Sempre: Redemption

40

I fucking love you.”

The words still echoed in Carmine’s head an hour later. Could it be that easy? He wanted to believe it, wanted to give in, but he was still conflicted. He couldn’t be positive he could keep her safe or be the man she deserved. He struggled to function on his own, and the last thing he wanted to do was drag her down with him. He would never forgive himself if he got her hurt.

Carmine glanced away from Haven, sighing as he considered that, and noticed Corrado watching him with a peculiar look on his face. His penetrating stare burned through him, painful and raw, a bit of pity lingering behind the obvious judgment. Carmine stared back, their eyes connecting for only a few seconds, but it felt as if an eternity passed under the scrutiny of his gaze.

A phone rang then and Carmine breathed a sigh of relief when his uncle looked away. Corrado pulled out the phone, silencing the ringing before casually slipping it back into his pocket. He sat unmoving for a moment, his expression vacant and shoulders relaxed, but Carmine could tell from the way he flexed his fingers at his side that he was stressed.

And Corrado on edge was never good for anybody.

He draped his arm over Celia’s shoulder and pulled her closer, whispering something in her ear. She tensed as she listened, glancing past him to where Carmine stood by the door. When he saw her worry, every ounce of relief he had felt a moment before washed away. Something was going on, and based on Celia’s expression, whatever Corrado had planned most likely concerned him.

Carmine wasn’t surprised. As long as Salvatore was still out there, somewhere, his life was at risk. Glancing at Haven again, his paranoia flared. They had fought to keep her out of the line of fire, and she had unknowingly walked right onto the battlefield.

He stood there for another minute, his unease growing until it all got to be too much. He slipped out of the room quietly, desperate for a drink, hoping it would help him clear the convoluted thoughts from his head. He ducked outside, surveying the streets quickly for any sign of trouble, but someone called his name before he could get more than a few steps away. Carmine froze at the sound of the voice and glanced behind him, seeing Corrado following.

“You’re leaving without saying anything? Where are you going?”

Carmine sighed as his uncle paused beside him on the sidewalk. “Home.”

“Home?” Corrado shook his head. “As many times as I speak to you about your behavior, you’d think it would sink in by now! You have absolutely no respect for your family. You treat them as if they’re disposable to you. Do you even care what they’re going through right now? Your father’s dead!”

Carmine scoffed defensively, words flying from his mouth as he lost his temper. “Yeah, because of you.”

Corrado’s eyes darkened. He grabbed Carmine before he could utter another word and slammed him back against the brick house. Clutching his throat tightly, Corrado pinned him there, cutting off the flow of air. Carmine desperately grasped at his large hands, trying to pry them off as he struggled to breathe, but Corrado’s grip was too strong.

“If you know what’s good for you, you won’t ever speak to me like that again,” Corrado said, his voice low and laced with venom. “Your family is in enough pain right now. Don’t make me give them another reason to grieve.”

He let go and took a few steps back as Carmine bent over, gasping for air. “What the fuck?” he spat, his eyes burning with tears. Corrado stepped forward again and Carmine flew upright immediately, holding his hands up defensively. “Christ, I didn’t mean it! I, uh . . . I’m sorry, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay,” Corrado replied. “This entire time I’ve been cutting you slack because you can’t get over whatever you shared with Haven, and now that she’s here, this is how you act? What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong is she shouldn’t be here,” he gasped, still trying to catch his breath. “She’s going to get hurt. They’re all going to get hurt.”

“You’re avoiding them to keep them safe?” Corrado laughed bitterly. “Well, that’s . . . honorable, I suppose, but it’s also insulting. Do you honestly believe I won’t protect them? That I can’t? They’re my responsibility. Keeping them safe is my job. If I didn’t know Haven would be perfectly fine in your presence, she wouldn’t be here right now. If I thought you posed some danger to my wife, I wouldn’t let you within a hundred feet of her.”

Corrado paused as his phone rang again, to silence it once more. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” he asked, continuing as if it never interrupted. “The odds of Haven dying in an accident are far greater than the odds of her being killed because of someone as trivial as you. Because that’s exactly what you are—insignificant. Do you get that? You’re nothing.”

He paused once more as his phone rang again, anger clouding his face at the sound, but this time he didn’t even bother to look at who was calling. “I have things to take care of. Go be with people who actually care about you. Don’t waste the chance. You never know when you might only have a few hours left to enjoy them.”

A chill ran the length of Carmine’s spine at his words. He stood there for a moment after Corrado left, trying to calm down, and bummed a cigarette from the first person that happened to stroll by. The smoke burned his lungs as he inhaled, the nicotine instantly soothing his frazzled nerves. He took a few quick puffs of the cheap generic menthol before tossing it onto the sidewalk and stamping it out.

The house was still noisy when he reentered, but the crowd from the living room had disbursed. He wandered through the downstairs and found Celia in the kitchen, surprise flickering across her face when she spotted him. “Hey, kiddo.”

“Hey,” he mumbled, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. He desperately wanted a real drink, something hard and straight from a glass bottle, but he knew better than to pull out the alcohol there. “Is, uh . . . I mean, where . . . ?”

“She’s out back,” Celia said, knowing what he wanted without Carmine even getting it out.

“Thanks.” He headed for the back door, spotting them lounging on the old wicker lawn furniture as soon as he stepped outside. He strolled in their direction, suddenly nervous again, but it all faded away when Haven looked at him. A radiant smile lit up her face as her eyes sparkled. His heart nearly stilled at the sight.

It took everything Carmine had in him not to fall to his knees right then and there and beg her to always look at him that way. He wanted to plead with her to never stop loving him, for her to forgive him for everything he ever did wrong, even the shit she didn’t know about and never would. He wanted her to grant him absolution, to be his saving grace, to swear he was worthy of being saved. He never wanted her to be ashamed, and he sure as hell never wanted to see disappointment in her eyes. He wanted her to be proud, and at that moment, he wanted to swear he would do anything she ever asked of him to make it so.

But instead, he choked back the flood of emotion and kept his mouth shut as he grabbed a chair from the patio and joined them out on the lawn. He sat beside Dominic and directly across from Haven, his eyes fixated solely on her.

“Hey, bro,” Dominic said, slapping Carmine on the back. “Back already?”

He shrugged. ”I never left. I just went out for some air.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you went out for air,” Tess said sarcastically. “You smell like smoke. Go sit downwind from me. It reeks.”

“The wind isn’t even blowing, Tess,” he said. “Shut the fuck up.”

Haven’s soft voice captured his attention, an inquisitive look on her face. “You smoke?”

“Every now and then I’ll have one, but I don’t make a habit of it.”

“Speaking of habits . . .” Dominic motioned toward the bottle in Carmine’s hand. “Is that really water, bro? It’s not usually your beverage of choice.”

Carmine narrowed his eyes. “Yes, it’s water. Is it that hard to believe?”

“Well, yeah. The only clear liquid you’ve had to drink in a year is vodka.”

“Bullshit. You can’t say that when you haven’t even seen me much.”

“That’s because you’ve been drunk the entire time,” Tess chimed in, laughing humorlessly. “You probably wouldn’t even remember seeing us.”

“I don’t drink that much,” he retorted, knowing it was a lie the moment the words came out. He’d drunk himself unconscious more times than he could count. There were definite blank spots in his memory, entire days he couldn’t remember.

“Did you drink at all today?” Dia asked from her seat beside Haven.

“Yeah, where’s your flask?” Dominic asked. “Do you have it with you?”

Carmine dropped his gaze. The subject made him want a drink even worse than he already had. He started rubbing his neck absentmindedly, his anxiety growing. “What is this, an intervention?”

“Maybe,” Dominic replied.

“Well, you’re wasting your breath, because I don’t need it.”

“We disagree,” Dia said. “You always drank, but it’s worse now.”

“Leave it the fuck alone, Dia.”

She started to argue but Tess cut her off. “Let’s just drop it. So, yeah, he drinks. Whatever. At least he’s not messing around with Molly anymore.”

A tense silence instantly strangled them. Carmine slowly raised his eyes to glare at Tess, anger surging through him. She saw his hostile expression and blanched, starting to stammer about not meaning it how it sounded, but he stopped her. “Just . . . shut the fuck up, Tess. Talk about something else, whatever you all were talking about before I interrupted.”

“We were reminiscing,” Dominic said, casting Carmine a worried look as he quickly changed the subject. “Sharing some of our favorite memories of Dad.”

“Well, then, continue,” he responded, opening his bottle of water to take a drink. It was cold and went down smooth, none of the burn or warmth he craved.

The atmosphere grew a bit lighter as they shared stories and traded playful jabs. Haven seemed at ease as she smiled and laughed, but she didn’t contribute much to the conversation. He yearned to hear her voice and listen to her stories, to know what she had done off on her own. He wanted to know everything, a twinge of jealousy brewing deep within him when he thought about how much he must have missed. She had an entire life he knew nothing about.

He didn’t like that shit one bit.

Celia joined them when the other guests started leaving, sharing a few more stories of her own. Every now and then Haven would peek at Carmine and her cheeks would turn pink, hints of the timid girl he remembered shining through. The sight of it gave Carmine hope, something he hadn’t felt since walking out that door in Durante.

Maybe they had a chance. Maybe she could forgive him someday.

“Tess, babe, we need to get going,” Dominic said eventually, the two of them standing. Dominic glanced around at everyone, his eyes locking with Carmine’s momentarily. “It’s been nice hanging out again. We need to get together more often, not just when, you know . . . something happens.”

Everyone murmured in agreement.

They said their good-byes, making Haven promise to stay in touch, before heading out. Dia departed right afterward, scurrying away to leave Haven and Carmine alone. They sat quietly, gazing at each other, the air between them growing thick with unspoken questions.

“Do you, uh . . .” he started, unsure of what to say. “Fuck, I don’t know. Do you wanna get coffee or something? Is that what people do?”

She laughed. “I don’t know about other people, but it sounds nice to me.”

Carmine’s nerves flared again, queasiness stirring in the pit of his stomach. He was afraid he would say something wrong and ruin any chance he had at fixing things.

He held his hand out to her but she simply gazed at it, the apprehensive look on her face making him second-guess himself. He dropped his hand, shoving it in his pocket when she didn’t take it. “You don’t have to. I just thought, well . . . Christ, why is this so fucking awkward?”

“I don’t know,” she said as she stood. “I mean, it’s just us, right? And it’s not that I don’t want to hold your hand, but you’re injured and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Oh.” He pulled his hand back out to look at it. “You aren’t gonna hurt me.”

She bit her bottom lip nervously as she offered her hand to Carmine this time. He took it with a smile, lacing their fingers together and squeezing gently. Pain shot through his wrist and he winced, his hand clearly not fine despite what he had said.

“How bad is it?” Haven asked. “Honestly.”

“I don’t know,” he muttered, letting go of her and unwrapping the white bandage. “The medic said it wasn’t serious, but I didn’t go to the hospital.”

Haven surveyed his hand. The back of it was red and she pressed her fingers to the skin, sighing when he grimaced. “It’s infected.”

“How do you know?”

“Seriously?” She raised her eyebrows at Carmine like it was a stupid question. “We got hurt a lot in Blackburn and weren’t allowed to see doctors, so we learned to watch for the signs. I’ve seen people die from wounds less severe than this.”

“Oh,” he said, looking at his hand. “Can’t I just soak it in peroxide? Get some Neosporin?”

“So stubborn,” she muttered, lacing their fingers together once more. “It’s better to get antibiotics, so go to the doctor. Please?”

He sighed, resigned and partly annoyed that she knew how to get to him. All it took was a fucking please. “I’ll make an appointment tomorrow, but right now I have a, uh . . . whatever this is. A date, I guess.”

A small smile curved Haven’s lips at those words.

They headed around the side of the house to avoid seeing anyone as they left, because Carmine wasn’t in the mood for their pity disguised as sympathy. He was on edge as they walked down the street, keeping his head down but acutely aware of everything going on around them. It didn’t matter what Corrado had said—he couldn’t stop his paranoia. Salvatore was still out there, somewhere, and until he was sure that was dealt with, there was no way he would be able to relax.

Carmine let go of her when they reached his house and unlocked the front door. She stepped inside, her eyes darting around curiously. It didn’t escape Carmine’s notice that she cringed at the utter mess.

“Uh, kitchen, dining room, living room, bathroom and laundry room or whatever,” he said, pointing out the areas on the first floor. “The room down the hall across from the living room used to be my father’s office when I was a kid but right now it’s just full of boxes. I never bothered to unpack everything.”

“You’ve been here over a year and you still haven’t unpacked?”

“No.”

“Have you cleaned at all in that time?”

He blinked a few times, gazing at her, but didn’t bother answering that question. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”

Carmine left her alone in the hallway as he headed upstairs and kicked off his shoes, tossing them into the closet before stripping out of his clothes. He put on a pair of jeans and a green long-sleeved t-shirt, slipping his Nike’s on before going into the bathroom. He wet his hair and attempted to run his fingers through it, the act making his hand viciously throb. He rooted through the cabinets and found a bottle of peroxide, the wound scorching as he poured it on his hand.

He headed back downstairs and found Haven in the living room, staring at the covered piano. She glanced back at him questioningly. “Carmine, who’s Molly?”

He froze, caught off guard.

“It’s okay if she was, uh, you know . . . it’s not a big deal.” She grimaced, her reaction at odds with her words. “I just wondered if you and her . . .”

“Molly’s not a person,” he said, shaking his head. “Molly’s a drug. I wanted to feel better and got hooked on it. It probably would’ve killed me . . . well, fuck, it almost did kill me, but I’d definitely be dead by now if Corrado hadn’t intervened.”

“He got you off of it?”

“You can say that.”

She stared at Carmine as she took in his words. ”Did it work?”

His brow furrowed. ”I told you I stopped.”

“I mean Molly,” she clarified. ”Did it make you feel better?”

He sighed as he considered the question. “It did for a while, but it wasn’t real. No matter how high I got, I never found what I was looking for. And it ended up taking from me more than it gave.”

He pulled her into a hug and she gazed up at him, her eyes sparkling. The air around them grew thick with emotion as she wrapped her arms around his waist. His heart raced, blood rushing furiously through his veins as his body tingled from her embrace. He moved forward a bit, hesitantly, gauging her reaction, and her eyes seemed to instinctively dart to his mouth. He took that as a sign and hoped like hell it wasn’t a mistake when he leaned down, aiming for her mouth.

At the last second, panic overtook Haven’s face. She pulled back, turning her head so his lips brushed against her flushed cheek. He silently cursed himself as he let go of her. Too soon.

“I, uh . . .” She picked at her fingernails, moving away from him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He glanced at his watch with a sigh. It was already a little after seven in the evening. “How about that coffee?”

She nodded, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her keys. She tossed them at Carmine with no warning, and he barely got a grasp on them before they hit the floor. He eyed them peculiarly, spotting the familiar key. “No fucking way.”

“It’s parked out front,” she said. “Thought maybe you’d like to drive.”

Carmine cruised through the streets of east Chicago, lounged back in the driver’s seat of the black Mazda. The dark interior smelled just as fresh as it had the last time he had driven it, the plush leather seat somehow still formed to his shape. North Carolina radio stations were programmed for the buttons of the stereo, the dial turned to his favorite—97.1 FM. A black tree-shaped air freshener hung from the rearview mirror, and he suspected it was the same one he had put there back in Durante.

“Did you even drive this thing?” he asked, looking at the mileage . . . a few hundred miles more than he remembered it being.

“Sure,” she said. “I drove it here last night.”

Carmine shook his head, turning his focus back to the street. He pulled into the parking lot of the first coffee shop they saw, politely opening Haven’s door for her. She smiled sweetly and took his hand as they headed inside. Customers packed the small building, standing in groups and huddling around the tables.

“What do you like?” Haven asked as they got in line.

Carmine laughed dryly. “I can’t say I like anything. I don’t drink coffee.”

“Then why’d you ask me out for it?”

“I figured I had a better chance of you saying yes to something as simple as a drink than a whole meal,” he said, gazing at the menu board. “Christ, who pays five dollars for a drink that doesn’t have alcohol in it? For that price it better come with a complimentary blow job or something.”

“Carmine,” she gasped, his rant drawing the attention of people around them. He muttered an apology to her and noticed a man a few feet away glaring at them. He narrowed his eyes at him as he mouthed “Problem?” and the man looked away quickly. Carmine smirked, looking back at the menu as Haven spoke again. “Do you see anything you think you might like?”

“I don’t know what any of this is,” he said. “The Italian I can read, but that doesn’t tell me a damn thing about how it tastes. What do you drink?”

“Black coffee.”

“Seriously? All of this fancy caramel chai frappe cappu-fucking-ccino venti latte bullshit and you get plain coffee?” She nodded and he chuckled, pulling her hand up and pressing a kiss on the back of it. “That’s the Haven I remember, the one who likes the simple shit.”

The barista asked Carmine for their order and he muttered, “Two regular black coffees,” his expression daring her to try to correct his lingo. She simply nodded as she rang it up, and he groaned when he saw the price.

“I have some cash on me,” Haven said, reaching into her pocket. “I think.”

“Don’t even dare,” he said, shooting her an incredulous look. “I’d rob the place before I let you pay.”

She removed her hand as he grabbed his wallet, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill. The woman gave Carmine his change, eyeing him warily, and he slipped a ten into the tip jar on the counter.

“That was generous,” Haven commented.

“Yeah, well, I kinda just threatened to rob the place, so I figured I probably shouldn’t stiff them on top of it.”

“You wouldn’t actually rob the place, though,” she said confidently.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he replied. “As long as I wasn’t ordered to, anyway.”

Carmine grabbed their drinks, leading her to a table in the corner away from everyone else. They sat and Carmine took a sip from his steaming cup, gagging from the taste. “This shit is bitter.”

She took a drink of hers. “Tastes fine to me.”

He dumped in as much sugar as he could fit, adding some creamer to make it a bit more tolerable, but he still had no desire to drink it. They chatted as Haven sipped her coffee, and he listened intently as she told him about her life in New York. She talked about going to school and creating art, about the people she had met and the friends she had made, before she explained about hearing the details of his father’s death on the news.

“This wasn’t the first time I wanted to come. When I was in Charlotte, I ran out in the middle of the night and took a cab to the bus station.” She laughed humorlessly at the memory. “I was out of my mind, hadn’t slept in a while. Your father stopped me. That’s what I was talking about at Celia’s.”

Carmine gaped at her. “You could’ve been arrested for suspicious behavior. The cops don’t fuck around, you know. Everyone’s worried about terrorism.”

She laughed it off. “I don’t look like a terrorist.”

“Well, neither do I, but looks don’t mean shit.”

“But you aren’t a terrorist,” she refuted. “So that proves my point.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “It doesn’t prove shit. I terrorize people.”

“That’s not the same,” she said, narrowing her eyes as annoyance flashed across her face. “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

“No, you’re just being too easy on me,” he said. “You don’t even know . . .”

“Then tell me,” she said seriously.

“I can’t.”

“You can’t tell me anything?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow in challenge. “Or is it just that you don’t want to tell me because you don’t want me to know?”

“It’s because you don’t want to know. Trust me.”

“If you think I’m going to run out that door because of something you tell me, you’re wrong,” she said. “If you can’t tell me, I understand, but don’t hide things from me just because you believe it’s better if I don’t know them.”

“No good can come from you knowing,” he said. “You’ll look at me and you won’t see me anymore. You’ll see them. You’ll see the people I’ve hurt and the things I’ve done, so excuse me if I sorta fucking like you seeing just me.”

She opened her mouth to respond but hesitated briefly, leaning her elbows on the table and moving closer to Carmine. “Have you had to, uh . . . ?”

“Kill?” he asked, finishing her question. She glanced around anxiously to make sure no one was listening before nodding. He could see the curiosity in her eyes, but he could also see the apprehension. That was something he never wanted from her. “Would it make a difference?”

“No,” she said. “If you did, I know it’s because you had to.”

“Then why are you asking?”

“I just want to know.”

“No.”

She looked at Carmine cautiously. “You aren’t going to tell me?”

He sighed. “That’s the answer, Haven. No.”

“Oh.” She was quiet for a moment, appearing deep in thought. “Is that what you see when you look in the mirror? The people you’ve hurt?”

“It’s hard to see the good when there’s so much damn bad.”

“I see the good.” She smiled softly as she gazed at Carmine. “It might help you to talk to someone, though. You shouldn’t keep it all bottled in.”

“I’m still not going to tell you that shit,” he replied, shaking his head.

“I know,” she said. “I meant, like, a professional.”

His brow furrowed. “Are you suggesting I go to a shrink?”

She shrugged. “Why not? I know there are some things you can’t tell them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help at all. I saw a movie where a mobster guy went to a psychiatrist, and so did that other one in that TV show. He was the boss, too.”

Carmine smirked when it struck him what she had said. He tried to contain his amusement, but his laughter escaped when a blush overtook Haven’s face. “Aw, don’t be embarrassed,” he said, reaching across the table and cupping her cheek. It was warm against his palm and she leaned into his touch, smiling sheepishly. “It’s sweet of you to worry, but this isn’t like TV, tesoro. We can’t do that shit in real life.”

He stroked her cheek softly as she whispered, “I wish you could.”

“Me, too.”

The sun had set by the time they left the coffee shop, darkness surrounding everything. He held her hand as they strolled through the parking lot toward the car, the atmosphere between them light once again. It felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest, his world just a tad brighter since she had walked back into it.

The carefree feeling didn’t last, though—not that he had actually expected it to. They made it back to his house and he asked if she wanted to watch a movie, but they barely made it through the opening credits before his phone rang.

He pulled it out hesitantly, tensing. Corrado. “Sir?”

“Be in front of my house in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” he grumbled, but responding was pointless because Corrado had already hung up. He slipped the phone back in his pocket and looked at Haven, running his hand through his hair anxiously.

“You have to go,” she said quietly, a tinge of sadness in her voice, but she forced a smile. “I understand.”

She started to stand but he grabbed her arm to stop her. “Don’t leave.”

She looked at Carmine with confusion. “What?”

“I just . . . fuck. Just stay, okay?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s late. I should find a hotel.”

He groaned loudly, the noise sounding like a growl. “Look, I’m not telling you what to do. If you want to go, tesoro, by all means go, but I’d rather you stay.”

“I, uh . . .” she started, but she trailed off when his phone rang again.

Five minutes had already passed.

Carmine cursed, answering it quickly. “I’m coming, sir.”

“Now,” Corrado barked before hanging up.

Carmine stood, eyeing Haven carefully. ”Just . . . wait for me, okay?”

She didn’t say a word but she also made no move to leave, so he wasn’t sure what she was thinking. He didn’t have time to stick around and figure it out, though, so he gave her one last look before grabbing his gun and bolting for the door. He stepped outside as a memory hit him, the last time he had said those words to her running through his mind.

She had refused to wait for him that day.

He glanced behind him at the house as he headed down the street, hoping like hell she would wait this time.