Coughs and wheezes wreak havoc on the man's toned body as he spits the last rosy petal into the pure white marble of the sink in the ostentatious bathroom his too many times great grandfather had built for a woman that was not his wife.
"God damn it..." He muttered, wiping the blood from his mouth and gathering the plant for burning.
He had hired help to clean the house, but he does not care for his condition to be out in the small town. It is not good for a criminal to be seen as weak in this dog eating dog world. Not that any would manage, even in his weakened state, but dealing with assassination attempts is always cumbersome.
That is a lie, of course. He does not want for one particular person to know it, he does not want to be pitied by them, and, in an uncharacteristic act of selflessness, he does not want to upend their life over it. Best to fade away with the flowers, in quiet anguish, rather than to make great commotion.
His voice has grown hoarse after the ten torturous minutes of releasing yet another dying flower from his lungs.
Nicola sighs, raising his eyes to meet his own in the cloudy mirror. A grimace quickly spreads across his face as he takes it all in; he takes in his dishevelled hair, the growing bags underneath his eyes, and his bleeding lips from the flower's thorns. They were roses, not lilies, as they were supposed to be.
Lilies represent the grace of God, they are the flowers of the Virgin Mary, of relief and return to the sinner's primal condition. Nothing to do with him. Roses, in the other hand, represent passion, shame and secrecy, all things that he dealt with at a daily basis, and things he has refused to renegue even at his dire straits. The thorns are just the sadistic creativity of the divinity, for straying from his ordained path.
Once, he was the handsomest man in the commune. Now, he is dying, and it shows. Once, there was no woman who could deny him a thing, then one did, and now he is dying.
"Ah." He dryly laughs as he watches his own reflection.
He cannot help but to once again be reminded of the cause of all this. It is all her fault anyway. Liliana Adornato is too sweet on him. Just too damn sweet. Worst part of it all is that she probably does not even know it.
Rejecting his advances time and time again is what really caused all this, loving another is what caused all this. Preferring the slow and tender love of his cousin's over his own. Staying with the ordained function she plays on the sick cosmic theatre of God and the Church of Jesus Christ, even if she is not really aware of the choice she made.
Nicola does not fool himself into thinking that she would pick any different if she did, and he does not fool himself into thinking that she would pick him over Dante if their roles were reversed. That would be pathetic of him, and so he does not do it.
Entertaining those fantasies hurt.
All this experience, all these women, all this beauty and all this wealth were of no use when he actually tried to make something out of it, when the buds on his lungs were on the way. He was woefully unprepared, if pathetically disadvantaged, when he tried to play the real game.
He could not lie, he could not deceive, and he could not manage to be real and direct, either. He could not make himself desirable, he could not give it back what he received. He could not do a thing but to want and watch it being slowly taken away.
"Pfft, 'Can never love me'." He scoffs, shaking his head in denial as another cough came crawling up his throat. "As if."
Denying him, teasing him, loving him, and then going away into the sunset with his cousin. She must know how much he appreciates a challenge, a lost cause to masterfully finding a way out. How thoughtful.
Only, there is no way out. There is only one Liliana Adornato, and two hearts that want her. One shall have it, and the other drowns in roses.
He leans back some, stretching his sore back before standing again to his full height and glaring down at the mess in the sink. So much, so many. His breath is short and the bouts of the disease grow closer and closer together as the weeks go on.
There is not much life left on him to live. There is not much time to revert this situation, not that he intends to do anything about it.
"I can't do this shit forever, Lili." He reaches over to his jacket hanging on the back of the bathroom door and shrugs it on.
The blond mafioso wipes his mouth on the white and soft towel sitting on the sink, his signature smirk rolling back in as his hand finds its way back to the gilded pistol left haphazardly next to the tap. He takes one last look at himself and runs his free hand through the mess atop his head.
"I really fucking won't."
Yanking the stately wooden door back open, he swings the weapon in his hand to rest back on its concealed holster.
"We still got more shit to do." He said to himself, walking downstairs.
With quick strides, he goes down to the dungeon beneath his home and is met with the twitching, bloodied body of the creep of a police officer who had given her the eyes.
Nicole would inflict upon his bones all the pain he feels in his ailing lungs, and then he would move on to the next, for as long as there was still a warm breath in him.
Then, he shall be free of it.