by Merikan,Miss
“When I was a young teen, I was dating this boy. It wasn’t anything serious, but my father was very strict. He didn’t want me to meet up with boys. He even sent me to an all-girls’ school, but I met this guy at the mall, and we got closer. My mother knew about this, and she found it...adorable so she allowed me to meet up with him. Sometimes, she would take me to town and shop while we were on our date in the cinema or at the cafe.” I swallowed hard when my throat tightened. My mind was flooding with dark, dirty oil and made each second bitter. “My father found out, and they had the worst argument.
“Their marriage had never been a peaceful one. They could be all lovey-dovey one minute, only to start shouting at each other over the tiniest things. But this time it escalated so badly, and he...pushed her. She hit her head, and then there was blood everywhere. She died,” I whispered, watching his face blur in my tears. “I promised myself I would always do as I was told. That I wouldn’t date a boy until Father let me, and that I would never fall for anyone, so I wouldn’t end up like her. And here I am, despite doing everything right.”
Santo unbuckled his seatbelt to move closer, and grabbed both my hands. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was. I shouldn’t have asked her to cover for me. I’ve been so selfish,” I whispered but turned toward him, so relieved to have him touch me so tenderly. The weight of it all was still on my heart, yet I felt somehow lighter for telling someone about what had happened years ago. I was too afraid Mona would hate me if I told her what had actually happened. That she’d never forgive me for killing our mother.
“You couldn’t have expected things would turn out that way. Clearly, your mother thought you should be allowed to date. It’s your father who is to blame.” Santo gave me a kiss on the cheek.
I exhaled, leaning toward him. My father had done the deed, but that didn’t change the fact that nothing would have happened in the first place if it weren’t for me. “I’m scared. I don’t want you hurt because of me, but I don’t want Vincenzo to get his hands on me either. He will kill me in the end. I know he will.”
“I will find a way out of this mess, I promise.”
I drowned in Santo’s arms, and with his heart beating so close to mine, I found myself wishing the cool air that was biting my cheeks would freeze us like this forever, so I would have to never again deal with Vincenzo, Seth, Federico, or even Father.
Chapter 13
Days stretched like the goo I liked to play with when I was little. They were cold enough to make me dwell indoors, filled with worry that could be suspended only by the relief of the stolen moments with Santo. I stopped going to the pool, not wanting Vincenzo to walk in on me again while I was in in skimpy clothes, and so whenever the silence of my own room became too much, I spent my time in the hotel lobby or in the cafe in the first floor.
My Instagram followers ate up the extensive picture reports I posted every day to kill the boredom and the anxiety that had me choking up at night. They loved the change of scenery that came with my ‘road trip through the US’, commenting on new outfits, snippets taken at hotels, and the food porn. When I interacted with them I could almost believe my life was a carefree one. I briefly wondered which of the people commenting and liking was Santo, but I couldn’t come up with an answer.
Bored out of my mind, I browsed a website with all kinds of viral content as I drank my coffee and ate a red velvet cupcake. Even the sweetness of the frosting couldn’t soothe the emptiness of the existence of a traveler who could only follow a pre-approved path and could be shot on sight if they strayed from it.
Out of all the headlines crying out for my attention with buzzwords and large fonts, I chose the one that promised burning hot eye candy. ‘Anyone would like this hottie to roast a pig for them’ was the title of the so-called article, but I was beyond looking for anything but pure entertainment. I opened the website and scrolled past the few paragraphs of text at the top, but the moment I pressed play on the video underneath, I almost choked on my cupcake.
Seth smiled at the camera without any qualms about being filmed. He looked so different out of a suit, wearing a hoodie under a leather jacket instead. And he was actually smiling, as if there was no care in his world.
“I’m from Italy,” he said in English, smiling at the pretty reporter. “But I used to live in New York. I wanted to make a henhouse for a while now, so my dreams have come true.” He laughed and showed off a cage with the hen he must have just purchased.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Did Seth have a sweet twin brother I didn’t know about? He seemed perfectly relaxed when he combed back his hair with his fingers, while around me, he’d always seemed so standoffish, even if he’d acted perfectly civil.
The reporter laughed and pointed to something by her feet. The camera followed her hand, revealing a small cage with a…piglet. What on earth? “Oh, will it live with its pink friend?”
Seth looked at the animal. “Nope, I’m afraid that little piggy’s gonna get roasted. Circle of life and all that.”
The reporter’s pink lips curved downward. “Ow, poor little guy. Are you having a cookout with friends?”
Half the Villani family was searching for him, and he was taking his time to roast a pig?
“Yep, but it’s gonna be a surprise party, so…” Seth put his finger against his lips and made a shushing sound.
The woman narrowed her eyes. “Are you cooking for a special someone?”
I knew it. He had a girlfriend in the US. He’d lied to me and then fled to be with her, leaving me with this whole mess. It made me so angry I put down my cup so that I wouldn’t be tempted to throw it against the wall.
Seth laughed and looked away from the camera, smiling despite the dark flush creeping up his cheeks. “Yeah, for my boyfriend. It’s kind of a second honeymoon sort of thing.”
I didn’t even hear what the reporter babbled about after that. I stared at his lips moving, but the words were subdued as if they came from behind a wall of ice.
Boyfriend. Did he really say boyfriend?
My heart drummed furiously, and I lost all appetite, rewinding the video in disbelief. But no, that was exactly what he said.
He was gay.
That motherfucker was gay, and yet he’d slept with me.
I stood up on shaky legs and slapped a bank note on the table before all but running across the lobby, past Emilio, who no doubt followed me at a distance, but I couldn’t bother with him now. My heart was urging me on to go to war.
Santo usually let me know if he was leaving the hotel, so he was likely in his room close to mine. I rapped at the door so hard my fist hurt.
“Come in!” came from inside, followed by the buzz that allowed me to push down the handle, and as soon as I burst inside, he got up from his armchair. “What is it? Are you all right?”
I pushed my phone at him, so nervous and angry I could barely think straight. Talking seemed even harder. “It’s him. Look. Look.”
Santo closed the door behind me, but once he played the video, his frown deepened by the second. “What the actual fuck…?” he whispered. “Is he insane? What is he doing talking to reporters?” But when the bit about the boyfriend came on, Santo stared at the phone with his eyes staying wide even after the video ended.
I stepped back and slumped on the edge of his bed, trying to make air stop wheezing in my windpipe. This was unbelievable. I couldn’t believe he’d done this to me. He knew he was gay, and he still married me, only to disappear like the biggest coward.
Santo passed me the phone, staring at the wall. “They’re fucking. That’s the missing piece of the puzzle. I thought they had an unlikely friendship going on. Like between a puma and a baby bear, or some shit like that. But this makes so much more sense.”
Oh God, so that was why Acerbi had watched me with so much hate. He’d been jealous.
But even with the fiery anger coursing through my veins, I grabbed Santo’s hand and looked up at him, ready to get
on board with even the tiniest glimmer of hope. “Maybe things could work out after all. If he’s gay, then we could have completely separate lives. I could be with you, and we could be happy. We could have children if we wanted to,” I whispered quietly, embarrassed as soon as I said it. I knew Santo cared for me, but he never declared that he wanted to be with me forever.
He squeezed my hand, and scooted in front of me with a stern face. “Lucrezia. Baby. After this video, Seth will never become Don. Worse even. He can’t come back from this. I don’t really care about him being gay, but in our organization, I am in the minority. If he comes back, he’s as good as dead.”
Which meant that the only plan we’d come up with so far was now void, because Seth absolutely needed to brag about his pig roast plans.
I exhaled several times, holding on to Santo while a stream of old ideas worked its way through my mind like water carving out a way through rock. “If he can’t be the Don, who will be?” I asked firmly, looking into his eyes. “You can’t seriously consider supporting Vincenzo.”
Santo dropped my hand and stood up, huffing loudly. “No. There must be another way around it. I need to find out why my father wants Acerbi alive. It will give me leverage in negotiations, pressure him to help us.”
I chewed on my lip and got up as well, wanting him to pay attention to my words. “It’s difficult to watch you take all this nonsense. Why would you if you’re so much smarter than all of them put together? You are decisive. You have the charisma a leader needs,” I said, stepping closer. “Why don’t you take that prize?” I asked in a slightly lowered voice when I met his eyes.
Santo’s gaze hardened. “We’ve already talked about this. I’m trying my best to work out something that will suit us both.”
I squeezed my hands into fists. “What if that’s not good enough? I keep being tossed from place to place. I keep worrying about what Vincenzo’s gonna do next. This situation will never end if you’re not in control.”
Santo’s face twisted into a scowl. “I’m sorry you’re in this position, but between you, Vincenzo, and my father, my hands are tied. I’m already risking my father’s anger for being with you against his explicit wishes.”
“But our relationship is a secret, and it will always be a secret, won’t it?” I asked, pacing in front of him. In this moment I could rip Vincenzo’s throat out with my bare teeth if he got too close to me. “And I don’t want to be your secret while you lead your life the way your father wants you to. I want to be your wife. This isn’t good enough.”
Santo took a step back from me, baring his teeth. “Well, I’m sorry you can’t have everything you want! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my neck is on the line every day. I’m trying to make things work, but it’s fucking hard to find a way out of this that doesn’t involve the risk of losing you. Have you ever considered asking me if taking control over the Family is even what I want? Is that even important to you?” He balled his hands into fists and stepped away from me. “Or maybe I want to, and I’m constantly working on it? No, you don’t care. You want it all your way, and you want it now. Well, now, I’m going to some country market in Tennessee to see whether your husband managed to roast that pig, and if his new hen started laying eggs.”
I swallowed hard, but even though there was some sense to his words, it angered me that he wouldn’t try to understand how it was to be in my position, how it felt to be so vulnerable and under constant threat. But with the way he was clenching his teeth until it hurt me to watch it, I knew discussing this topic further made no sense whatsoever.
I crossed my arms on my chest. “Fine.”
Santo watched me in silence, and I looked back, waiting for him to say something, to apologize, or even argue his point with me, but he grabbed his wallet from the table and left.
I stared at the door, slightly numb, now that the initial anger was cracking and falling off me in shards. I half-expected him to come back, but when that didn’t happen, I left his room, shutting the door behind me. I made my way down the corridor, watching the grey carpet underneath my feet as anxiety rose in inverse proportion to my dispersing anger. Have I really been out of line? What if Santo wouldn’t forgive me for trying to push him? I swallowed hard when guilt crept up my throat. I shouldn’t have tried to manipulate the one person who cared for me. I shouldn’t have made him feel obliged to alter all his plans for me.
The soft thumping of footsteps behind me made my heart beat faster, and I turned around hoping Santo came back to talk, but it was Vincenzo heading my way, his gaze pinning me to the wall. I stopped breathing and gave him a brief smile, but couldn’t bring myself to pretend anymore. I wanted to be safe in my room. It was already within sight, so I looked straight ahead and walked quicker. The louder I could hear Vincenzo’s footsteps, the harder I squeezed my hand around the keycard, already having it ready for a quick getaway.
With my skin tingling and my mind buzzing, I put the card against the reader, walking in and turning to shut the door as fast as I could, just to put a barrier between us.
I wouldn’t get to. Vincenzo’s foot blocked the entrance, and my body went into panic mode, freezing so abruptly even my heart must had stopped beating for a few seconds.
“Where you going, baby girl?”
I would punch him if I heard that term one more time. “I don’t feel so well. I was going to have a nap,” I said quietly. The one thing that counted now was making him go away and leave me in peace.
“That’s not gonna work for me,” he said and pushed the door so hard I had to step back not to fall to the floor from the impact. “I think you and I need to have a little chat.”
My lips twitched, and I wasn’t sure I’d still managed to smile. My lungs constricted. I couldn’t breathe. “Oh? Okay then, let’s go to the café,” I said and moved to walk past him, back into the corridor.
He grabbed my arm so hard it felt like a stab and shoved my at my bed while kicking the door shut. “You think you’re so smart?” Vincenzo frowned, and no matter how much I wanted to scream at him, I knew that would only make my situation worse. “You’re not. And you’re now fucking useless, because your faggot husband won’t give a flying fuck about you.”
I rolled over the bed and stood back on my feet, glad to have it between us, but with him barging in here like that, I was like a little dog cornered by a hungry grizzly bear in its own home. There was no way out and no one to save me. There was no balcony where I could flee and be visible to other guests, and my arms were so tense they ached. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Our fathers made the match. It had nothing to do with me in the first place.”
He moved toward me, step by menacing step, and my pulsing brain wondered whether Santo had left the building yet, or if there was a tiny chance he would come back to say a few words to me. He’d find Vincenzo here, and he’d get rid of him, I knew he would. Maybe I could call him? But my phone was in my bag, and I couldn’t allow myself to take my attention off the predator after me.
Vincenzo’s eyes narrowed. “If he’s a fag, did he even fuck you? I doubt that. So I guess your marriage has been a sham all along.”
I frowned at him, but my muscles turned into wood. “That is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
He circled the bed, coming closer by the second. “Or maybe he only fucked you up the ass if he likes guys so much.”
“He must be into both men and women,” I said quickly, backing away with my heart thumping loudly. Could I smack him with the lamp, or would he stop me on time? He was so much bigger, heavier than me that all my earlier thoughts of teaching him a lesson evaporated. “Which is disgusting, but I had no idea.”
He squinted at me, his gaze trailing lower until I regretted ever wearing skirts in his presence. “I don’t even know if I want to marry you anymore.” Vincenzo smirked as if I were supposed to be sad about it when, in fact, my heart skipped a beat at the thought of being free of his attention.
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I swallowed and stretched my back, trying to stay cool, even if my voice was higher-pitched than usual. Somehow, despite Vincenzo’s words being almost soothing, there was a shadow of threat in them as well. “I expect my father will wish to annul my current marriage on the grounds of Seth’s lies. Then I will be free to marry whoever you choose, Vincenzo,” I said calmly, but my heart screamed for him to choose Santo. Maybe this could work. Maybe Vincenzo would leave me alone.
“I might just choose you myself,” he said and took another step closer, forcing me into a corner. “But I wanna sample the goods first. Don’t wanna end up with a wife that can’t keep me happy, if you know what I mean.” He waggled his eyebrows like the lecher he was.
My cheeks tingled, but with him so close, so threatening, I could barely come up with new ideas to fend him off anymore. “I don’t think any of us wants war between our famili—”
He grabbed my neck with his massive hand and squeezed in warning. “Bitch, you think you’re so smart? You think you’re so important? Wake up!” he yelled into my face, and no matter how much I wanted to ignore him, I shivered, slumping against the wall. “You’re just tits and ass under all those fancy clothes.” He grabbed my breast with his other hand, forcing a thumb between the buttons of my shirt.
I gasped, shoving at him without thinking. “Stop. You can’t act like this if you want to become my husband.” My hands shook as I looked into his emotionless eyes, prepared to be skinned like rabbit for stew.
I yelped when he let go of my breast, and his hand went all the way up my skirt and between my legs, forcing its way in no matter how hard I clenched my thighs.
“What about this then? Can I act like this?” Vincenzo’s breath quickened, and I put my hands on his shoulders but felt as powerless as never before. He was there, a ruthless presence I couldn’t stop from holding my neck and teasing me where he should have never even gotten close to in the first place.