“Everything okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “Just worried.”
I raised an eyebrow. He must have been reckless about it. “Did he take backup?”
“Yeah, but he wouldn’t let me go.” She seemed more sad than frustrated. She tossed Willow a glance. “He said it was time to end whatever is tearing our family apart.”
Gabriel and Stacy exchanged glances, and then Stacy looked over at Willow. Willow offered Stacy a weak shake of her head, and Stacy’s shoulders slumped. I wasn’t sure exactly when, but Willow must have told Stacy about us at some point. Between that and the fact that Molly had clearly picked up on it from yesterday at the hospital, the cat was pretty much out of the bag.
“Did I miss something?” Gabriel asked.
I looked over at Willow, and, for the first time since yesterday, she looked back. We maintained eye contact for a minute, and then she looked over at Gabriel. “Alessandro and I aren’t together anymore.”
It stabbed into me like a knife to hear it out loud. There was no more pretending. Willow and I were officially done.
Gabriel’s eyes widened, and he looked at Molly and Stacy and then at me. “What? Why? Since when?” He looked at Willow, frantic. “If it’s about what happened yesterday—”
“It isn’t,” Willow responded simply. “That was just the final straw.”
Molly crossed her arms but didn’t say anything, and Stacy shifted herself a bit closer to Gabriel. He kept tossing glances at everyone, waiting for someone to tell him there was a joke, but there wasn’t one. It was painfully real.
Gabriel’s eyes landed on me. He was standing right behind me when Willow left me at her parents’ house when we broke up for the second time. He saw the way it changed me, the way it destroyed me. “Sandro—”
I put up a hand. “It’s not a discussion. We just figured you should know since everyone else does.”
Gabriel opened his mouth to say something else but then shut it. Stacy put a hand on his back and rubbed gently, and I just barely managed to catch Willow quickly putting a hand to her cheek to flick a tear away.
We had to move on. If we didn’t, the whole estate was going to collapse. “Luca’s gone to find the guy who tried to kill Marco. That’s good. In the meantime, I’m having Denise relocated from the hospital to here. She’ll stay in one of the guest rooms downstairs.”
Gabriel, Stacy, and Molly all nodded, but Willow shrieked, “What!”
I looked over her, trying not to be affected by the redness in her eyes. “What?”
“You’re bringing her here? Why?” She seemed just as indignant about the situation as she was the day before, despite the fact that the two supposedly made up.
“What do you mean? I thought you understood she was on our side?”
Willow’s eyes shifted nervously. “I-I get that, but I still don’t
think she needs to be here.” She was obviously lying. What was she keeping from me?
“I think it’s best for her to be here. Besides, I’m—” I stopped myself short. I was about to say that I’m the head of the household, but I managed to catch it before the words came out. I remembered Willow’s threat from that morning, and it scared me shitless. I looked at her pleadingly. “Please. I’d rather have her here where we can keep an eye on her rather than out there where someone else could get to her.”
“Alessandro,” Molly kicked in. “You’re the boss. You don’t have to beg her to make decisions, especially not anymore.”
Willow shot a glare at Molly. “Just because you allowed Luca to treat you like a lap dog doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same.”
Molly leaned forward. “What did you just say to—”
“Enough!” Everyone’s eyes shot to Stacy, whose face was beet-red. “Have we not suffered enough that you two still need to go at it? Marco almost died yesterday!”
Both Willow and Molly seemed struck by Stacy’s words and ceded, though their resonating anger still wafted around the room. I turned my attention back to Willow. I didn’t say anything, but simply asked, begged, with my eyes for her to let it slide.
Finally, she shook her head and shrugged at me, and I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
She snatched it away from me and looked away. I faced Gabriel and Stacy again, trying not to break down. “Can you guys go get Denise?”
Gabriel nodded. “Yeah, man, we’ll go get her.”