by Bethany-Kris
Blank.
Empty.
“You have a hundred pairs of eyes on you at the moment,” Affonso said at Emma’s side. “The very least you could do for those people is smile, Emma.”
She knew what would have been the right thing to do where Affonso was concerned, especially on a day like today that was incredibly important to him. She should have put her mask on for him, and smiled pretty for the crowd, just the way he would like, in the way that would please him.
Emma couldn’t even bother to muster that up for the bastard.
“Why?” she asked, keeping her tone down so that only Affonso could hear. “Wasn’t it you who told me this morning that today wasn’t about me, Affonso? It’s about Cross and you. Isn’t that right? Why should I smile for people who didn’t come to see me?”
Affonso’s jaw ticked a second before his fingers dug deep into Emma’s arm. They had been standing side by side on the altar as the new priest of their church blessed her son, beginning his rites of Christening. No one probably even noticed the husband holding his wife’s arm.
Emma did all she could not to wince, or make a sound. Affonso would like it too much, for one thing. But for another, she knew that if she did make a show, she would probably regret it later.
Lately, it seemed her husband had no qualms with reminding Emma of her place in the family, and in his life. He took no issue with taking her son from her arms regularly, just to make a point that he could. He often called her a whore when others’ backs were turned.
His patience had lessened more and more.
Cross had stayed in the hospital for a total of two weeks until his jaundice left, and his oxygen levels remained steady. Unfortunately, just a few short days after his birth, Emma had been discharged to go home.
She found that home was not as safe or comforting as it should have been.
It seemed like now that her son was out of her womb, Affonso had no issue with removing her altogether, if he needed. Or at least, that’s what he regularly threatened her with.
It killed her—suffocating her slowly.
Emma was beyond acting like the good little house wife for Affonso. She no longer cared about his status, or her place as his wife. She was done with his demands, his abusive nature, and his manipulations.
But she was also alone.
She had no one.
Pushing Affonso in just the right way might lead to a situation that could leave her in a grave, and her son without a mother.
“You are certainly touchy today, aren’t you?” Affonso asked.
Emma didn’t respond.
She didn’t really need to.
“Behave, Emma.”
That warning was enough to make her spine straighten a little more. There wasn’t even an “or else” tacked onto the end of it, but she didn’t need there to be.
“Look, even our son is smiling,” Affonso added after a moment.
Emma’s gaze traveled over to where the priest was holding Cross in his white Christening gown and his little cap keeping his wild, black hair covered. Sure enough, the two-week-old newborn had a slight grin curving his pink lips as he jerkily waved an arm at the priest.
But she knew what it was.
“He’s too little for grins; he’s not even three weeks old yet—it’s gas, Affonso.”
Affonso grunted. “You have to make everything so goddamn bleak.”
No, he did that.
She was simply a product of his vileness.
Their whole marriage was.
Beside the priest, Ray Missotti stood waiting for his time, and his wife waited next to him with a painted on, plastic smile.
Rage simmered through Emma’s nervous system.
Neither of those people were supposed to be standing where they were. She hadn’t wanted them to be the godparents to her son. Affonso had promised her that Calisto would be the godfather.
Yet, there they were.
Another lie to add to the pile.
Emma’s gaze turned on the crowd again, and she searched once more for the face she wanted to see in the crowd. He wasn’t there.
Calisto wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
When someone had mentioned it earlier, Affonso hadn’t said a word, simply walked away. When a second person mentioned it, he brushed it off.
Emma chose not to ask, but obviously, something was very wrong.
All too soon, the Christening was over. Once the regular Sunday services were finished as well, Emma finally had her baby boy back in her arms. She talked sweetly to him and let him suck on the tip of her finger as she followed behind Affonso to leave the church.
She was surprised to find a group of people waiting for them.
Only in passing had she heard them mentioned.
They were a little infamous in the world of Cosa Nostra.
The Marcello family dominated the syndicates, after all. Of course, she had heard of them.
The man in the middle, holding the hand of a red-headed woman, stepped forward.
“Dante,” Affonso greeted, tugging Emma to his side. “I’m glad to see you could make it.”
Dante nodded, and passed Emma and baby Cross a small smile. “Congratulations on your son, Affonso.”
“Yes, thank you. It’s about time.”
Emma couldn’t help but notice how the other people—the rest of the Marcello family, she suspected—stayed quiet as Affonso and Dante discussed the baby, and then quieter, the Irish.
“I was told it would be handled,” Dante said. “He assured me.”
One of the other two men behind Dante sighed and said, “Don’t play word games, Dante.”
“Hush, Giovanni,” Dante snapped over his shoulder.
Giovanni did just that.
“Word games?” Affonso asked.
Dante folded his arms over his chest. “My wife was doing business over in the area of Calisto’s club the other week.”
Affonso stiffened, giving the red-headed woman a dismissive look. “Is that so?”
The woman smiled sweetly, but it radiated coldness at the same time.
Catrina, Emma knew.
She had heard the woman’s—Dante’s wife—name mentioned in passing, and usually because the men who were talking about her, didn’t approve of her, the status she held, or her career choices.
Emma only knew what she heard, but it was enough.
The woman was dangerous.
She found herself wondering what it was like to be feared and respected by men.
“It is so,” Catrina said, still smiling in that way of hers. “Apparently Calisto’s SUV was found behind his club, smashed into a wall, and bullet holes all through the back.”
Affonso didn’t relax in his stance for a second. “Something happened—we’re not sure what.”
Something happened …
Emma’s panic climbed tenfold.
What had happened?
“But was he found?” Dante asked.
Affonso’s jaw ticked again, like it had earlier.
It always did that when he was aggravated, or frustrated.
“No,” her husband admitted.
“One little toe, two little toes, three little toes, and there’s four,” Emma said in a sing-song fashion, tickling each of baby’s Cross’s tiny toes in the bathwater. Her one-month-old son grinned a toothless smile when she tickled his biggest toe and said, “Here’s the fifth little toe, but wait—there’s more!”
She repeated the song as she counted the toes on his other foot, thoroughly enjoying the quiet moment she had to spend with Cross. Things like bathing, clothing, feeding, and changing the baby were not events Affonso wanted anything to do with. He happily passed Cross over to Emma whenever the baby began to fuss for whatever reason.
Emma didn’t mind.
Affonso would disappear, leaving her alone with her son. She rarely got the chance to actually spend time with him without someone looking over her goddamn shoulder.
It seemed like someone was always aroun
d—mostly her husband, though.
Cross reached toward Emma, little fingers spread wide, and his face bright with happiness. She took comfort in the fact that he was content and only really knew joy for the short time he had spent on earth. She loved him with her whole heart—every piece of her soul—and she wanted her son to know it, too.
There were times when Affonso would come into a room, take the baby, and stroll off like nothing was amiss. Those were the times when Emma’s heart cracked and fell to the floor, shattering into pieces with all her broken emotions. She kept it together, for the most part.
Or she tried.
That didn’t mean it was easy.
Calisto’s absence was a constant reminder that wouldn’t leave. Each time she looked at little Cross’s features, it was like looking at his father’s face.
A father he was without.
She refused to think of Affonso as Cross’s father in any way. The man could pretend all he wanted, and he could say whatever he wanted to his people, but Emma wouldn’t feed into it.
Especially not to her son.
When she was alone with her son; when Affonso wasn’t hovering over her shoulder; when there was no one else around to hear her whispered words, she told Cross about Calisto … the things she knew, the memories he’d shared, and how the little baby boy had come to be.
Affonso could take a lot of things from Emma, but he couldn’t take those.
None of them.
Cross’s cooing brought Emma from her depressive thoughts. She smiled down at her boy, running her hand over his wet, dark tufts of hair. Letting the plug out of his safety tub, she waited for the water to drain before scooping him up in a soft, fluffy towel.
Instantly, the baby snuggled into the crook of her neck. His little legs pulled up close to his chest, and the only thing that remained visible under the towel was the very top of his head.
For a moment, Emma simply held him like that.
Still.
Silent.
Close.
She felt the silky, baby soft skin of his back. The warmth of his body pressed against the cradle of her palms. She listened to his quiet breaths and the suckling sound of his thumb popped into his mouth as it usually was.
The bathroom door was still closed.
No one could see her moment.
Emma always felt like Affonso was watching her too much whenever she had her son in her arms. Like he was waiting for a reason to say she was coddling Cross too much, or maybe even that she wasn’t taking care of him well enough.
He’d already made those sorts of comments. Or rather, alluded to them.
It terrified her.
She found herself wondering all the time about what might happen to her when she was no longer useful to Affonso and Cross. Or if he didn’t think she was useful.
The man was too distrustful of outsiders to hire a nanny of sorts.
Emma was left to the job of caring for most—if not all—of Cross’s needs because Affonso was incapable of doing anything other than showing the baby off for praise and congratulations.
But what about when Cross could walk?
When he didn’t wake up four times in a night?
When he was potty-trained?
When he didn’t need his mother to survive?
Emma’s throat closed around the sob she held back. Burying her face against the towel covering her baby, she held Cross a little tighter where no one could see her fear and worries.
“Mamma loves you, sweet boy,” she whispered to him.
Cross kept sucking on his thumb, blissfully unaware of his mother’s panic.
In a way, she was happy he didn’t know.
“And your father—” Emma’s words cut off, but only briefly before she finished quieter with, “Your father will adore you—I know he will.”
She had made the decision to tell Calisto the truth—all of it, every single detail, no matter how hurtful, unbelievable, and dirty it may be to him. He needed to know, and she needed him to know, too.
Emma had thought for so long that to protect her son, his father, and herself, she needed to do what Affonso demanded of her.
But she didn’t think that was true, now.
She was pretty sure the only way to win against her husband was to play his own damn games.
Or … that was her plan.
If Calisto ever came back, that was.
Another two weeks passed Emma by in a worry-filled, sleepless blur.
She never complained.
Not about her son.
But inside, she was a mess of emotions and it made her feel useless most days.
The only bright spot in her life currently was her son—Cross kept her sane. He was the one and only reason she woke up in the mornings, because he always smiled so big when she peered over his large, ornate crib. He had gone from a newborn who barely kept his eyes open, to a six week old that recognized her face in practically a blink.
Sometimes, she wanted to slow down time.
Others, she didn’t know what she wanted at all.
Most days, Emma was stuck in a hazy bubble that felt like she was looking out of a dirty window. Or like maybe she was a dusty, old, forgotten doll placed upon a shelf, waiting for another day to be taken off and played with.
That was, essentially, what her life had been turned into.
She was just a doll.
Affonso’s toy to show off.
Her husband’s thing to own.
Something for others to admire.
Emma had always known this, but it was never more apparent than after the birth of her son when it seemed like even six weeks beyond his birth, guests still regularly showed up unannounced to the house. Affonso expected Emma to be on her best behavior. To him, that meant she was to be quiet, pleasing to both the ear and eye, and she was to be by his side at all times.
Only now, she usually held the baby, too.
It disgusted her.
She was not someone Affonso cared for—neither was Cross, really.
They were simply things he had for people to envy and admire.
Nothing else.
So when nighttime fell, and Emma could put her son down for bed—or as long as it took for him to wake up hungry again—she took the greatest pleasure in locking her bedroom door, and dreaming of something better.
… someone better.
“Did you wear that damn thing today just to see how far you could push me?” Calisto asked.
Emma glanced at him from the passenger seat. “Wear what—what are you going on about?”
“That damn thing.” He waved at her, adding, “That damn dress, Emmy!”
She peered down at the fitted, red dress she had chosen that morning. The skirt ended just above her knees, and it flared wide all the way around. It had been appropriate enough for Affonso not to say anything. And God knew that fucking asshole wouldn’t hesitate to say something if he felt the need.
She couldn’t figure out what the hell Calisto’s issue was.
“There’s nothing wrong with my dress,” she said.
Calisto’s gaze narrowed as he passed her another heated look. “Dolcezza, come on.”
Emma’s brow furrowed. “It’s—”
“Red,” he interrupted, his tone thick. “You know I like red. On you, I like it a lot. You know this, Emma.”
Oh.
Well, she hadn’t really thought of that when she’d picked it out. It was just one of the few red dresses that Affonso turned his cheek to. He wasn’t a fan of the color, and he thought it made women look like whores.
Emma figured that said a lot more about Affonso than it did the women who wore the color.
But who was she to say?
Calisto let out a sigh. “You know what’s fucking worse, sweetheart?”
Emma swallowed the lump forming in her throat. Whenever he used casual endearments so offhandedly like he did, it made her heart ache. She saw him interact with more than enough women to know Calis
to didn’t use pet names on every female he came across. He rarely, if ever, called them anything but their first name.
With her, he always had something sweet on the tip of his tongue.
“What?” she finally asked.
Calisto’s hands tightened on the wheel. “What’s worse, Emma, is that you don’t even realize how much hell you put me through without even trying. I am fucking hard—like steel—it hurts. I have been this way since you came down the damn stairs this morning. I will be this way until I take care of it, or you do. And you don’t even know—but I sort of love that, too.”
Emma blinked, turning into stone in the passenger seat.
It was rare for Calisto to use that word—love.
Even as a slip of the tongue, or in passing.
He just didn’t.
She knew he loved her, of course. It was hard not to see how the weight on his shoulders disappeared when she was closer to him, and how the sadness and anger that was always in his eyes just left when he looked at her.
How could that not be love?
“What?” Calisto asked, passing her a strange look.
Emma shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Did I say something?”
“No, Cal.”
“You sure?”
“Nothing bad,” she promised softly.
The corner of his mouth tugged up into one of his sinful grins, he snagged her hand in his, lifted it toward himself, and pressed a soft kiss to the side of her hand. Just as quickly, she felt the strike of his hot, wet tongue snake across her skin.
A heat flooded her middle, pooling straight down to her sex.
“Cal …”
Her warning fell on deaf ears.
Calisto was looking at the dashboard clock, he checked his rear-view mirror, and then he was pulling off to the side of the road. Emma didn’t even have a chance to ask what in the hell he was doing as his car slid in between two tall buildings. The alley was dark for it being the middle of the day, the shadows giving the brick walls a dirty, low vibe.
“We’ve got time,” Calisto said.
Emma turned to ask him what in the hell he meant, but her question was swallowed by his mouth landing hard against hers. The surprise move had her gasping, and that allowed Calisto to kiss her even deeper, his tongue tangling and dancing with hers as his hands fisted into the side of her dress.