Chapter 1

Christine

Darkish Devotion is a prequel. It’s not meant to be a full-length novel, however the occasions previous the beginning of Darkish Obsession.

* * *

Niccolo Terlizzi married my mom 5 years in the past. He was a vibrant twenty-five-year-old, and I had simply turned 13.

Sooner or later, my mom was entertaining males on informal dates right here and there. The following, she had a diamond ring on her finger and wished me to be the flower lady at her marriage ceremony.

I favored Niccolo properly sufficient. He was good-looking with darkish options that stirred one thing surprising inside me. At any time when Kaye and I noticed him strolling round the home shirtless, we dissipated right into a match of giggles. His physique was unmatched, and I swore to my greatest pal that I would discover a man like him sometime—a person who regarded like a Greek God and handled me like a queen. I envied my mom for locating somebody that beloved her.

When Caterina first acquired sick, she tried to cover it from Niccolo. At fifteen years his senior, she didn’t need him to see her as weak. I keep in mind her confiding in me about her abdomen pains and swearing me to secrecy. “Niccolo should not know,” she whispered behind closed doorways.

I carried the burden of my mom’s secrets and techniques for much too lengthy; I wasn’t sufficiently old to make her see that she wanted to get assist. She was afraid to go to the physician, fearful that if the physician discovered one thing, she must clarify it to Nic. “It is unhealthy sufficient that I am forty,” she harassed, “I can not be forty and infirm.”

When she lastly acquired to the physician, it was too late; all her fears had come alive. She was identified with stage 4 esophageal adenocarcinoma. Her survival fee was 10%, however mom had at all times been a fighter. She acquired each surgical procedure and each remedy the physician beneficial. Together with chemotherapy, which decimated her confidence and made her too weak to get off the bed.

Niccolo was by her aspect night time and day. He was ending his Ph.D. in Philosophy, and I’d discover him sitting at her bedside with books scattered on the ground round him. He’d sort just a few sentences, get my mom some water, sort just a few extra, get her some meals, and on and on it went. For a person in his twenties, he was remarkably attentive.

I admired his skill to smile by way of the laborious components of my mom’s sickness. He did not draw back from carrying her dirty physique to the bathe. He did not complain after they could not go on dates as a result of her hair had fallen out, and she or he refused to put on a wig. He stated nothing; he was a dutiful husband.

Sadly, all of the hospital care and nursing couldn’t save her. My mom died just a few months later, and Niccolo spent weeks in mourning. He wasn’t married to Caterina for lengthy, however he handled her with dignity, even after her demise. His loyalty formed the imaginative and prescient I had for my future husband.

After my mom’s demise, Niccolo wasn’t certain what to do with me. Caterina hadn’t put collectively a will in her remaining days, which made issues extra sophisticated. I do not know if he spoke to my uncles or grandfather or if he simply took on the burden of parenting me with out being requested. Both manner, I would stand up each morning to a scorching breakfast, and he made certain I acquired to high school. If I wanted a permission slip signed, he was there for me. If I wanted new garments or one thing for college, he took me to the shop. He was to me as he’d at all times been to my mom: the right accomplice.

It wasn’t till my uncles got here round asking about my future that he snapped out of his melancholy.

Giovanni and Marco meant properly. They allowed us time to mourn Caterina’s loss earlier than telling Niccolo thanks, however they’d be taking custody of me.

“Over my useless physique.” He put his foot down with out a second thought. He had no declare to me legally. Niccolo was my mom’s husband, and together with her physique rising chilly in a grave, he was nothing greater than a caretaker of her remaining possessions. He hadn’t adopted me after they have been married. There have been no final needs to say that he would take care of me. Niccolo was doing it out of the goodness of his coronary heart.

“Christine’s greatest pal is right here. Her complete life is right here in Manhattan. That is the place her assist system is, and I cannot allow you to uproot that.”

Giovanni laughed and stated that he was my assist system. “I’m her household, cafone. You’re just a little fuck boy that my father purchased and paid for. You’re nothing to her.”

I wasn’t alleged to be listening, however their yelling was laborious to disregard. I stood in a hallway as shut as I dared, clinging to the hope that by some means Niccolo would sway my uncles into letting me keep.

“I’m her stepfather whether or not you prefer it or not. The place have been you when your sister was dying? As a result of I used to be at her bedside each. fucking. night time. You understand who wasn’t?” Niccolo didn’t give both of the boys an opportunity to reply. “Her brothers. Are you aware who made breakfast for Christine when Caterina was too sick to stand up? Me. Who was there for Christine on the funeral? Me. Who’s been there for her daily since? Me. If you happen to’re her assist system, you fucking suck.”

Each of my uncles have been of their forties with households of their very own. They got here down from Kansas Metropolis for my mom’s previous few days and have been pallbearers at her funeral. However Niccolo was proper. The one one who’d been by my aspect since my mom’s demise was him.

I wasn’t certain how I felt about Niccolo when he married my mother, however I knew now. He was man. He beloved my mom, and he beloved me, too. If anybody may shuffle me by way of the laborious teenage years, it was him.

I got here across the nook and made an announcement. “I need to stick with Nic. It’s what mother would have wished.”

Chapter 2

Niccolo

I by no means wished to marry, however my father stated I had no alternative. Because the consigliere of the Castiglione household, his sons had an obligation to increase the attain of the household. We have been bargaining chips to make connections; we have been chattels to be traded for security and capital.

After I turned twenty-four, my father sat me down and stated, “If you happen to received’t be a part of us, you may at the least strengthen us.” Just a few months later, I walked down the aisle with Caterina Lucatello, a gorgeous older lady with an unlimited fortune inherited from her shitty first husband, who had left her just a few years earlier than.

I beloved her as a lot as a person organized to wed a lady fifteen years older than him may love a lady. We didn’t have a lot in frequent, however she was nice to be round. She moved heaven and earth for her daughter, and that type of love was admirable.

My father anticipated us to come out youngsters as quickly as potential. He informed me repeatedly that the one approach to strengthen the alliance between the Terlizzis and Lucatellos was to have a child. Christine did not rely as a result of she wasn’t mine, which made it simpler for my father to make disgusting feedback about her. I attempted to disregard him, however he knew what he was doing. He knew that he acquired underneath my pores and skin.

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