Carlo : Ti salveró amore mio

Chapter 23

He's holding my hand.

The first thing I wake up to is his warm steady breathing blowing against my hand. I open my eyes to Carlo asleep still and holding my hand close to his face.

I pick up each one of his fingers with my other hand so I can get my other one back. He stirs in his sleep a little and tries to grab my hand again but I move away and out of the bed.

Walking over to the door I hear the bed creak and Carlo yawn. "Adelaide?" He shouts in shock and I turn around. He's looking at the side of the bed and then sees me at the door and relaxes. "Where are you going?" He asks getting out of bed quickly.

"Axel." I mumble and turn around walking out. "We have training."

I carry on walking down different corridors with Carlo walking a little further behind me. "Where is he?" I whisper to myself.

"I'll show you." Carlo says behind me and grabs my hand. I yank my hand from his grasp and walk down a different corridor. "Other way."

I turn around and walk the other way staring at different art pieces on the walls. I follow Carlo's little mumbles of directions behind me until I get to a part of this massive house that looks like a hospital ward.

On one of the beds lies Axel with a familiar looking light brown haired lady sat next to him.

"Red!" I rush out with a little laugh.

The two people turn to me and the lady stands up. She holds onto her stomach as she does so and walks over to me. I hear Carlo's breath hitch and I think he's looking at the ladies bump.

"You must be Rosalyn?" I question.

She nods her head and hugs me tightly. I can see Axel staring at me as I look back at him, I leave my arms at my sides as she proceeds to hug me.

"Shit, sorry." She pulls back. "I forgot you don't like hugs." She looks at me sheepishly.

We've never met.

"It's alright." I mumble and look over to Axel. I walk over to him and sit down on his bed with my legs crossed.

"Oh how the tables have turned." I smile at him. "Normally I'm the one laying down and hurt."

Axel laughs. "I'm not bed bound like you were though. I can leave soon."

"Let me have my moment." I smile and look at his bandaged leg and arm. "We have to go train for the fight." I mumble.

Axel looks at me confused. "You don't have to do that anymore Adelaide."

I look him in the eyes. "Oh. Okay." I smile at him.

He looks confused for a second and then looks over to the door. "Oh that's Carlo." I turn around and point at him. "Carlo, this is Axel."

"We met last night, amore." Carlo smiles a little at me.

"Right." I nod and look at Axel. "Are you hungry?"

"I'm alright right now. Have you eaten?" Axel asks me.

"I'm not hungry right now." I smile reassuringly at him.

The door opens and Giovanni walks in. "Carlo. Adelaide. Can I borrow you two for a second?"

"Yeah." I climb off the bed and wave goodbye to Rosalyn and Axel. "Bye Red."

****

"Hi?" I wave uncertainly when I enter an office with everyone in there.

Ricardo is crawling on the floor making his way over to me, Nicola is sitting next to Isabella on a couch sharing popcorn, Rose is sitting on another couch with a blanket over her legs, Alessia is now sitting next to Giovanni, and Carlo is standing behind me. Emilio walks in with three other men and they also sit down.

Ricardo finally gets to my feet and sits on his bum holding his arms up. I look down at him and then back at everyone else, they all watch me carefully and I don't know what to do.

He starts crying a little and I step backwards away. "Why am I here?"

"We want to know-." Giovanni stops halfway through his sentence as Ricardo screams and starts to cry fully.

Carlo steps forward and picks him up whilst standing next to me. Ricardo ignores Carlo's attempts to quieten him down and leans over his arm to reach out for me whilst his bottom lip wobbles.

"What do you want to know?" I raise my voice a little so I can be heard over Ricardo's cries.

Giovanni doesn't say anything and just looks annoyed at Ricardo's noise.

It's not my fault. I didn't ask for him to be here. In all honesty I didn't ask to be brought into this room.

"I'm not holding it." I stand my ground and glare at Giovanni and the others.

They all look at me.

"I don't care what type of trick this is or whatever the fuck this is. But I'm not holding him. I don't want to hold him. So I won't." I look at Carlo who is staring back at me with tears in his eyes. "I won't do it." I shake my head and leave the room whilst muttering, "You can't make me."

I can hear Carlo say something but I can't understand what he says. I wander around different corridors until I find a bedroom. I walk in and realise it's Carlo's.

The baby stuff is still carefully placed around the room. I close the door behind me and take a deep breath.

****
Start of flashback:

Rye rubs a hand over his face, "You had a miscarriage."

I feel the air knocked out of me and it feels as if my heart breaks into tiny pieces. I look down at my belly for a second,

Looking back at Rye I tilt my head to the side and breathe out a laugh. "You mean you beat me and my unborn child to the point it died."

"Yes and no." He shrugs, unfazed by everything. "You wouldn't have been able to follow through with the pregnancy anyway, you have no nutrition and are very skinny." He laughs.

End of flashback.
****

The clothes are all nicely folded and on the side of the wall are small painted animals and numbers and letters.

All of this could have been for the baby if it wasn't for me. If I could just eat properly.

"That's selfish of you, think about it, Adelaide." I tell myself. "Why would you force a child in that environment?"

Hmm...

I walk past all of the baby things and go over to the bedside table where the alcohol bottles were, I open up one of the draws and find half empty cigarette boxes, other bottles of alcohol, and weed.

"Don't mind if I do. Thank you!" I stuff my pockets and carry two bottles, I use my hip to close the draw and walk out of the room.