[RE-WRITTEN]

Liliana couldn't help but stare a little wide eyed at everyone at the dinner table. This was the first time she had sat down to eat with all three of the D'Onofrio brothers, since she arrived in America. To make the entire experience even more bizarre, Roderigo had joined them for the evening meal too. Roderigo sat to her immediate right, tense in his chair as he glared down at his plate. Both his jaw and cheek were pink and swollen, evidence of the fight between him and Marcello, not that either of them had acknowledged it. To her immediate left sat Giovanni, while Marcello and Angelo sat at the other end of the table.

Despite her usual aversions to her husband, she felt at odds without him by her side at this family meal. There was a comfort found within their act of duality, she knew without question that he would be on her side when others were present.

Liliana was infinitely thankful that Sebastiano had not returned to the manor today as planned, but was worried that Sebastiano may now know why. As idiotic as Roderigo clearly was, and as much as she was annoyed at him, Liliana didn't want Roderigo to be harmed.

"Are you okay?" Giovanni murmured beside her, noticing her expression. She hadn't said a word since she had sat down, no one had until now.

"I'm just tired." I'm always tired. Tired of this house. Tired of you all.

Giovanni gave her a tight lipped smile that didn't reach his eyes. Did he feel sorry for her? Did he realise how draining everything was becoming?

The sounds of cutlery against plates grated on her ears as silence resumed amongst them once again. Until Marcello cleared his throat and drew all attention to himself. He was staring right at her, ignoring the others as he said, "Your cousin will be coming out with us tonight, we may be back late. Perhaps you can go to bed early and get some sleep."

Was this a set up?

Roderigo would not meet her eyes when she turned to him, the man now openly glaring at her husband across the table. Liliana's lips pursed as she turned back to Marcello. His dark gaze was still fixed only on her, and as if understanding her thoughts, he shook his head slightly.

Liliana nodded once, tersely, and the silence at the table was not broken for the remainder of the meal. As soon as their plates were cleared, Liliana was the first one to her feet, escaping to the refuge of her room away from the tension between the men.

The door to the bedroom didn't stay closed for very long; five minutes after Liliana had escaped, Marcello was joining her.

He acknowledged her with a grim, barely there smile and set about on changing his shirt. With every button that he undid, Mercello's eyes strayed towards her, seeming reluctant to leave but they darted away sharply before falling back.

"Yes?" Liliana encouraged. He looked away again, moving languidly over to her, his shirt undone but clinging to his shoulders, and perched on the edge of the bed.

Cracking his knuckles, he murmured, "I wanted to talk more about your mother."

Liliana paused, taken back by the abrupt conversation topic. Their last conversation about her mother, and his, had been short and ended in uncomfortable silence.

"I- I'm not sure what else there is to say. My father never spoke about her much," she explained, mouth suddenly dry. She couldn't understand what had prompted Marcello's curiosity, nor could she forget the anonymous notes she had received that suggested Marcello knew more than he said about her mother. Already she had discovered that their mothers had been friends, that Marcello had known Emiliana Fiorenza, even if he were just a boy at the time. What else did he know?

Marcello stayed silent, and at his expectant stare, she continued hesitantly, repeating everything she had already explained to him a couple of nights ago. "My parent's marriage was arranged. She was ill fitted for a life amongst the mafia, and she was injured as a result of my fathers enemies, dying in the hospital a few days after my birth."

Mercello's lips flattened into a thin line, and he cleared his throat as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "And that's why you were so against this marriage?"

Liliana hummed. She glanced down at her hands, twisted and clenched in the fabric of her t-shirt.

"Partially," she uttered under her breath, "and then there's the fact that I had never met you before and all I had heard about you was the consequence of your family. Meeting you didn't help." Her lips twisted into a wry grin, her amusement dry. There were many reasons why she did not want this marriage, her mother was the least relevant factor. Most glaringly was the fact that being forced into a marriage was dehumanizing, refusing her control of her life and stripping her of the right to say no.

He cleared his throat before murmuring quietly, "Our mothers had a lot in common, both victims of our fathers."

Like her own mother, Liliana knew very little about Marcello's, only knowing what she had learned in the last week. His mother, Alessandro Barbato's daughter, had killed herself. Depression, is what Barbato had believed responsible, and yet Marcello seemed to be of a different belief - or he believed his father had contributed.

"Why the questions all of a sudden?"

Mercello shrugged in reply and stood to his feet, moving to remove his shirt as he grabbed for the clean one already out and waiting for him to change into. His movements were slow as he slipped his arms inside the long sleeved shirt, as if giving himself time to formulate an appropriate answer - as if his initial response, the truth, should be ignored.

"I spoke to my father," he explained with his back to her as he dressed. "... about my mother, and about Alessandro."

"Oh?" she mused. He had taken her advice after all.

Marcello sighed, moving over to the books arranged on their drawers. He grabbed the worn Italian copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and brought it over to her. "This was my mother's," he explained in a soft murmur. "I don't have much of hers."

He opened the book, finding the photographs within of his mother, Adriana, and her mother, Emiliana.

"For what little I knew my own mother, Emiliana was like a second mother to me. That's why I keep her photograph." Marcello's voice was tight as he frowned down at the creased photographs in his hand, a hand that shook ever so slightly. Liliana instinctively laid a steady hand on his forearm, offering a gentle squeeze.

His eyes met hers, dark and intense, and filled with more emotion than she had witnessed from her husband before. Uncomfortable, and desperate to create some distance between them, Liliana looked away, withdrawing her hand to her lap.

"I wish I could have known her, my mother," Liliana confessed, so quietly she wondered if he had even heard her. "I wonder if things would be different at all, if she were still here."

"I wonder the same thing."

"Tonight, with Roderigo," Liliana cleared her throat suddenly. "What are you doing?"

All vulnerability vanished from Marcello's demeanour. He smirked lazily, uttering, "I'm not taking him out to kill him, if that's what you're worried about."

"Mar..." Liliana said in a warning tone, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. That had, of course, been what she had worried about.

His eyes lit up, and this time he laid a comforting hand on her arm. "We're just going to talk, I promise."

"The last time you were 'just going to talk', you came back with bruised knuckles," she said dryly, pointedly looking down at his hands. "Do they know, your brothers and father, do they know what he was planning?"

"They don't," he assured firmly.

"Please keep and eye on Roderigo. If Sebastiano has even a hint of what he was planning..." She bit her lip. "Just please watch out for him."

Marcello conceded with a nod, and leaned in to place a soft kiss at her temple before she could pull away. "I'll see you later tonight."

Liliana doubted she would still be awake when they returned. Despite how anxious she felt at the thought of Roderigo out with all three D'Onofrio brothers, outnumbered and alone, she was exhausted - both physically and emotionally. She wanted nothing more to return to her bed, curl into herself and hide beneath the bedsheets, but now all she could think of was his hand on her arm, and his lips on her temple.

***

Shrugging a thick, knitted cardigan onto her shoulders, Liliana exited her bedroom hours later in desperate need of hot cup of tea. Her anxiety had not settled since Marcello and the others had left the manor, and no amount of exhaustion had overcome that. At this point she didn't know what else she could do to relax.

It certainly didn't help that Marcello remained so present in her mind, as well as the surprisingly intimate conversation they had shared just moments before he had left. Now she was entirely alone in the house - save for the guards that remained.

The lights of the house were turned off, and Liliana didn't bother to turn them on, relying on the dim glow of her mobile screen and her knowledge of the manor's layout. The kitchen wasn't that fair away, and all she wanted was to quickly grab a cup of chamomile tea before burying herself back in bed.

"Shit." The sound of a gruff, male voice to her left caught her off guard.

Liliana barely had time to turn towards the noise before she was on the floor. Her vision was blurred and a white hot pain stabbed at her head. Something sharp lay beneath her cheek but she couldn't move to check. Her breaths were laboured and her eyes remained unfocused; but despite the ringing in her ears she could still hear the deep thunder of a voice.

"You said the house was empty!" The voice was a garble mess that Liliana could barely decipher, vibrating loudly in her ears.

She tried to move but the room was tilting with every small shift of her head, nausea overcoming her in a rolling wave that began in her stomach and rose like lava into her throat. Her slim fingers twitched against carpet, fingertips tapping against something cold and wet. She had been hit with something. A vase? Whatever it was, it had shattered on impact.

"You said no one would be here, now I've got to clean up your mess. This wasn't a part of the job."

Though Liliana could hear every word spoken, they seemed so distorted and distant. It was hard to place what was reality and what was not. She shifted, her groans muffled against the carpet, to turn towards her assailant, struggling to push herself up. Blinking furiously, an image of a person hunched against the wall was all she could make out, and the sight of something bulky clutched by their side. A gun.

Liliana whimpered, quiet enough not to catch the attackers attention - or perhaps they simply didn't care of her consciousness. Their hit was hard and Liliana felt the bile at the back of her throat. As the seconds passed she became more aware of her surroundings. The relentless throbbing in her skull expanded across her entire body, growing with each heavy thud of her heartbeat, and she was aware of the warm blood that painted her skin and the cool shards of glass digging deep into the palm of her hands.

"How do I finish the job when I have a body to dispose of?" The deafening volume had her flinching. With her knees curled to her chest, her hands were flattened against the carpet, despite the sharp burning pain, as Liliana strained to push her body up to her feet again.

To her left, the male voice continued its furious taunts. Liliana's fingers curled around a large shard; a weapon. The sharp edges cut into her skin, fresh blood seeping across her hand but it was drowned out by the pain in her head, and the ache in her chest that made it so hard to breathe.

She crawled to her feet on unsteady legs and clambered forward. She had their attention.

It was man, barely taller than her, with his mobile in one hand and his gun in another. He was unprepared for her awareness, she could see it reflected in his widened eyes. But she didn't allow for his panic to distract her from hers. Her body staggered across the miniscule gap between them, her weapon thrust forward as gravity pulled both it and her into the intruders body. His flesh was pierced, his breathing disrupted as the stains in the carpet grew. Liliana was splayed across the collapsed, dying body, her breathing irregular as her sight was tinged with black.

He was struggling still, clinging to his life in the way Liliana clung to hers. His hands gripped at her throat, fingers bruising in an constricting grip - one that grew weaker with every gargled breath. One which ceased within seconds.

Liliana tried to fling herself from the man but in reality only managed to crumpled beside him, the image of that glass shard jutting out from the mans throat burned into her eyes. She couldn't know how long she laid their, amidst the blood and broken glass. And when the sound of heavy footsteps reached her ears her heart began to beat at a tempo that hurt.

She forced herself to her feet, eyes wide burning as tears escaped and drenched her cheeks. Despite her horror and assumption that someone else had come to bring forth her immanent death, her distorted sight was filled only with the face of her husband.

"I know how to take care of myself," Liliana heaved through gasping sobs. Her head was light and her chest tight - she couldn't breathe, couldn't see as black spots danced in her eyes. Unable to prevent it, her legs crumbled under the weight of her relief and her body came crashing down onto the hard floor with an echoing bang, her knees burning, as her hands clutched at the front of her shirt. Fat tears rolled down her flushed face, streaming into her mouth and down past her chin to her neck.

"Liliana, Liliana baby, il mio amore, it's okay, listen to me," Mercello clutched at her shoulders, bringing her head to rest on his chest as he kissed at her hair hard enough to bruise his lips. "You're okay," he ushered again and again but her gaze was fixed on the floor as she smeared the blood from her hands against her shirt, her breathing only calming slightly.

She could still see him, just a metre ahead. The lifeless body of a man she had killed. Killed.

His blood stained her. She was tainted with it forever. She could never been clean again, not of him.

***

Marcello stared in horror at the sight of his wife's body crumpled against the ground, drenched in blood. The hallway was covered in it, and Marcello couldn't tell just how much of it was Liliana's.

She wasn't okay, not at all. She needed medical attention quick but Mercello couldn't seem to move from the floor, couldn't release the grip his arms had around her trembling body. She was still crying. How long had she been here, like this? How long had she sat in this blood, beside such filth. How long had she struggled at his mercy?

He could never let her leave his sight ever again. Not after this, not after almost losing her life.

Whatever fears he'd had about her safety, had now been confirmed. Marcello didn't recognise the piece of shit that had dared to enter his home and lay a hand on his wife but it didn't matter. All he would need was the image of his face and his brothers could track down who was responsible soon enough. There was no way in hell that Marcello wouldn't punish those responsible for this.

"Get the damn doctor!" He bellowed, turning to glare at his brothers who stood frozen, taking in the scene with a shocked silence.

"Marcello, is she-"

"I said get the doctor!" The volume of his voice shot to his brothers with ferocity. There was no patience to wait for a response; he was already lumbering to his feet, dragging Liliana with him, on knees that tumbled and with hands that shook to mirror the reckless rhythm of his heart.

He stumbled the entire path to their room, refusing anyone's aid, all the while Liliana sobbed silently to herself with her face pressed painfully into his chest.







Q. Lot's of things to unpack in this chapter. Thoughts on what the hell just happened? Thoughts on Liliana and Marcello?