Into the Darkness: a mafia love story

Arianna POV: 

They didn't want to waste any time, so after breakfast, we all got ready to head out. I couldn't explain the reason why, but I was so nervous to return home. I hadn't been back there since I had fled that day with Luca, running into the sanctuary of Giovanni's house. 

Now, With Gio's hand in mine, I was coming back after learning the truth about her death, starting to challenge my father's rule, and almost being kidnapped. It seemed impossible to drive back there, to the small town where nothing strange had ever occurred, where I had grown up. 

I felt my heart clench as we pulled down the perfectly average streets in our SUVs like police at a crime scene. It was just as I had left it on the outside, her bushes dusted with frost, the windmill by the front door. I could almost pretend for a moment we were heading inside to see her. A hard lump sat in my throat, and I turned away from it for a second, unable to bear the sight of it in my new world. I wanted it to stay as perfect as it had been, the untouched corner of the map. 

"Are you alright?" Giovanni put his arm around my waist, shielding me from the men who had accompanied us. 

"Yes, I just…" My voice trailed off, searching for why I was so upset and why this bothered me so deeply. "I guess I just missed home," I offered, a weak excuse, but there was some truth to it. 

I pulled myself together, standing straight, we didn't have time for this, every second spent out of the house was dangerous. I wouldn't put it past my father to have men watching the house. It was somewhere I loved, and it made sense for me to return. My father knew me that much, and I had no doubt he knew my mother had stashed her evidence here. 

I walked into the house, the sight sending a hollow sob from my lips. The palace was trashed, holes in the walls, couch cushions torn apart, plates all over the kitchen and tossed on the floor. Anywhere they thought she might have hidden her dirt, they had ripped it open, leaving my last piece of her a tattered mess. 

"Woah," Luca kicked a shredded pillow. 

I covered my mouth and ran off to the bathroom. Was nothing sacred to him, he who claimed to still love her so? He was so obsessed with his power that he had brutalized her, and now the palace that held her memory. I inhaled and exhaled as evenly as I could, trying to keep myself calm. He didn't care about her at all. He had taken her from me, and now he had taken my home. I clenched my fists, leaning against the bathroom counter, keeping the furious screech inside. 

I pulled myself together and stepped back out, my face was as still as a frozen lake, hard as the ice covering it. I had to get through this. Besides, it was a drop in the bucket to his cruelty. I should have expected this. 

We moved through the house, wading through the damage to get to my mother's room. The closet was open, the floorboard tipped up, she hadn't hidden all that well for people looking for it. I had found it quickly as well. We knew it was a long shot, but at least we had tried. 

We did our best to sift through things to see if there was thing they had missed. It was hard to hope with the studs showing her bed flipped over and her clothes scattered on the floor. I picked up one of her favorite dresses, smiling, it still smelled like her. I put it back on the hangar and hung it up. 

I looked around the room; she wouldn't leave anything out in the open. She was so scared of him I knew she would hide it. I don't know where, though, I think my mind was too scrambled by the sight in front of me. I sat down at her vanity, opening her jewelry box, inside sat her minimal collection, but there was the pearl earring I had gotten her for her birthday a few years ago. I had gotten my job and was making good money, all my childhood, she had never worn nice things or shown off too busy working and taking care of me. 

I was so proud I could shower her with some finery, and she had been so surprised to receive them. She put them in the box right away, stating they should only be worn on special occasions as fine as they were. 

After seeing the luxury my father and Giovanni lived in, the way Gio had been able to buy me a new wardrobe that put my old one to shame, with a wave of his hand, I knew they weren't that opulent. 

Still, I grabbed them out and put them on, looking in the mirror, picturing her wearing them one of the nights we had gone out, just the two of us. I hadn't seen the resemblance between her and me much throughout my life, as beautiful as she was, it seemed too vain to think I compared. 

I looked at the photo of us beside the mirror, her holding me at some park, smiling so happily, not a care on her face. I looked back at myself in the mirror. I was only a little younger than she was. She had married my father young, only twenty years old, and had me a year later. Here I was, now 26 and lost in the web of lies just like she was. 

I grabbed the photo, the same one I'd had on my beside, it was the only sentimental thing I had remembered to grab that day. We were so happy. It was nice to think of all that time we had together before this awful time. 

I wondered if she felt the same way then that I do now, how betrayed she must have felt. Her husband was a crook and a liar, a murderer. She was so scared she had fled in the middle of the night, not even stopping to rip her youngest from clinging to the banister. 

I set the frame back down, looking at her happy face. How long did it take her to get back to that carefree attitude? How would I make my way back? I looked in the mirror at Giovanni, taking a flashlight to look inside the open walls. 

She would have loved him, his integrity. I doubt she'd have enjoyed his profession, but she liked a fighter. 

Noticing my gaze, he walked over to me,e kneeling beside me. "Find anything?" He asked, his finger poking the dangling pearl that now hung from my ear. "Nothing that will help us take down my father," 

He looked over at the photo of me and my mother. "You look so much like her," He raised his brows. "It's astonishing," He picked up the frame and stopped for a moment, turning it over. 

I sat there as he undid the frame and opened the back, revealing an envelope stuffed behind the picture. I exhaled, seeing her lopped cursive, neatly printing my name on the yellow paper. 

I grabbed it, running my hand over the ink. I couldn't believe they had missed this. I couldn't believe she had left it. 

It felt like fate as I opened it.