Deadly Nightshade by Sem Thornwood
Chapter 7
Isabella
A week before my seventeenth birthday, I learned that my mother had lung cancer. Apparently, she knew way before then but refused to tell me. I only learned that when she was bad enough to lay all day. She was dying, and I was not even aware of that. I was wrapped up with my own problems. I didn’t realize how sick she was.
The doctor said it could be because of her smoking, but it also could be from spending so much time with her poisonous plants. It didn’t matter though. What mattered was that she was dying.
Dad was so devastated he started searching for doctors who can save her. He was ready to kidnap them too. Sal was the one who calmed him. I wanted him to kidnap and bring them here. I wanted him to do everything to save Mom. That was something he could actually do. He didn’t love Salvatore or me, but he was deliriously in love with Mom.
Still, even Giovanni Vasile’s power was not enough to fight cancer. What was the point of being Capo if he cannot save the one person he actually loved? It was stupidly unfair.
Mia was usually at our since I found out. Even if it meant seeing Salvatore more, she didn’t back off. They made a temporary peace. Until my mom dies. It was hard to think about, but I was trying to think about it a lot, so it doesn’t break me when it happens. I was not sure if it's going to work or not, but I was trying.
Other than Mia, and Pippa, Alessio, and Antonio visited us a lot too. I wanted more than anything for Alessio to hold me and told me everything will be okay, but we were never alone. I sometimes felt angry when I see him because he was the reason I didn’t found out about Mom’s condition. It didn’t stop me from wanting him close, though. He was the only one that can calm my nerves at least a little bit.
Today none of them were here. Salvatore was in his room, and I was curled in a dark corner outside my mom’s room. I could hear Father and her speaking. He was better now. He almost accepted her death and wanted to spend as much time as possible with her.
“I am not sending my daughter away, Giovanni,” she said with her weak voice. “I want her close when I die.”
“Love, she is not going to go until she is eighteen.”
My mother’s voice cracked at the following words. “Do you believe I will die until then?”
“You know I will keep you alive forever if I could. I will give my own life if it could keep you alive.”
“But you can’t,” she almost yelled. “If she must marry, choose someone from the Outfit, from Chicago. I want my Belladonna close.”
Salvatore talked to Father about it before too. He said it was too risky for me to go to New York. He tried to change his mind. I knew Alessio was behind all that. Their father Rafael, Antonio, and even my father’s Consigliere Brando Panaro agreed with him. It was not enough to convince my father. He was determined to make a truce and use me as payment.
That’s why his next words made me froze. “Okay, love,” he said. I could almost see him caressing my mother’s too pale cheek. “Whatever you want.”
I didn’t know what I should feel. I never felt happy since I found out about my mother’s condition, but this was good. It was good for more reasons than I had before. It was good because it meant I don’t have to leave Mom. It was good because I didn’t have to deal with more shit than I have right now.
I was not happy, but I was pleased. It was good.
