’d seen the window standing open. She’d spent too many days alone here, desperate for what had been denied to her for so long. Giorgia’s breath hitched in her throat, threatening a fresh explosion of tears. Her fingers curled tighter, gathering the fabric stretched across his hips into her grip. She shook her head, almost denying that it could’ve been from anybody else, but if he had been Emiliano’s, Nemo should’ve recognised him. ”Maybe he’s new, trying to find some way in with the family.” Like Mikey Buckley once had. Her gaze latched onto his throat, her brow furrowing at the rush of relief that Emiliano had never seared that monstrosity into his skin.

Peeling her fingers from his side, she reached up, brushing them over that unmarked skin. Just inches away there was so much damage, cutting up the surface, but not damaging the most vital part of him. Giorgia’s gaze flickered up again as he brought it back to them, a full circle away from Emiliano. ”Not them … not Mikey. Chase a time or two … I had to, at the station.” An apology died on her lips. She still between the two of them, hovering at the edge of disbelief that Chase had been the one to do that to him. He had never lied to her, but those doubts remained. She lifted her chin an inch, Roxxi’s words echoing back through her mind. ”And she’s the one he hates the most,” she whispered. Right below the Buckley brothers on his list of enemies.

Giorgia’s throat grew thick as he bent, her eyes fluttering shut at the press of his lips. Her mind hadn’t stopped whirring at his question – had there been anything else going on? She swallowed, looking up at him as though she were still dazed. He would … handle it. Drawing in a deep breath, Giorgia nodded, trying to smile back. ”I’ll never let you go again,” she croaked. Needing to steady herself, she slipped her arm around him again, pressing herself tight against him for just a moment more. As she stepped back, her gaze ticking to the body for just a second, she stopped.

His face hadn’t been twisted with anger in the photographs. Those had been of a man proud of what he had done to his girlfriend, the one who had found her way free of him. ”I was … I was prosecuting him,” she croaked, her hand groping blindly for Nemo. ”For murder. His girlfriend disappeared, they haven’t found the body...” The chief of police had offered to have someone patrol for protection, but all she’d been able to imagine was one of them seeing Nemo creeping up the fire escape and a shot ringing out.

Panic hit again, leaving her breathing ragged. She turned away, flinching from the body as though the man would sit up and reach for her again. Her fingers blindly trailed along the wall as she rushed through the doorway to the bathroom. The tile was still damp under her feet, her eyes filling again as she started to unbutton the shirt she’d slipped after her last shower. There were no bruises on her knees, none of the purpling fingerprints that would have been on her skin if she had been human. Even the bead of blood had remained after the split lip healed, it was gone now, brushed away by Nemo’s tender touch. Giorgia dropped the shirt to the mat, not caring about leaving a mess behind. She just wanted to be under the water, washing the violence away from her skin.

After - how long she didn’t know – she saw motion beyond the glass wall of the shower, almost startled at it again, but she recognised the rangy body and felt her knees go weak with that sudden wash of relief. Giorgia opened the shower door just a couple of inches, offering her hand as she peered out at him. ”Please,” she croaked. ”I don’t want to be alone. I need you here.” It had only been a short time, but her body had ached for him in each second that had passed. She wanted the feel of him wrapped around her, the desperate press of his lips against hers – or would it be hers against his – everything but Nemo, his touch, his love washed away.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1045

Promises wrapped around her like the steam, offering more warmth than it possibly could. He was outside, taking care of the man who had broken into her home with the intention of killing her. God. The chill exploded through her bones again, her body shuddering, fighting against itself as it tried to heal the mental words as neatly as it had done the physical. What would have happened if Nemo had been gone one more night? If Emiliano had held him in New Orleans to stop him from coming back here to get his revenge on the Buckleys? If he’d known that Nemo was coming back to her.

That sick feeling rolled back through her, almost bringing the fear of what might have been up her throat in a hot rush. She’d seen the photos of the ex-girlfriend's apartment – a lamp shattered on the floor, the phone crushed, it’s last call to 911 not connecting before … blood in dark streaks, scored by nail marks, punctuated with the bright pink tip ripped from her hand as she’d tried to stop herself being dragged out of there to …

Safe. Nemo had sworn she was safe now. The man was dead. Giorgia shook as she scrubbed herself with soap all the same. The tremors only easing as Nemo appeared again. Bloody. Her throat worked convulsively, her eyes closing to shield herself from the sight of it. For long moments, her hand hovered in the air, her fingers reaching for him. Her anchor. Her moon.

The sob rolled through her as Nemo’s fingers finally wrapped around hers and he was there, closing them in from the lingering nightmare outside. She could still smell the blood, but she drew him in all the same. Giorgia curled her hand around the back of his neck, drawing his head down to bury her face into the safe harbour of his neck. Deep, steamy breaths, the press of the arms she’d dreamed of for so long around her.

Tears coursed down her face, washed away by the spray, leaving her eyes glassy as Nemo drew back to look at her. Giorgia kept her hand at his nape, the other settling at his ribs, fingertips curling against those delicate arcs of bone that she had imagined Emiliano snapping with brittle cracks as Emiliano had dragged him from the room. There was no room for him between them now, no space left for anything but … love. Giorgia let out a ragged breath, something close to a sob, before she drew her hand round to his cheek, bracketing those scars with her thumb and fingers as he pressed his mouth hard against hers to seal in those words.

”I love you. Ti amerò siempre.” Giorgia whispered the words on a gasp as she tipped her head back. Tears still burned in her eyes, but now it was being eclipsed by his warmth, leaching into her, racing through her as his head dipped, his lips trailing down her throat, over her chest, wringing another gasp out of her. Her hands speared into the dark, wet, silk of his hair, trying to anchor him there with her heart pounding against his lips so hard he had to feel it, to know it was his. She was his.

Tipping her head back against the tile to avoiding the stream of water half drowning her as she panted out her pleasure, Giorgia dragged her nails lightly over Nemo’s scalp. ”Please, Cuore mio. please.” Her fingers clung at the nape of his neck, her back arching to press herself against his mouth, those clever hands, her body reclaimed by the only man who should ever have had it.

He had been so gentle then, hungrier now, but never violent. He had never hurt her that way, the shattering of her heart performed without a single touch. Giorgia whimpered as his finger’s gripped suddenly, turning her, his head lifting to break the contact with her skin. Looking for...

The laser had seared her skin, an echo of the way her heart had burned in her chest as that one night turned into days and weeks of him not turning back towards her. Fingers gripping the blue paper sheet on the doctor’s table, the one that had been scattered with the dark pools of her tears by the time she rolled from it to see the unmarked skin that had once held him reflected back at her in the mirror. The tears had come again that night, sobbed into her pillow but the next morning the numbness returned. Nemo was no longer her moon, Emiliano had taken him from her and he had never tried to come back. Not until now and it was too late, she’d tried to erase him from her skin, even as he’d remained lodged in her heart, the sickle points of the crescent moon he could become dug so deep.

No. Nonononono.

Groaning low, Giorgia tried keep hold of him. Her fingers slid to his biceps, trying to hold onto the love she’d already lost once. It had left her feeling like she would die then, this time would be so much worse. A tiny taste of him, it wasn’t enough. ”P-please,” Giorgia begged, the word breaking off with a gasp as he shoved her back. Her bare shoulders hit the tile behind her. She pressed her palms back into the water warmed ceramic for a moment before she reached for him again. ”Nemo, please, I can explain. I didn’t, amore mio. I never stopped, even when my heart was broken. You have always been the only one who had it. I was … hurt.” She’d been so sure that it was a fool’s errand to keep holding those broken pieces of herself out in his direction, praying that he would turn back to her, that he would choose her again. He wasn’t going to. Each time she saw him he was turned from her, walking away from her.

She flinched as the door slammed back, the chill rushing back to erase the heat he had brought into bloom beneath her skin. Even now her moon would not hurt her, not the way he had the man out there. He was already leaving again, squirming back into clothes soaked in the man’s blood. Giorgia picked her way to the shower door, stepping out like she couldn’t tell where the floor was. Her eyes burned again, as furiously as her throat, tears welling, breaking over her lashes as she tried to reach for her. ”I was in college … I thought you had made your choice, that you wouldn’t possibly love me anymore, because he told you that you weren’t allowed to. Ti aveva portato via da me, mi ha rotto.” While Emiliano had left the bruises on his skin, hers had bloomed in her heart, taking years to start to heal. Now they were back again, purple and blue, as angry as a stormy sky.

Giorgia stumbled back a step as he crowded her, telling herself she didn’t have to cringe away from him. ”All I want is. I wish I could turn the clock back. I wish I had never been that fool.” Her hand shook as she brought it up to swipe her tears away, feeling each prick of the needle again in her skin, like she could will the tattoo back into life. She shook her head, her eyes flicking over the brutality stamped into his skin, a low moan rolling out of her at the thought. Patrick would never have given anything for her. Emiliano had let her twist herself up, believing that someone was capable of loving her.

Each word had been a slice through her heart, but he wasn’t done. It wasn’t his voice, this was a verbal blow, one that instantly drained the colour from her face, leaving red blotches behind along her cheekbones, like the slap of it had landed. Biting down on her tongue stole the sound of her grief, but the sobs still shook her as she folded in around herself. ”I’m sorry,” she groaned, like the words were dragged up from those savaged remnants of her heart. ”You’re my moon, you’ve never stopped being the only one I loved. I love you. You have to know that I do...” Reaching out again, Giorgia tried to cling to his shirt, the one that was still damp beneath her palm, the feel of the blood against her skin sending the nausea rolling up in her chest, but she couldn’t let go of him.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1432
Translate: My heart/My love/He'd taken you from me, he broke me

Minutes ago she had been begging for his touch, for the release and outpouring of the love she had been so sure of to wash away the darkness that had come so close to drowning her, now she was pleading for him to just stay. They’d had no choice to that the last time, Emiliano’s hand had been clamped on Nemo’s wrist, dragging him out, forcing the separation. There was a choice this time, she’d made it by removing that last claim of him from her skin.

It was supposed to be a healing pain. One last burst of agony – and oh, Dio, it was nothing compared to the pain she felt now – to burn the last of the heartache and grief from her. It had failed, all she’d done was drive it under ground for a time. It could fester there, bursting out in venomous little spots in those brief moments where she had realised just what a fool she’d been. None of it had healed cleanly and now Giorgia saw the gaping wounds that were still there in both of them.

They should have been holding onto one another now, healing those wounds with the touch they had been denied all those years ago. They shouldn’t have felt like this.

Giorgia’s lips pressed together hard, trying to hold onto the breath she sucked in convulsively as she threw his feelings at her like a hammer blow. How would she have known what he felt? The doors on any sort of relationship had slammed shut that night and no matter how many times she’d tried to hammer in the days immediately afterwards, it had never cracked open again. He was gone, choosing Emiliano over her, carving anything that had been between them out of his heart. She had been so wrong. Like her Nemo had buried his feelings, sealing them over to protect himself and hide that pain.

She could see it twisting through the scars on his face, barbed wire strands of it invisibly wrapped around the two of them. ”I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Thanks to Emiliano, she couldn’t have known. He’d planned it, had been aware of what it would do to the two of them to be torn apart. Perhaps that had been his goal, shatter them and then they would have no chance of defying them in the way Roxxi would do just a short time later. Whipped dogs were loyal, they knew what would happen to them if they tried to bite back. Good little puppy she had been, she’d done exactly what Emiliano had wanted her to for years. And so had Nemo.

Her explanation did nothing. She hovered there in the doorway of the shower, her hands held out like she could placate him with the truth, but not a single word seemed to land like she hoped. They weren’t a balm, they were acid to be spat back at her, burning in every wound his anger had carved into her. ”Per favore.” The plea slipped out on another whisper, as though it would do anything to make him listen, then cut off with a started yelp as he barrelled back towards her again.

”No!” There was a moan to her voice as she tried to deny what he’d said. Giorgia curled her fingers into her wet hair on either side of her head, the tears rolling faster than she could wipe them away. ”No matter whether it was there or not, I always loved you. I kept you in my heart.” While she’d destroyed the visual evidence of that love on her skin. A coward’s way of avoiding it and the questions that might have come later when Patrick had seen the tattoo. It hadn’t been the product of a drunken night, it had meant everything.

Stupidly, she had believed that what she had with Patrick would somehow match up to what she had lost. She had been blind and yes, a fool, but it hadn’t stopped the pain when all of that had been revealed. Like now, it had been a stab to the gut, the blade of it dragged up into her chest to destroy her heart.

Another punch of it at his hiss, her fingers going limp at the impact so that she couldn’t cling as he brushed her away. ”La mia luna, per favore. Credi che non ho mai smesso di amarti.” Giorgia followed him again, ignoring the robe still hanging from the back of the door, stumbling on legs that felt like stilts, wooden and not entirely in her control. Shivers ran through her, water dripping onto a floor cleared of the previous devastation – just in time for this. ”You came?” Confusion whispered through her voice, her brows drawing as she stared where he gestured, as though the road map of pain etched into his face would lead her to understanding. ”I would have gone,” she admitted hoarsely. ”If you had stayed I would have gone with you. You were still here.” Her hand thundered against her breastbone like she was trying to shake loose what had remained there, a pearl in the oyster of her heart.

What she had believed about stripping Nemo from her skin had been a lie. It hadn’t erased the past, or the love that still burned inside of her and made her feel sick at the thought of losing it now. Giorgia stood there, shaking in the darkness of her apartment, staring at the only light she’d ever had. Her eyes glimmered with the tears that well again, her body wracking with a sob as she let the truth loose. ”Always,” she admitted. His question had her face twisting, anger rising up in her throat for just a second. ”No, it was before I even knew him. Before Emiliano ever got his hands on …" Him. In the heat of the moment she hadn’t asked if it had been before or after, if Emiliano had sent Patrick to seduce her. The harsh bite of Nemo’s words cut deep. When she was lonely again. As though she were a foolish, heartbroken girl throwing a dramatic little sulk by burning photographs and swearing never to love again.

”He was never between us,” she announced, trying to keep her voice steady as she rushed towards him again. ”Every time his hands were on me, every time he told me he loved me, I imagined it was you, I heard you.” But he had been gone, caught on the outside of it, not believing that he could tear down the walls and free her. ”I love you and no tattoo is going to change that, amore mio. Please. Listen to me. Stay and let me make this right. I can’t lose you again.” Giorgia clutched at his jacket, trying to hold him back from the abyss of the fire-escape. She was sure that if he left now then that would be it, she would get no third chance. Her moon would never rise in her sky again.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 1175
Translate: My moon, please. Believe that I never stopped loving you. / My love