HELENA’S POV
When Matteo meant shopping, the last thing I would’ve ever thought was that he was going car shopping and he was using me to fill up the void.
“What would Dante think of you, parading me around in automobile shop and looking for a car that doesn’t exist?” I said as we walked into the third shop and Matteo already looked unimpressed even though I seemed a bit starstruck at the luxuriousness of the place.
“I doubt he’d care much” he said it so casually like he wasn’t thinking but it stung all the same, a biting feeling in my chest that wouldn’t pass away.
“Besides I’m following strict instructions to not let you out of my sight today” he continued.
“Why?” I voiced out, as he inspected a white colored Ferrari, with the salesperson hot on our heels ready to read out specifications I knew Matteo wasn’t in interested in.
“You’re a flight risk” he said plainly and then looked at the salesperson right after “I’ll take it.
Moments later, Matteo and I stepped out and just immediately after, a young girl stood with her father at the corner of the street. She looked about height, maybe about twenty and he had her hands wound around the arms of an man whom I presumed to be her father and then suddenly she said.
“You promised Papa, you promised I would get the shoes if I get an A in my chem test” then she waved a paper in his face with a proud look on her face and the old man seemed more surprised than pleased that she had passed the test. He surely wasn’t expecting. But that wasn’t what got to me, it was the tenderness in his gaze and the expectations in hers, it was the bond they shared that was glaring it hurt my eyes.
A sudden tightness caught my chest, and I felt the unfamiliar feeling of grief seize me by the throat, threatening to snuff out the air from my lungs. That was when it occurred to me how I never really had the time to grieve my father, the memories pushed forward in my head and I couldn’t pull my eyes away from them. The air felt suffocating and I heard those gunshots reverberate in my head only it wasn’t actually in my head and suddenly Matteo grabbed me by my wrist with a force that nearly knocked the wind out of me.
“Fuck” I heard him growl as he pushed me into a corner that was hidden from the street and covering me with his body, I managed to sneak a look behind and I saw the old man on the floor, with blood pooling at his head. My entire body seized immediately as Matteo pushed me in the corner and I was back at the engagement brunch, the gunshots sounding off in the air and my brother’s body shielding me just as he blood dripped on my face. That was when the sickening realization dawned on me, Luca wasn’t protecting, he was dead and he had collapsed on my body in the process.
“Helena” I heard my name, but I was stuck in a freeze mode. I couldn’t move or speak, hell I couldn’t even think.
“Helena!” the voice yelled louder pulling me out of my reverie and when I eventually came to, I found myself staring into Matteo’s eyes as he looked at me strangely but the overwhelming grief still consumed me and the tears began to flow so hard that I crumpled without my control.
“He wasn’t protecting me” I cried, the words spilling themselves out of my mouth.
“What?” Matteo’s confused voice came through.
“He wasn’t fucking protecting me, he was dead” my knees gave in and I fell to the floor, the tears pushing themselves out of my eyes. “He was fucking dead. He didn’t die protecting me, he never even had the chance to and I couldn’t even grieve him properly”
My chest tightened, my eyes burned from the relentless tears that flowed out of my eyes and just then like the high tension in the air and unexpectedness of it all, I felt Matteo’s lone hand on my shoulder, an awkward tap brewing forward and just then he pulled out a white handkerchief from his pocket and he handed it to me. I stared from the handkerchief to his eyes, which just seemed to bear a helpless look rather than a pitiful look and immediately I stood up from the floor, not even remembering how I had ended up there in the first place.
I dusted my skirt and my cardigan and I snatched the handkerchief a bit too quickly than I had intended, I was embarrassed and if the redness of my cheek wasn’t proving that, I wasn’t sure what will.
“Don’t don’t ever do that again” he said to me, still bearing the same helpless only this time it seemed a bit clouded by confusion.
“Why? Can’t stand a woman crying?”
“Yes” he said, I stared at him a bit taken aback by the sudden truth. “Tugs at the strings of my non-existent heart”
Then he looks at me, as if trying to conjure out my thoughts from my eyes and then he pulls his eyes away and looks out into the street
“Let’s get out of here, the charity event is in an hour and I need to take you to get dressed”
I didn’t say a word as Matteo pulled me out of the corner and straight to the car that was parked at the other side of the street.
After I was done getting ready at the beauty salon and slipping into a sleek back Narcisso Rodriguez dress that hugged my ankles and cinched my waist and it was no longer Matteo behind the wheel when I stepped out but a totally different man I hadn’t seen before but he had the look on the mafia and just one his right arm was spade tattoo of the D’angelo clan. He nodded at me and driving straight to the event that was already crowded with in shining tuxes and dazzling flowing dresses that kissed the floor.
This was my first public appearance since I returned back from Paris, I wasn’t much of a public figure but I had gained some recognition since my debut in ballet and also being the daughter of a drug lord that was brutally murdered in a gang war, so I wasn’t surprised when a storm of paparazzi blazed my way nearly blinding my eyes with their flashing lights
But just when I thought I was getting used to it, I felt a pair of strong arms snake around my waist and pulling me to them. My breath hitched in my throat, the scent was unmistakable, it was overpowering and it carried the magnitude of the darkness he possessed. I felt his breath heavy on my head, judging from the way he towered above me.
I didn’t need to look, I knew it was him.
“What are you doing?” I said through the smiles I put on from the camera
“What married couples do”
I snickered silently “We’re not married not yet”
It was his time to laugh silently and then he said “You have my engagement ring on your finger, technically we’re together”
It wasn’t his words that brought a tight feeling to my chest, it was when I unconsciously felt my finger for the ring and I realized it was gone.