One shots

Messages from her

"Your body is a museum of natural disasters can you grasp how stunning that is."- Rupi Kaur

Home. Closing his car door behind him, he leaned against the popping cherry red mustang, his men around him already moving inside and to their stations. He closed his eyes, shoulders rigid from the growing tension, as he finally took a deep breath of air in. He worked the muscles in his neck to try get out some of the stiffness rolling his head and shoulders before looking up at the glaring sun that worked to warm the blood in his veins, and try to calm the brewing storm inside his chest. He was most definitely home.

The irony wasn't lost on her. The beauty of the afternoon sun against her inner conflicting turmoil that was trying to combust out of her. She smiled to herself ruefully as her hand unconsciously feathered over her stomach before falling limp by her side. Tears prickling the back of her eyes, and the flood of anger and despair inside her pushed harder to overspill. To drown her and let her live in the comfort of the darkness all over again. The ring that hung hidden in between her breasts snuggly over her heart burned. It scorched her skin there to the point it had begun to imprint itself onto her, leaving her a searing scar that would forever serve as an reminder. Her breaths came out ragged like she had been out running, short shaky intakes and with the seconds she watched him from the shadows of the window she found it harder to take in much needed air. Her chest tightened, her hand pressed against it in a futile attempt at soothing away the pain, as the palpitations of her heat grew more unsteady. Her palms hot and sticky as the first drops of sweat began to form on them. Her other hand shot out to the window framing for support to hold herself up, curling around the edge as she grew desperate for some relief. And the first sound of a dead souls plea escaped her. Andrea had definitely come home.

He squinted behind the black tint of his shades. They hid a lot. The shadows and bags under his eyes from restless nights of not being able to sleep and from over working himself. Whilst all his brothers liked to work he was always the first up for anything. Anything to take away the pain, to help deliver the onslaught of torture he had begun to inflict on himself. He outdid Tecero at this rate who was their designated workaholic. But the shades also worked to hide his loss, his love, his guilt, and desire of want. They hid the way his chocolate brown eyes scanned the windows of the towering mansion. Each window enough to give away movement and a clear snapshot of his family home. Of his hidden memories. His eyes cast upwards searching room by room that he could tell out with his eyes closed. And just as sudden as that, he caught the flash of a hidden dark shadow that disappeared as quick as a blink.

She was restless, her hands kept entwining and letting go. Over and over as she felt like her head was going to explode and her heart leap out her chest. The tension in her shoulders grew as did her rigidity. She paced the space of the kitchen, once, twice, four times, she had lost count seconds ago. She felt it, the slow development of her going crazy in this instance. Her mama was no doubt by the door waiting for him to come in, if the indication that she wasn't present was anything to go by. Her mama, the fact she had hidden so much from her alone had her already broken heart shattering to tiny smithereens.

But what made her really break a sweat was knowing once she returns it really means he's really here. They'd be walking in the same spaces, be confined in the same home unless he planned on being out until all hours into the morning everyday, but it meant if by accident they met it would be damn hard to ignore him. Just like she had been failing at miserably doing for the past five years nine months. She would hide herself in the quarters of the outhouses and the kitchen. She wouldn't not stay in her room. It was her safest bet.

Mama Giada stood by the door patiently waiting for him. He could feel her gaze on him and he flinched unconsciously. Maybe it was the resemblance. That he could see his Gianna looking like her in her ageing days. Maybe it was because she had inherited the same jade green eyes that continued to stare at him now, the ones he could read all day as they told the story of her life. Or maybe it was the genetic dark caramel hair she has that he used to love to run his hands through, twirl around his finger as she would look at him like he was the centre of her universe.