Protecting The Principessa (Complete)

~ Chapter 1 ~

Honey brown eyes stared down at the casket as it was lowered to the ground, her hands clenched tightly at her sides. She could feel the eyes of the man from behind her, but she refused to turn around, refused to acknowledge him. But she knew him, knew soon enough that he would come over to talk to her, to try to demand something, but on the day of her mother's funeral, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear it. In fact, all she wanted to do was go home, curl up in her chair, and cry. Cry at the loss of her mother, of her best friend, of the woman she looked up to that had left her alone in this world.

Her eyes flashed upward, to the overcast sky and she almost wanted to laugh. This wasn't what her mother wanted, to be buried in some box, she wanted to be cremated, and wanted her daughter to spread her ashes. Yet, the man that was currently behind her, decided to change all those plans because he couldn't bear the thought of her being burned. She was dead, what did it even matter?

"Ignazia?" She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice. She hadn't spoken to him in over a year. She reached out to him when her mother was sick but he stopped responding to her messages, calls, or even her letters. If he couldn't be around in her dark days, she sure as fuck didn't want him around any other time. "Ignazia," the voice repeated. She was alone now, all her mother's friends had left the funeral, and she was all that was left. How fitting that seemed.

"It's Izzy," was all that she said but the man moved from behind her to step up beside her.

"You will always be Ignazia to me, regardless of what you think your name should be." The woman wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and then turned to face the man, shrugging her shoulders.

"What do you want?"

"I heard she passed, I had to come to pay my respects to the woman I loved." Izzy snorted that, a half-hearted chuckle escaping her lips.

"Loved, what a thought, what a bull shit thought." The man at her side clenched his teeth and she could hear the grinding but he didn't say anything more. "She wouldn't have wanted you here. She wouldn't have wanted you to change her plans, either."

"She was your mother, Ignazia and I loved her, more than you could ever know." The man looked around before his gaze landed on her again. "I need to talk to you though, someplace not in the open."

"I have nothing to say to you, Carlo, nor do I have anything to hear from you." She turned to walk away from him but his voice stopped her in her tracks.

"It's papa," he told her. She flung her black hair with its bright red streaks over her shoulder and looked at him.

"It might have been when I needed you, now it's just Carlo." And with that, she left him standing there, the rain now starting to drizzle harder.

-----

Izzy walked into the apartment that she had shared with her mom for the last six months while her mother was sick. She sat her purse down and the memories overwhelmed her, knocking her to her knees. Sure, she was older, and had lived away from her mom now for a couple of years, but this was her mom, this was the only parent she had left. And at one point, she might have counted Carlo her dad, but not now, not when he turned his back on her when she needed him the most.

"Oh mom," she mumbled through her fingers as she cried into her hands, "what am I going to do? This road is not something I was ready to walk alone on." She stayed there, right beyond the door for who knows how long? She just knew she didn't want to leave, didn't have the strength to move. In fact, she wasn't even sure where she got the strength to manage today. And she knew, fuck did she know, she wasn't done with it.