Femme Fatale

by Kirsty-Anne Still

I shake my head. “I already tried, Zane. I mean this new idea might work, but he threatened to sell me and kill me already, I might not have another chance. I just worry he won’t grant me that any longer.” I watch Zane’s face thunder over, his eyes looking ready to kill. But I wave him off. “My brothers took care of him. We might be on a tight timeframe, but I want to fight my way out of this now. I want to be with you. I want a chance of a future with you.” Then, as if to seal the deal, I murmur his own litany at him. “It’s always going to be you.”

  It seems to have worked as he pulls me into his grasp again and doesn’t let go immediately. As the adrenaline drips from my system, leaving me dry and completely spent, I look at him tiredly. We’re both fighting our own battles all while trying to find ways not to destroy a future for us both. He wants to save me; I want to save him. I beg with the gods to issue me a simple life.

  I’ve lost all my fight, and for once, I realize I feel free with it. I look up at him, my hand reaching up to softly touch his face to urge him look at me.

  “I couldn’t lose you again,” I whisper as I curl up against him.

  He leans into my hold and breathes the simplest response, “You won’t.”

  His promises all seem so bittersweet; they could be my total undoing.

  CHAPTER NINE

  My father’s arranged a ball to celebrate my twenty-fourth birthday. It’s fit for a queen, but I feel out of place. People have come and gone and I keep a smile on my face, remain well-mannered, but I feel so distant to all of this and it’s all because of my father. He’s barely spoken to me since the night he presented me with my own death sentence. And I’ve hardly tried to put in the effort.

  Even though I have my new plan with Zane, one that will enable us to live a moment of our love story for a little while longer, I still cannot bear to face him, to speak to him, to ask for his approval. So I haven’t. I didn’t face my responsibilities, and I made sure I didn’t sit with him at meal times. I ate on my own in the days up to my birthday, and when I woke up this morning, only Enzo, Carlo, and Manuel were around to shower me in gifts.

  Giovanni was out with our father, and I was pleased for it. Ever since getting back from spending my night with Zane, allowing him to ignite that flame we once had, Giovanni has been on my back about it. He knew, the moment I walked back into the house, where I had been and what I have been up to, but I have successfully kept out of his way.

  Until now. He’s standing before me in the games room, eyes shooting daggers into me.

  “I bet you fucked him, didn’t you?” Giovanni ambushes me once more with that wild accusation. However true, I still refuse to answer. My silence forces his body to fly directly into mine, and I’m sent back until I hit a side dresser in the grand room. I don’t get chance to respond. It’s clearly written all over my face and has been for days. “You’re nothing but a whore, Amelia. You want all the male attention possible. Have you seen yourself out there?” He’s crazed now, throwing allegations around. I’m just trying to be what our father requested I be – desirable. It might be my birthday, but I have to be utter perfection and fawn over the men to keep them happy.

  Apparently, my avoidance of him could only work for so fucking long.

  “You’re fucking insane,” I cuss at him and push him away but his stance is too heavy, and he doesn’t budge.

  “I know you, Amelia. I know how you loved him once. You’re so fickle as it is, why wouldn’t you be fucking him to bide some time. The way you walk around here like you’re queen bee too, sickens me. You will never run this place, and soon, everyone will look down on you like me and Papà do. Everyone sees this strong, beautiful woman, but maybe we should let them see the real you. The weak victim you hide from everyone.” He leans in close to me to a suffocating degree. “What would happen if I were to run this down your face?” he asks and presents his infamous switchblade. The knife shoots from its hilt, the light glistening from its metal edge. “I didn’t get you a gift, but I have a perfect one for you now,” he says and begins to lower it to my face. “A scar right down your face would be a perfect reminder to keep you in line. Even Maverick wouldn’t want a butchered bitch.”

  I close my eyes as I prepare for that piercing bite on my skin, but Giovanni’s weight suddenly disappears, and I’m left cowering to an empty space. Once I pry them open, I see why. Bruno has arrived and has Giovanni thrown over the pool table by the collar of his shirt and blazer.

  “You are one sadistic bastard, Giovanni,” Bruno spits and releases Giovanni enough to allow him to turn to face his brother. “I knew there was reason I fucking despised you. If I didn’t have cause before, what I just witnessed was a real clincher.”

  “Get the fuck away from me,” Giovanni grunts, straightening his shirt and jacket back.

  That ignites more hate in my brother. “One day you are going to wake up with your balls shoved down your throat, Gio.” Bruno terrorizes Giovanni while we all stand and watch. Bruno towers over our brother when he is riled up, and I have to admit, that look of fear on Giovanni’s face is too fucking good to miss. “And I’ll be the one holding the knife. Threaten our little sister again, and I will make your biggest nightmares come true. Capisci?”

  Clapping resounds after Bruno’s warning, and we all turn to see our father standing in the doorway. I sense Giovanni stand up, straightening himself and regaining his composure.

  “I knew you still had that Abbiati fight still left in you, Figlio Mio.”

  “Cut the fatherly duty, Salvatore. I am far from your son.” Bruno’s demeanor doesn’t relinquish its hardened stance. If anything, our father’s sudden appearance only bristles Bruno furthermore. “I’m here to celebrate my sister’s birthday, not tear away psychopaths from permanently scarring her.”

  I feel amused as my father’s face fills with aggression, his eyes narrowing upon Giovanni. That look is one that makes me feel like I haven’t totally ruined my life within the family. I may still have a chance to redeem myself in my father’s eyes.

  “Oh wow, now you strike up some resemblance to a doting father,” Bruno comments sarcastically. “I know what you tried to do with her the other night and don’t think I’ll ever forget finding her on my doorstep absolutely terrified.”

  “Scare tactics,” our father says with a gentle shrug. He looks at me and smirks. “She seems okay. She just needs to get back to the party.”

  Bruno snorts in disbelief. “Giovanni just threatened to permanently disfigure her, Sal. Yeah, I’m sure she’s ready to party.”

  With that, our father’s face transforms. The devil comes to life and he slowly diverts his gaze to Giovanni. He stalks toward Giovanni and doesn’t stop until he has Giovanni pinned against the wall by his throat. Knowing the pure lengths Giovanni would go to harm the only Abbiati daughter seems to have my father in a tumultuous rage.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” my father asks, his voice is wild and so unlike him. “Stupido. Idiota. Il Bastardo!” My father begins to slap Giovanni with each new insulting adjective, and my brother just takes it. “You never lay a hand on her. She’s my precious cargo, you complete imbecile!” My father gives him a hard strike around the ear and Giovanni cowers at the walloping clout to the side of his head. Our father then stands back, keeping himself from blowing again. “You know she’s useless if you scar her in your rage. If she’s not perfect, then we lose our secret weapon. The only reason she works out as the Femme Fatale is because she is stunning; don’t jeopardize that. Think before you fucking act next time or I won’t be so light.”

  “Wow, I really wished I had been born ugly,” I scoff my musing. My morale sinks lower than it has been all week, and once again, my father is to blame. “Great to know where your love for me stems from.”

  I go to leave, admittedly sulking my way out of the room, but why do I care? It’s not as if he wants to keep me around, he’s delivered the threat of sending me off with a total stranger to whatever life followed by a swift ‘Hey Amel
ia, your next meal’s a poisoned one’. However, when he grips onto my arm as I pass by him, he hauls me backwards until he’s standing close to me, and his grasp on me tightens.

  “Don’t be such an ungrateful little cow. You weren’t brought up like that,” he hisses at me, belittling me.

  “I also wasn’t brought up to know I was going to be a grade-a killing machine, but would you look at that? Things really do change from what we expect.” I can’t stop myself. The words keep churning out, and my brain isn’t fast enough to stop them from falling from my painted red lips.

  “What would you rather have, Amelia? A mundane life or all of this at your feet?” my father questions me, queries my motives. “Because I gave you it all.”

  “You, also, take it away whenever you want to,” I reply, indirectly meaning my mother again. “Lately, I’m starting to think Bruno had the better idea, Salvatore. So, in answer to your question, I’d rather live a mundane life.”

  He mocks me with a heart burst of laughter. “You don’t mean that. You would be nothing without everything I give you. You lack any qualifications, any career aspirations and real-life experiences-”

  “I lack real-life experiences?” I ask him back, scoffing as I do so. “I have more real-life experiences than most twenty-four-year-olds, Papà, so don’t ever tell me that. Most girls my age are in a career they love, have their own place, and are madly in love. However, I’m here, living under your control, killing people for you and waiting for my chance at some sort of true love when you so clearly aren’t going to grant it.”

  “You had your true love once, and he ruined it,” my father states, fire bursting into his words, aiming to scorch me, but I barely flinch. “Now, he’s back. And you’re only foolish enough to believe he will love you forever. You don’t have forever with him, Bambina. I made sure of that, so stop being a foolish girl, Amelia. Be an Abbiati. I taught you differently. Stop trusting your heart and use what you have learnt by being a part of this family.”

  I feel like the fallen angel from Grace. I always believed there was one in every family. There will always be that one child who stumbled one too many times from the right path and ended up as the disappointment of a lifetime. I am the Abbiati edition of the faller. I am the epitome of defamation cloaked in layers of disguises. People have assumptions of who I am, but publicly I am the embodiment of power, sensuality, murderess. Privately, I am a much weaker soul.

  “Maybe that’s just it,” I begin and look him straight in the eyes, garnering all of my inner strength. “Maybe I’m just not an Abbiati.” My statement makes his hand around my arm tighten, and it only fuels me. “You got rid of her because she was a weaker person than you. So, maybe, you realize it, too. I’m a Romano more than I am an Abbiati.” I brandish my mother’s maiden name at him like some deadly weapon. He always claimed she was never strong enough to be married to a man of his authority, and in the end, he was right – she wasn’t. “You say I look like her, but, apparently, I am her.”

  “You will never be like her,” my father argues back, admonishing all of my claims in one. “I won’t ever allow you to be. I will do whatever it takes to make sure I never see that happen. Mark my words.”

  “Like what?” I dare him. “What will you do to make sure I never turn out like her?”

  Before my father greets me with any verbal response, he tightens his grip further on my arm and yanks me forward so I am staring right into his eyes, trapped in a whirlwind of intent. I can hear his breathing beginning to deepen. Each inhale is now sharp and quickly followed by its exhalation. His jaw begins to clench as he attempts to control his brewing irritation.

  “Get the hell off her,” Bruno says, his anger magnifying by the second. In quick succession, my father is yanked away from me, and when I regain my footing, I look around and realize that Bruno has actually thrown our father across the room. “I’ve got nothing to lose where you’re concerned, Salvatore, but I will not tolerate you bullying your own blood. Do what you want to your minions but think before you so much as touch your own flesh and blood.”

  Our father laughs, mocking an already volatile man. “My own flesh and blood is mine, and family is a business. I will do whatever it takes to keep it under my control. You knew that before you left, Bruno. You could have had that fine life with that wife of yours and those three grandchildren of mine all whilst being an Abbiati.”

  “And risked it on a daily basis?” Bruno snaps back. “I wasn’t going to put her through constant threats that my family, that you, could kill all the chances of a happy future.”

  “Yet you left your younger siblings here to suffer it,” our father goads him. “Greedy really, isn’t it, Bruno?” My father is enjoying every second of it. If it didn’t ooze so violently from his tone, his small, yet menacing smirk on his lips says it all. “What happened after you left came as a result of you leaving.”

  I watch Bruno’s anger pique and boil over, and I step in. My brothers know no way to calm Bruno down, but I do. I’m the only, other than his wife, who he will listen to. “Bruno,” I mutter, pulling him back, hoping to deflect his anger. I don’t want him to do something to risk his life with Allana. “Walk it off.”

  He walks off, shaking the tension out of fists. I watch him leave the room, hands coursing over his head in a bid to calm himself fully.

  “That boy needs to learn some respect,” my father speaks, straightening his collar out.

  “Respect?” I scoff at him. “You expect something from us that you don’t give to us in the first place. I’m sorry, Papà, don’t expect something we all know you don’t deserve.”

  I watch my father’s eyes soften toward me. For the first time I see the father I used to love sitting there, waiting to resume his position after the devil possessed him. I could fall for it all, but I need to remind myself to keep in mind what he is really like.

  “I stand by what I said when I called you a monster. You might have thrown a huge party and dedicated it in my honor, but you’re the one all eyes are on. This isn’t how I want to spend my birthday.” I take a steady breath, keep myself calm, and allow my prior resentment to recede. “And, from your absence this morning, I can tell you don’t want to spend my birthday with me.”

  “Amelia,” my father says, taking a step forward.

  “Stop,” I command and shake my head. “I know you’re disappointed in me. I get that, but I just want to get through tonight so we can resume whatever life we live.” It’s with my piece said that I decide to leave. I need some air before I say something that I will regret.

  “Amelia, don’t go quite yet.” My father’s command is softened with a gentle tone. Reluctantly, I give him another minute of my time by turning back expectantly, and waiting for some sort of hellish insult or threat. What I’m met with quite surprises me. “I was going to withhold giving these to you until your twenty-fifth birthday, but I couldn’t keep them sitting in a box for much longer,” he comments and reaches into his jacket, pulling out soft baby pink box.

  “You don’t have to get a gift,” I counter, pushing it back toward him. “Seriously, I don’t need sweetening up.”

  He sighs, his shoulders slump in defeat. “You were right when you said you were more a Romano than an Abbiati, though,” he tells me softly. “You are definitely your madre’s daughter. I see her in this house more than ever with your tenacity and unwillingness desire to give up and just play by my rules.” He opens the box, and I gasp. “Her wish, ever since having you, was that these would one day be yours. I see no other perfect moment than right now.”

  He pulls the length of pure pearls from the box. He puts the box aside, and as he motions for me to turn around, I wonder if I’m a fool to obey, but this is one of my only chances to have a piece of my mother close to me. He puts them on, and I feel the weight of them around my neck as they drape across me. I never realized a necklace could be quite so suffocating, but these are. I don’t know if it’s the mental weight of remembering my mo
ther wearing them on most special occasions, including the night she died, or going from a bare chest to a heavily smothered one. Either way, I’m overwhelmed.

  “They’re slightly different, but still as beautiful,” my father comments as he drops away from my personal space. I turn to face him as he stands, waiting for my approval. “Your mother would be so proud, Bambina,” he admits, his hand stopping at my chin in a small gesture of fatherly love.

  I could say so many things right now. I could praise him, I could rip the beading from my body, but I choose neither. I feel my eyes begin to well uncontrollably, and I blink the burdening tears away enough to see me through this moment.

  “I need some air,” I tell him and quickly find my feet carrying me from the room. I barely acknowledge Giovanni making a comment about how ungrateful I am and Enzo immediately telling him to shut up. All I’m concerned with is breaking away from the house and seeking out some freedom.

  I take a few moments to find my getaway from the party, but the moment I burst out onto the patio at the back of the grand mansion, I feel fresh air wrap itself around me. It doesn’t take me long until I’m wandering around the large grounds that form my backyard and decide to head toward a wooded area. My father had a swing put in the middle of the large, overgrown trees – keeping it a shrouded, hidden sanctuary. Right now, it feels like the right place to go and hide away from the party. The moment I see it, the stress drizzles away, waiting to stake claim later on.

  “Care to dance?” Zane whispers, his mouth directly by my ear as he steps in behind me.

  My mouth dries as my back straightens, and I feel myself unable to move. I hesitate - more so to revel in his entire existence here, at my party, than in shock horror. But I turn to face him, all because he’s here.

  “Happy birthday, Sweetheart,” he comments and then looks at me, a little aghast. “God, you’re so beautiful,” he remarks, looking down at my entire formal wear for the night. “Every man that lays his eyes upon you is so fucking lucky.”