Chapter 1

Christine

Darkish Devotion is a prequel. It isn’t 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.

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

I preferred Niccolo properly sufficient. He was good-looking with darkish options that stirred one thing sudden 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 finest pal that I might discover a man like him sometime—a person who seemed like a Greek God and handled me like a queen. I envied my mom for locating somebody that cherished her.

When Caterina first bought 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 a lot 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 confused, “I am unable to be forty and infirm.”

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

Niccolo was by her aspect evening 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 a couple of sentences, get my mom some water, sort a couple of 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 exhausting elements of my mom’s sickness. He did not draw back from carrying her dirty physique to the bathe. He did not complain once they could not go on dates as a result of her hair had fallen out, and he or she refused to put on a wig. He mentioned nothing; he was a dutiful husband.

Sadly, all of the hospital care and nursing couldn’t save her. My mom died a couple of 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 method, I might rise up each morning to a scorching breakfast, and he made certain I bought to highschool. If I wanted a permission slip signed, he was there for me. If I wanted new garments or one thing for varsity, he took me to the shop. He was to me as he’d all the time been to my mom: the proper companion.

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

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

“Over my lifeless 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 along with her physique rising chilly in a grave, he was nothing greater than a caretaker of her remaining possessions. He hadn’t adopted me once they had been married. There have been no final needs to say that he would look after me. Niccolo was doing it out of the goodness of his coronary heart.

“Christine’s finest pal is right here. Her total life is right here in Manhattan. That is the place her help system is, and I can’t allow you to uproot that.”

Giovanni laughed and mentioned that he was my help system. “I’m her household, cafone. You’re somewhat fuck boy that my father purchased and paid for. You’re nothing to her.”

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

“I’m her stepfather whether or not you prefer it or not. The place had been you when your sister was dying? As a result of I used to be at her bedside each. fucking. evening. 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 rise up? Me. Who was there for Christine on the funeral? Me. Who’s been there for her on daily basis since? Me. When you’re her help system, you fucking suck.”

Each of my uncles had 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 had 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 a very good man. He cherished my mom, and he cherished me, too. If anybody may shuffle me by way of the exhausting teenage years, it was him.

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

Chapter 2

Niccolo

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

After I turned twenty-four, my father sat me down and mentioned, “When you received’t be part of us, you possibly can at the least strengthen us.” A number of months later, I walked down the aisle with Caterina Lucatello, a ravishing older girl with an enormous fortune inherited from her shitty first husband, who had left her a couple of years earlier than.

I cherished 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 sort of love was admirable.

My father anticipated us to come out youngsters as quickly as potential. He advised me repeatedly that the one technique to strengthen the alliance between the Terlizzis and Lucatellos was to have a child. Christine did not depend 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 bought below my pores and skin.

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