-Book 1-
The Normal Rules of Love Don't Always Apply, especially when the circumstances around those falling into it are far from normal.
Facing a life behind bars, Matteo Leone enlist the talent of the top attorney on the eastern side of the Missis...
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Matteo
Everything was at a desolate stand-still as I watched the drama and confusion unfold in the courtroom. Things had been up in smoke from the moment I laid eyes on Kashera this morning. Everyday since the trial began her face lit up when her eyes met mine. We knew we had twenty minutes, not a second more or less, to be wrapped completely in each other with no guards or handcuffs to keep us apart. I cherished those minutes almost more than I cherished being able to breath.
Today, though was not one of the days I got to cherish. Instead, I was in a dreadful disarray.
When I walked in the foyer her eyes looked over me in an almost silent mourning: they were cold, they were dead, they were everything that her eyes weren't, and it rattled me to my core. We talked only briefly as all of her words were short, and I accepted that despite how much I wanted to, I couldn't make her confess her turmoil to me. I was anxious to know what occurred overnight that had us here as though we were awkward strangers.
She was stoic from start to interlude when I had to go talk to Papa and Clem quickly.
"Papa," I called questioningly. Just by the look he gave me I could tell that he knew exactly what I was going to ask, and the answer wasn't going to be anything good.
"Matteo, son, I really don't know what to say," he started before sighing as he ran his hands down his face. My father looked genuinely distressed, and I felt my heart hitting uncomfortably against my chest. The feeling of dread started to sink into my bones threatened to bring me to my knees.
"She didn't say a word when she came in the door," Clementine began to explain as he looked off warily, "We were right in the living room, but she still didn't know we were there. That in and of itself was weird because since you've left, her level of awareness has become almost scary. Yet, in that moment she just zoned out I think. The minute we heard the door close, Matteo she let out a scream so shattering I'm shocked some of the glassware in the house didn't break," He said with a deep breath as his face got red.
He was getting emotional, and that was the beginning of my internal undoing. Clementine got mad, and he shot off recklessly at the mouth, but he didn't get blatantly emotional. Seeing him fight his emotions started the process of me accepting my fate. He shook his head as he pressed forward seeming to realize he didn't have much time.
"We tried to console her, but she wouldn't stop screaming. I was scarred out of my mind, and Katerina was panicking beside her. Mama was trying to get a hold of them both but nothing was working. I swear I would give anything to never see the three of them that messed up again. Eventually she stopped screaming, but she wouldn't stop chanting how she was going to kill them all.
Over and over she said it like it was the only words that could sit on her tongue. Matteo, I didn't know what to do. The last time she did as much as cry in front of me was after she visited you in jail for the first time. Since then she'd refused to falter in anything, and then boom! She's breaking apart into a thousand pieces on the floor and I couldn't do shit to save her!"
