She doesn’t even realize when that happens.

After she’s out of her trance, she hugs him and tells him she’s sorry and that it won’t happen again.

But it does happen again and again. Her confused state has been recurring enough that I’m worried. Not only about her, but also about Jeremy. He’s young and attached to her, and if she keeps zoning out in his presence, he’ll take it as a rejection and it’ll traumatize him.

I’ll have to gradually get him away from her until she gets back to normal. While I hate separating them, it’s for his own good. I know what childhood fucking trauma is and my son will not relive my life. I can at least protect him like my father was unable to.

“Papa!” Jeremy barges through the kitchen, where I’m having a glass of water, his small feet slapping against the floor in his urgency.

It’s ten in the evening and way past his bedtime. He must’ve snuck out of his room to get to the master bedroom. I often find him curled into Lia’s side, as if he wants to make up for the time she closes off from him and the world.

However, she doesn’t hug him back. Lia returns to sleeping in her corpse-like position, her entire body stiff and endless nightmares plaguing her peace.

I catch Jeremy and lift him in my arms when he slams against my leg. When I look into his tear-soaked eyes, my gut squeezes. “What is it, Malysh?”

“M-Mommy…help… Mommy…”

“What happened?” I’m already heading up the stairs and to the bedroom. Jeremy is sniffling, his fingers trembling as he wraps his arms around my neck in a tight hug.

My feet come to a halt in the doorway as the scene unfolds in front of me. Lia thrashes in her sleep, fingers digging into the mattress and foam forming on either side of her mouth.

Fuck.

I put Jeremy down and try to speak softly, “Stay here, Malysh.”

He nods, sniffling.

I eat up the distance to the bed in a few strides and sit on the mattress. While Lia’s nightmares have returned with a vengeance, it’s the first time they’ve been this violent.

I grab her shoulders, shaking her. “Wake up, Lia.”

She gurgles, more foam covering her fair skin and her face turning blue.

She’s not breathing.

“Lia!” My voice rises as I shake her harsher this time. “Wake up! Come on, open your eyes, Lenochka.”

She gulps in a deep intake of air as she startles awake, her eyes open but glazed over. Then she starts weeping like a small child, the sound haunted and guttural as her fingers dig into my forearm. “Mom… I want Mom…”

“Hey,” I soothe, pulling her to me and wrapping my arms around her. “It’s only a nightmare.”

She stills for a bit, sniffling, and her fingers sink into my chest as if she wants to feel me. I stroke her dark strands and inhale her addictive rose scent.

Jeremy slowly approaches us, tears shining in his inquisitive gray eyes. “Are you okay, Mommy?”

She pulls away from me and smiles at him. “Yes, angel. Mommy just had a bad dream.”

He points a finger at me. “Papa will make them all go away.”

Her expression falls, but she nods anyway. After he kisses her goodnight, I carry Jeremy to his room and stay with him until he falls asleep.

By the time I go back to the master bedroom, Lia is sitting up in bed.

I close the door and get rid of my jacket as I stand in front of the vanity and meet her gaze through the mirror. “What’s going on, Lia?”

“Huh?” Her glassy eyes slowly meet mine. I hate seeing her in this state, hate that’s she’s out of it more than not lately.

“Is it shock from the shooting? Should I get you a psychotherapist?”

She shakes her head, scoffing softly. “It should’ve been that.”

“Should’ve been?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s obviously not nothing. What’s going on?”

“You never asked about my parents again,” she says out of nowhere. “But then again, you never really cared about me, anyway.”

I turn around to face her, a muscle working in my jaw. Does she really believe that? Does she fucking think I’d put myself in an unfavorable position within the brotherhood if I didn’t fucking care?

Sure, it might not be the type of care she wants, but I’m keeping her and our son safe.

I’ve been searching for the fucker who tried to shoot me that day, to no avail. The man we found dead with a bullet plucked out of his nape was an Eastern European mercenary who could be working for anyone.

In order to find who hired him, I’ve been calling in favors and searching day and night, but have had no luck. He must’ve been killed by whoever hired him, but why dig out the bullet? Did they fear the possibility of it being traced back to them? Although mercenaries usually have their own ammunition suppliers and wouldn’t be able to be tracked.

At any rate, finding the bastard who threatened Lia’s life has been the only thing I can focus on, and yet, she says that I don’t fucking care.

I hold on to my calm as I speak, “If you’d wanted to talk about your parents, you would’ve.”

She lays her hands on her lap, palms up, and studies them with that same glassy look. “Mom, Dad, and I weren’t well off, but we were happy. I knew he wasn’t my real father, but he was the only father I had. We lived in a small house by the Sicilian fields in which Dad managed a big farmer’s workers. It was beautiful, with huge olive trees and clear summer skies. I got to play with some of the farmer’s kids and Mom got me hooked on dancing. We were a cozy little family who prepared for the harsh winter and thrived in the summer. We had festivals during the harvest season and danced all night long. We were…normal.”

Her voice lowers, but it doesn’t break as she continues, “When I was five, something was wrong. I could feel it, even though I was young and clueless. I could tell something wasn’t sitting quite right in the house. Mom wasn’t playing the loud American music that Dad shook his head to, and he wasn’t there to kiss me or hold me. I was hiding behind the door when I heard them. Men were yelling at Dad in Italian, telling him he should give them the girl, and my composed dad was shouting back that he wouldn’t.

“Someone grabbed me and I squealed, but Mom wrapped a hand around my mouth and shook her head to quiet me. We ran outside toward a separate cottage, and she ushered me into a small box and put her finger to her mouth. She had tears in her eyes when she kissed me. She said she was sorry that Dad wasn’t my real father and that she wished she could change it. Then she told me not to get out under any circumstances until someone called me by her maiden name, Gueller.”