Monza 3 (Formula Men #3) Read online

  “You just drink it like that? Isn’t your tongue in pain? And you didn’t even use anything—no sugar, no milk?” she was flabbergasted, as if I were a different species she had just discovered.

  Her facial expression made me laugh. She was beyond comical and didn’t even realize it.

  “Si. It’s the proper way to enjoy espresso—scalding hot and black. And to answer your curiosity; no, my tongue isn’t in pain. You get used to it until you don’t even feel the sting.”

  She was incredulous. “That’s pretty gangster.”

  “Mi scusi?”

  “Shit! That’s not what I meant. You’re far from looking like the hood gangster. Fuck,” she immediately retracted, blushing as she grinned madly at me.

  Por Dio. How could one curse in a manner that was deemed adorable? Kimberly did it without even trying.

  Just before we finished our breakfast, I called upon my assistant to hunt down her father’s address. The query took approximately ten minutes. So after taking care of the bill, I hailed a taxi and gave the address. Once we were in the cab, I gave her my phone number, telling her she needed to call me the moment she had awoken. She promised without needing me to convince her.

  The car stopped right in front of their apartment. And since this wasn’t a good-bye but merely a temporary parting, instead of kissing her lips, I took her hand and gently kissed it before hearing her sharp intake of breath.

  “Welcome to Roma, Kimberly. I hope you’ll fall in love with it like most people do.”

  She thoughtfully gazed at the horizon with the slowly creeping sunrise. Then, her cheeks tinged with pink, eyes glittering like diamonds, she fully connected with my intense emerald gaze. “I think I already did, Luca,” she whispered.

  Due

  Presente

  “Well, hell, it’s either you tell me, or I start taking this matter with you seriously and hire the right people to straighten this situation out. My son, my precious boy, is on the line here, so you better start talking.”

  “Your mother offered me to have this child aborted, but I fought not to, and my selfish actions caused irreparable consequences.”

  I saw fireworks from too much anger upon hearing my infamous mother had orchestrated something that had to do with Kimberly. More importantly, it had to do with my son whom she had wanted aborted. The wretched woman had dared to have the audacity to play with my son’s fate? She had better watch out.

  “How in God’s name did she find out you were pregnant?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think the doctor I went to told her, or maybe she had me followed. She never really said how she found out.”

  My mother and all the details could be dealt with soon enough. There was another pressing matter I wanted to know. She had stated consequences had arisen after Gian Luca, so what wasn’t she telling me?

  “What exactly is on the line here, Kimberly?”

  “My brother’s life.”

  My pulse quickened as I tried to figure out what was in play here.

  “How is your brother’s life connected to any of this?” She was speaking in riddles, and the more I tried to solve the puzzle, the more confusing it became.

  “I made a deal with your mother.”

  Everything stopped.

  “You did what!” I bellowed, which echoed around the tiny space as I looked at the woman I loved more than anything, as I reeled from her new revelation.

  It was like the house of cards. You took one out, and everything fell apart. In this case, everything was falling into place. All the questions that had hounded me at night, all the ghosts that had haunted me in my dreams—all of this, all due to my mother. All this bloody fucking suffering had been for selfish reasons. She was going to pay, and I wouldn’t settle for a mediocre fall out. Hell would surely break loose. I would make sure of it.

  Kimberly seemed hesitant, but the more she took in my incensed state, the guiltier she looked.

  “My brother’s been on the waiting list for a heart transplant back home for years. It was a risk coming here with him being sick, but my dad couldn’t afford to lose his job, so we made sure we set aside airfare funds just in case we got a call.

  “Your mother came to me. She said she had the power to put my brother first on the list here in Italy, and in exchange, I had to abort the baby. Of course, I had to decline it. What she was asking of me was just too much. There was no way I could do it, even though I’d do almost anything to save my brother’s deteriorating life. Ever since he was born, he’s been riddled with sickness, but his heart was the one thing that was slowly taking his life.

  “She came to me the next day with a different deal. This time, she offered me one I couldn’t refuse. I could keep the baby and save my brother’s life at the same time. All I had to do was permanently separate from you and marry someone else, someone she had already negotiated with, to pass off as the baby’s father. I had to cut off all contact from you and to never inform you about the pregnancy.”

  The wretched bitch! How dare she manipulate my life as if she had every bloody right to play God with my fucking child as if he were nothing but a nuisance to her!

  “I’m sorry, but I had to do what needed to be done.” Kimberly gently cupped my cheek, hot tears freely flowing from her eyes. “Each night, I prayed that you’d forget about me, but you kept reappearing and made it difficult for the both of us. It seems as if the more I wished you’d move on with someone else, the more it backfired. And every single encounter affected me a great deal. I was in unbearable pain, but I had to stick to my end of the deal. I didn’t have much choice.”

  Her pain was undeniable, but before I could resolve anything, I needed to know one more thing. “Your brother, did he get his operation?”

  She shook her head. “No, but last I heard, it should be coming within the next couple of weeks.”

  It must have been a damning thing to deal with the likes of my mother.

  “I have to go. I’ll visit tomorrow. Count on it.”

  Just as I made a turn to leave, Kimberly took ahold of my arm, stopping me.

  “Don’t leave. Promise me you won’t fuck this up, Luca. I can’t risk my brother’s life. Please, I beg you.” Her voice shook, purely agonized. “I know you’re angry, but please don’t confront her. She’s going to punish me for telling you, and I can’t afford that.”

  “I give you my word that your brother will get operated on one way or the other. My mother is done playing God. Mark my words.” Slowly releasing her grip from my arm, I reached for her hand, simply because I wanted to feel her warmth amidst the coldness of mine and because of the future I meant to fight for with everything I had. “I love you, but understand that I can’t be here. Something must be done. I’ll be back to see you and Gian Luca tomorrow.” With a gentle kiss on her forehead, I immediately left the ward then exited the pale hospital halls, leaving me hollow inside.

  Tonight should have been something celebrated. My son—my beautiful baby—was born, yet I had to deal with the biggest blow any man could fathom. And knowing myself, I couldn’t set it aside and wait for tomorrow. No. If I wasn’t going to get any peace of mind, my mother shouldn’t be afforded a restful night.

  The torrent of emotions made me manic. The disbelief, the anger—I was spinning in a whirlwind of emotions. I could almost shake from the intensity of it. I wanted to hurt someone, hurl something, anything.

  Driving through the familiar streets of Rome, I raced towards my parents’ home, past caring that my father was most likely home. He deserved to understand the depth of my mother’s lunacy.

  The second I saw my childhood home, my temper skyrocketed to new heights. I was so consumed by my emotions that I didn’t bother to park my car, nor did I shut off the engine. The second the car stopped, I got out of it and furiously marched into the house, walking past the loyal staff who were in the middle of greeting me, their words left hanging at the very sight of my riled up demeanor.

  “Mama!” I screamed
into the foyer before scouring the living room. “Mama!” Once I found it empty, I carried on to the formal dining hall.

  “Luca?” My father’s bewildered voice met me halfway before entering the dining area.

  So they were dining, and I had interrupted it. Great. It was just as well that Papa was here. It was best to deal with this bundle of surprise with both of them in the room.

  “Where’s that wretched bitch you married?” I demanded.

  My father’s appalled expression didn’t faze me, not one iota. Before I got the chance to say another word, the devil incarnate decided to show her face.

  “Luca?” The woman who called herself my mother appeared behind my father. “Why are you calling me such filth? Don’t you have any respect for your own mother?” Her eyes flashed at me, livid as her voice shook, staring me down with disdain. “Do you see how your son treats me?” she said in outrage to my father.

  “Oh, this is just the beginning. Count on it!”

  I wasn’t swayed by her display of being the loving, wounded mother. She was a snake, and I wasn’t one to be bought by her ploy.

  The very thought of my son riled me further to my cause. I was seeing red, and I wasn’t going to stop until she was feeling the despair I was experiencing.

  Gazing her dead in the eye, I seethed more. “How fucking dare you play God! I could fucking choke you for trying to kill my child. My fucking son!”

  Her eyes widened, appearing paralyzed. She knew I was about to expose how she had wretchedly manipulated my life.

  As our eyes connected, I waited until I drew fear, until it danced before me, basking in the sight of her being beyond unbalanced.

  “Oh, you think I wasn’t going to find out? You’re fucking with the wrong di Medici! I am not like Papa. I am not going to fucking close my bloody eyes and ears while you do your dirty work on the side.”

  “Luca, what is this about, son?” My father disregarded the rest, honing in on the one information that stood out above the rest. “You have a son? I don’t understand …” His face contorted as he watched the pale, horrified expression on my mother’s Botox-filled face. “Felicia, what have you done?”

  What had she done? The damage was irreversible. I couldn’t even begin to analyze the depth of it, nor could I fathom how to begin fixing it. My mother hadn’t simply burned a bridge. She had poured gas, changed her mind, then decided to nuke it, but at the last minute, she retracted her decision before she decided to drag it to Hell or Purgatory. What made it worse was the very idea that she was condemning her own flesh and blood, her own grandchild, as if he were rubbish to be discarded. And for that, I couldn’t forgive her.

  “You are no mother!” I spat at her. “I wouldn’t have found out that he had been born had the baby not needed me for a blood transfusion. Do you have any fucking idea how that feels? Do you!”

  My father knew now that I was beyond restraint. The look in his eyes told me that he sympathized with my pain.

  I didn’t dare come near her in fear that I might choke the life out of her. No words could fully describe how violated, how rabid I was. I felt borderline psychotic. I was ruled by an uncontrollable cloak of emotions. There was no escaping it. It ravaged me until there was nothing left.

  “The web of deceit you have weaved, the master of it all, simply because you feel it’s in your right to fuck with my life as you have all this time. Well, no more. You’re going to pay for this! I don’t fucking care how or when, but—”

  “I did it for you, Luca. I did it out of my love for you, all for the good of this family,” she admitted in a slight whisper as she tried to compose herself, pale as a sheet of paper. “I had her followed because she’s the only woman you kept going back to. I needed to know everything about her—if she was planning to trap you for money like most of those women do. The day the investigator revealed she was pregnant after she had actually gone to get an x-ray before she even realized she was … I knew I had to take care of the problem. I just wouldn’t allow it. No di Medici in history was ever born disabled or retarded. I didn’t intend for this generation to start now.”

  Porca Madonna. “You think my son, your own flesh and blood, is a fucking problem?”

  “How could I let my only son have a retarded child? Do you know what that means? I was doing everyone a favor. I only did it to protect you!”

  “Protect me? How is that possible? You’ve taken the only chance of happiness I could ever have. You took that away from me! How could you see my son in such a manner? He’s an innocent baby. Whether there were complications or not, he’s still my son! I will never forgive you for this, Mama. From now on, you’re dead to me.” My unforgiving eyes stared straight into her black, ruthless heart. “Mark my words, this is the last time you’ll see me,” I vowed. There was no recovering from this. She had best realize that.

  My burning gaze was immediately directed towards my shell-shocked father. “If you want to be a part of my life still, and my son’s, then you better leave this wretched woman. I am not going to have a snake in my family, even by association.”

  “In case you have forgotten, Felicia”—I refused to call her mother any longer—“I am a di Medici, and my son is, too. You should pray that you die before Father, because you will be at my mercy. You won’t get a cent from me. Everything you have and own is temporary. They’re all mine. Don’t ever bloody dare forget that beautiful fact.”

  With those words, I departed without a backwards glance. She was so bent on preserving a lineage, a history that wasn’t even hers to begin with. She had married into it, so she could easily be expelled from it, too … through divorce. The last name was the only thing she had going, and without that false sense of entitlement, she would be nothing. She should have known better than to fuck up the relationship with Kim, but to involve Gian Luca in her madness … That was what I simply couldn’t get past. Nothing would come between my son and me. Not a goddamned thing.

  From now on, I would work Heaven and Hell to get my son and my woman back. For as long as I was alive, I wouldn’t stop until I had the family I was destined to have.

  Tre

  I aimlessly drove about the city for an hour, contemplating if I should go back to the hospital or go home until I was less intense. Kimberly was going through a lot as it was. The last thing she most likely needed was to have me around like a major cross to bear.

  As much as I would have loved to be around her and Gian Luca, I knew I had to get myself sorted out. I couldn’t allow myself to bring such negativity around them, most especially after all she had gone through with my mother, not to mention dealing with me and going through labor and now dealing with being a new mother. I was sure she was beyond overwhelmed by it all. Therefore, it was best I stayed away until I had come to terms with what had just happened.

  My mother wouldn’t dare try anything to hurt her and the baby. She knew me well enough to know that I had reached my limit, and it would be unwise to challenge me.

  The adrenaline that pounded throughout my body slowly ebbed away, and by the time I reached my residence, I could feel the after effects of what the blood transfusion had done to my body. Not to mention, the mental and emotional storm from the last couple of hours. There was nothing like a long shower, a glass or two of cognac, and some much needed rest to put everything into perspective.

  I knew what I wanted. There was no doubt about that. However, going about achieving it might be complex. And the mere fact that I wasn’t sure if I had enough patience to wait in accomplishing such goal could be problematic. I believed we had wasted enough time, and I wasn’t simply going to bide my time until Kimberly was ready to broach the complicated subject.

  My son would grow up in no time, and I surely wasn’t going to be on the sidelines, hearing about his newly acquired skills or improvement. No, I planned to be there for the first step, the first laugh, the first word. I wasn’t going to miss any of those precious moments. I daresay I hadn’t thought about being a fathe
r, but since I had already been thrust into this reality, I couldn’t help being enamored at the thought. Gian Luca would grow up with me as his father. I wouldn’t allow anything else. God help me if Kimberly still had other designs on the matter.

  It took me about a day and a half until I finally decided to see them again. As saddened as I was to find out that Gian Luca had been taken back to the nursery so they could give Kimberly some time to rest, I was glad I got the chance to just be alone with her.

  Her family had been with her this morning, as had her husband on paper, so she was understandably exhausted.

  I came in just before she ate dinner.

  “My, what have you got for me?” Her beautiful eyes widened at the sight of the takeaway paper bag I held in my hand.

  “A bunch of treats that I think might cheer you up,” I told her as I began pulling out one item at a time before carefully placing them each on the adjustable medical table.

  My heart skipped a beat or two at the look of her face. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the food’s heavenly aroma before she let out a seductive moan.

  Dio mio. If she reacted like that with food, I would bring her whatever she wanted on a daily basis without complaint.

  Naughty thoughts aside, I had brought her a wide variety of dishes—from zuppa Toscana to pasta to grilled steak with a side of french fries. I hadn’t been sure what she would be up for, so I had decided to order whatever I thought she might fancy. Last but not least, I had also gotten us both some hazelnut gelato to finish off the meal.

  While I sat around her feet, we had the table set up between us as she sat with a couple of pillows at her back. We both picked at the meal while enjoying our conversation about the baby and whatever else, anything light. I didn’t want to press upon the issue of my mother just yet, not until I knew she had rested.

  Just before we finished, a nurse came to check on her, getting her vitals and such. It was a random idea, but I asked if it were possible to stay and sleep on the sofa if I decided to. The nurse barely paid attention to me. So, with Kimberly’s blessing, I sat on the sofa while I watched her slowly fall asleep.