Page 61 of Until You Break
The SUV was quiet, heavy with breath and sweat, until he spoke again, almost offhand. “Are you hungry?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Hungry,” he repeated. “Come on.” His mouth curved. “We’ll get pizza.”
It was absurd, out of place, and somehow that made me laugh. A short, startled sound that broke through my chest. He grinned sharper, satisfied he’d pulled it out of me.
Half an hour later we were at a tiny place near the port, ordering too much, the old man behind the counter muttering about the heat while Damiano insisted on extra mozzarella. We fought over slices in the paper box, grease running down our wrists, me laughing when he stole the last piece and I smacked his arm in protest. For a moment we were just two boys in the sun, not a prisoner and his keeper.
We carried the second box down to the beach. Our shoes came off, feet sinking into wet sand. He splashed water at me first, sudden and cold, and I cursed loud enough to make him laugh. I shoved back, soaking the cuff of his trousers, and he onlygrinned wider. The guards stayed at a distance, shadows at the edge of the shore, but for once I forgot them.
The sun pressed warm across my face, waves sighing against the sand. For the first time since I’d been taken, peace cut through the noise. The crust still tasted of char and oregano, tomato sweet at the edges of my tongue. Sand stuck to my damp ankles where the tide rolled in, gritty and cool. I found myself speaking words I’d never given anyone else.
“My mother used to bring us here,” I said, staring out at the water. “She liked mornings best. Said the sea forgave more before the city woke.”
He stayed quiet, listening.
“When she vanished…the police came. Filed it fast, closed it faster. Adults disappear, they said, they can leave if they want.” My chest tightened. “My father told us Marcella did it. He said it like it was fact. And then he never spoke of her again.”
The tide licked higher, soaking my cuffs. I swallowed. “I kept waiting for him to avenge her. To do something. Anything. But he didn’t. He just sat at the table with his gun and his silence.”
My voice cracked on the last word. The breeze carried it away before I could catch it.
Damiano shifted closer, shoulder brushing mine, anchoring without gentleness.
“For a long time after she vanished,” I said, forcing the words out, “all I could think of was finding her. I asked questions in back streets, searched records, slipped coins into palms for scraps of rumor. I dug until my father found out.”
He turned his head, studying me like he was reading the shape of a bruise. “And then?”
“He shut me down hard,” I said, voice small. “Threatened my safety. Threatened to block the scholarship to Paris, my mother’s dream for me. That was the card he needed. I stopped.”My fingers twisted in the hem of my shirt. “I stopped looking because I was scared, and I’ve carried that guilt like a stone.”
I let the words hang between us, raw and unfinished. My throat worked.
Damiano shifted, his gaze drifting to the horizon as though weighing whether to let me deeper in. “My mother never forgave Riccardo,” he said finally. “When Isa vanished, she lived it like it was her own skin torn off. She told us flat-out that he killed her. I don’t even know how she knew, but she always knows everything, always digging, always ready to ruin your family if she has to.” His mouth tightened, a flicker of something like regret. “I grew up with that certainty in the house. With her rage filling every silence.”
Damiano’s hand found my knee, squeezing once, competent and brief. His other hand lifted, brushing his knuckles over my cheek, a touch startlingly gentle. He kissed me then, firm and unhurried, sealing the words between our mouths. When he pulled back, his breath brushed mine. “Strange,” he murmured, almost thoughtful. “It feels almost good, speaking it aloud with you.”
My chest tightened, but I found myself nodding. “It does. Like the weight isn’t mine alone anymore.”
He didn’t press for more. He only let me have the space to say it and then nodded, as if that alone altered something.
Afterwards, when the words had been spoken and the sun sat heavy on my face, I felt something shift inside me where I had learned to hurt myself. It was an old, familiar ache along the inside of my thighs, the place where I’d press hard when the guilt wanted to make a home. It felt connected to the admission, a physical echo of the weight lifting and settling at once. The confession didn’t fix anything, but it made the stone less alone in my chest.
The waves rolled in, cool and endless. I breathed, sun hot against my face, and for one suspended moment it felt like I wasn’t chained.
Damiano’s phone buzzed. He answered without looking at me, his voice dropping into that calm drawl I hadn’t heard often enough to get used to. He spoke of territory, of leaving Valenti streets behind, of Enzo’s face, of where we were now, the beach, pizza, the guards close. He sounded detached, precise, a man cutting facts into order. I watched his mouth move, the low timbre of his voice almost too smooth, and for a moment I forgot the words themselves. All I saw was how beautiful he looked, sunlight catching on the line of his jaw, shaping the syllables like he owned even silence.
When the call ended, his eyes lifted to me. Heat rushed to my face and I looked away, caught in the act of staring. His mouth curved faintly, knowing.
“Let’s go,” he said at last. “That was Alesso. He’s worried. It’s been restless all day. Better we head home now.”
He rose first, brushing sand from his trousers. I pulled my shoes back on, shaking grit from them before sliding my feet inside. He offered a hand without ceremony, steadying me as I stood. The box that once held pizza was folded and tucked under Adrian’s arm, the guards already falling into step. The breeze off the water carried salt and the faint cries of gulls as we left the shoreline behind. Gravel shifted underfoot when we reached the path, the car waiting with doors open. He guided me toward it with a hand at my back, firm but not rough. Once inside, leather creaked beneath us, the hum of the engine starting up. Adrian’s shoulders eased when the doors shut, a flicker of relief crossing his face as if he too had been waiting for this moment. The guards exchanged quick glances in the mirror before focusing forward again. I noticed it, the quiet exhale of men glad to be leaving Valenti territory behind. It pressed against me, thisreminder of how dangerous today had been, even in its lighter moments. What if they had succeeded? If the Valenti guards had taken me back, I would have been saved,at least that’s what the street would call it. What kind of life would that have been? Would my father look at me differently if I returned as his son, instead of as the Bellandi husband? Even if our papers meant nothing in the courts, mafia law was its own scripture, and within it our marriage was iron. My father would see it. He would have to.
Enzo’s face still haunted me, the laughter over pizza, the splash of water at my ankles, and the words I had spilled about my mother that I had never given to anyone. The day had been mine in ways it should never have been, and yet it was already claimed by him.
By the time the SUV turned back toward the mansion, the sky had broken into night. Palermo’s lights scattered sharp against shadow.
The SUV curved through the gates of the Bellandi mansion, gravel crunching sharp under the tires. Floodlights painted the stone façade, guards dipping their heads as we passed. My chest still heaved with a tension that wasn’t only mine. His hand never left my nape.
