by Laura Rossi
Alejandro had only been a couple of years old the night Alonso had came home angry, drunk. Something had gone wrong. I’d heard him bark orders to his soldiers. He was loud and rowdy. I’d rushed into Alejandro’s room to make sure he was still asleep.
Soundly.
I’d closed the door, leaving it just slightly open—enough so I’d be able to hear him call out for me. Then I’d walked down the stairs, into Alonso’s office and had seen my husband trashing the place, throwing everything to the ground.
“What are you doing still up?” he growls, turning my way.
“I was waiting for you,” I mumble back, looking into his eyes.
Dark, red, angry.
“Waiting for me…” He snorts, pushing his hair back.
I can smell the alcohol on him from afar.
“Come to bed.” I am about to walk out, back to the bedroom, but Alonso’s words stop me dead cold.
“Don’t you dare turn your back to me. I wasn’t done with you,”
I turn to look at him again, a puzzle look on my face.
“Stop looking at me like that!” he shouts again.
Like what? Like you are dangerous? Like I don’t know you?
What was power doing to him? He was out of control—out of his mind.
“Then stop coming home like this.” I eye him from top to toe.
It takes him a second, no more than a second… Alonso jumps over his desk, over the mess he’s made in the room and is on to me, pushing me hard against the door.
I gasp, letting out a cry, feeling his body pressed against mine.
“Don’t disrespect me, Filomena,” he thunders, his mouth inches from my lips. His hot, bitter breath, makes my stomach clench.
How much has he had to drink? How many drugs has he taken?
His eyes are wide—dangerously alive.
“I’ve never disrespected you, Alonso.” My voice is a whisper and I shake my head a little, my heart in my throat.
Why am I shaking?
My pulse quickens. I’ve never been afraid of him before, never scared he’ll hurt me—physically—but when I search his eyes, I can’t find what I’m looking for.
Where is the man I married? Has he ever been the man I married?
“Then stop looking at me like I disgust you.”
“I never said that.” I watch him carefully, my breathing hysterical.
“You didn’t need to: I can read it in those cold, judgemental eyes of yours.” He glares at me. “You thought it.”
I did. Always. Day and night. It had been like a termite, digging deep inside my mind.
He’d betrayed me. He’d disrespected me as a wife, as a woman, no doubt he’d do it again—that he was already doing it again behind my back, while I was home, busy taking care of Alejandro.
“I want to go upstairs.” I try to shake him off me, but Alonso only presses harder against my body.
“And I want you here,” he says, beaming down at my nighty, at the three buttons over my breasts.
No.
“Alonso, you’re hurting me.” My words fall out of my mouth with each pant, but he doesn’t move an inch. Instead, his mouth goes for mine, pressing hard, his tongue forcing itself inside me.
“Alonso,” I scream, turning my head, trying to push him back, but he holds me in place—tighter. “Stop, stop!”
I scream again and then feel it.
The slap, heavy on my face.
It burns like hell. My head slams against the door as my eyes roll back, right before I am thrown onto the ground.
Alonso is on me in an instant, his hands strong around my wrists.
“Get off me,” I scream, before he slaps me again, harder this time, the blow resonating in my brain.
“Is that how you talk to your husband? Huh?” Alonso rips the cloth that covers my breasts. “Tu sei mia moglie!” You are my wife! “You will obey to me. You will respect me.” His hands snake under my nightgown, pulling my panties down fast. He then reaches for the zipper of his trousers.
“Stop, Alonso. Stop!”
He didn’t. He fisted my hair and banged my head hard on the floor, sinking his teeth into my lower lip.
“You think you are innocent, that you are above me—you and your integrity,” he speaks to me through gritted teeth, trying to force himself inside me. “You are just like me. Dirty like me.”
“Mamma.” A tiny little voice shakes the room.
“Alejandro!” I cry out, my head turning towards the door. “Alejandro.” I cry out his name again, pulling at what is left of my clothes, trying to cover myself, as Alonso quickly pulls himself up.
He saw us.
I wipe off the tears fast, a broken empty smile on my lips, while I get up from the floor, struggling to keep my balance.
Oh my God.
I cover my mouth and swallow down another cry, then stretch my arm towards my son, a two-year-old, staring down at his mother and father, unable to understand the emotions clouding the room.
Alejandro’s serious, solemn eyes search mine then turn to look at his father’s.
“Alejandro.” I call out for him again, my arms open to take him in, but he keeps staring at his father. A pure, innocent soul staring at a dark, sick violent one.
Alonso steps back, eyes wide, unable to say anything.
“Alejandro.” This time, he runs to me and grabs onto me tight. I lift him up and let him hide his face under my chin, as I whisper soothing, sweet words to him. “It was just a nightmare,” I bite my lip, my voice broken.
Do it for him, do it for your son.
“Everything is okay, baby. Mommy is going to take you back to bed.” I walk slowly but steadily towards the door.
I’d caught my reflection in one of the glass windows then, and I’d sucked in a breath: swollen, red cheeks, a bruise forming right beside my lip, strands of hair missing... He’d destroyed me, like a broken doll, and I’d seen someone I hadn’t recognize.
The ghost of me.
“I don’t want to sleep alone,” Alejandro says, his face pressed against my chest.
“Mommy is going to sleep with you,” I murmur, holding him closer to my heart.
Before I leave the room, I turn to look at the man hiding in the shadows: my husband, the demon I’ve married. I can see the reason coming back, his eyes wide, shocked, like he is coming to terms with what he’s done, what he’s said.
I see the pleading forming on his lips already, before he even says a word.
He’s going to tell me it won’t happen again. He’s going to beg for forgiveness, cover me in diamonds and gold—try to buy my love back.
But his words will be meaningless. I don’t believe him anymore. I don’t believe in us anymore.
The trust is gone and so is my love.
That was the first time he’d hit me… the first of many.
Chapter 8
Our souls are fragile, delicate, sensitive creatures. We are easily corrupted, easily consumed.
I saw my husband’s dark soul; I could see it clearly after that. He’d let money and power get to his head; the more he’d gained the more he’d wanted.
With my father not being around anymore, he’d conquered everything, almost everything, and those who hadn’t complied—hadn’t handed over their power—Alonso had disposed of them.
He’d been so strong, so present and acclaimed on the streets: a self-made man, one of them, a man of the streets. But he’d also been embedded within the high society, friends with politicians, thanks to my father’s connections.
Two years after my father’s death, Alonso De la Crux had become the King of Rome.
And a king never rests, is never satisfied… his hunger for richness and prestige had made him sleepless, greedy. Alcohol and drugs had turned him into a violent monster.
I was his scapegoat, his release. I’d let him hurt me without talking back, without resisting.
As long as he hits me and only me, I’ll be okay.
I get
up from bed, wanting to cry after spending the night in bed with Alonso, after letting him toy with me, resigned and remissive like the good wife he wants me to be.
It’s for Alejandro.
I hold tight to the thought, as I assess the damage: no bruises on my face, nothing anywhere visible, just a couple of slaps across my face, a punch in the stomach, because I’d dared to look at him ‘that way’.
With disgust, he’d meant.
I’d been living with a monster and I hadn’t been able do anything about it.
A monster with two faces.
He’d slap me and then get down on his knees a moment later to ask for forgiveness, promising the world, telling me I was his everything, that he hadn’t mean to.
That it was the lack of sleep. Stress.
“I never meant to hurt you, Filomena. It will never happen again, amore mio.” My love, he says, flowers in his hands.
A dozen long stem, red velvet roses, like every time he’d done me wrong.
I forgave him so many times. I’d tried to get past the pain, the humiliation, his lies…
Sometimes I’d convinced myself he loved me, in his own way he did. I’d told myself things could change, that one day he’d realize the pain he’d caused me, his mistakes, and make amends.
I’d waited. I’d swallowed down my pride, my wellbeing, and waited.
That day never came.
Alonso had been a sinister presence in our house. He’d lived at night, slept during the day and had little, if any, contact with Alejandro at all. During the first years of his life, I’d been our son’s world and his father had just been the man that shouted, the man that rarely smiled, the man with dark circles under his eyes, the man that murmured threats…
So I’d made sure to spend our days out of the house, in the garden or at the park… anywhere but home, to try to give Alejandro a decent childhood. I’d always smiled, never showed him a single tear. Not intentionally anyway.
I’d been alone: no family—my sisters had all married and moved away from Rome—and no friends. I’d been young and alone. And scared. Alonso’s favourite felon to punish.
When things had gone wrong and he was high, he’d channelled all his anger on me, like it was all my fault.
I’d learned how to be quiet, so he’d hurt me less, so he’d be quicker. And I’d felt so embarrassed for not reacting to his violence, so ashamed of myself for not fighting back. But I hadn’t been able to: there had been so much at stake. It wasn’t just us anymore, it wasn’t just me. It was all for Alejandro.
There had been no one I could talk to, just soldiers. The other mothers had kept telling me I was so lucky: we’d been so rich and well off. They’d remained at a distance, always kind and respectful, but the women in the neighbourhood knew who I was and what my husband did for a living. They knew better than to become intimate friends of a lady in the mafia.
So one day, after spending the night with Alonso, feeling dirty and used and tired, I’d thought about going to the police.
I’d taken Alejandro to school and walked down the street, no going back the way I came from. The police station had been three blocks from there. My legs moved fast, determined, the sound of my heels like drums in my ears.
I’m really doing it; I’m going to do it—to spill it out, all out, and have him sent to prison for his sins, for his cruelty towards me…
I’d been almost there when my instincts, my gut, told me to look behind, while waiting for the green light at a pedestrian crossing.
Two soldiers had been following me, one of Alonso’s car in the distance.
He’s having me followed.
I panic, breathing fast, my mind racing.
What am I going to do now? They’ll tell him I wasn’t going home. They’ll tell him I was going to the police. He’s going to kill me. What will happen to Alejandro?
I’d crossed the street in haste, thinking about where to go, how to get myself out of the situation when something had caught my attention.
A church.
Get in there fast.
I’d picked up the pace and walked through the doors. Candles were lit everywhere. The place had been quiet with no one inside, and I’d embraced the peace, trying to steady my racing heart. I’d walked slowly all the way to the front, to the altar.
The soldiers had remained outside while I prayed, asking God and the Virgin Mary to keep me safe, for my son’s sake and to protect him from Alonso.
“Ti prego, ti prego.” I beg you. I look up to the cross and hear a creaking sound to my left.
The little purple curtain of the confession booth is dangling slightly.
Another sound, this time like a foot stepping on wood.
There is someone inside, someone in the booth. A priest maybe, someone I can talk to.
I need someone to talk to.
I walk up to the booth and step inside, closing the little wooden door behind me. And I wait, heart pounding in my chest, for the person on the other side to open the little sliding door.
“Forgive me father, for I have sinned,” I murmur, my face close to the opening.
A thick mesh had separated the two sides. It had been impossible to make out a face, but someone was there. I could tell someone had been listening, breathing, waiting…
“Confess your sins to me, open your heart to God,” a calm male voice sounds on the other side.
I purse my lips and close my eyes, as I gather my thoughts, all of them, everything I hold inside, hidden from the rest of world. I swallow and voice the deepest, the darkest thought in my mind.
“I dream about killing my husband.”
A thick, heavy silence follows. I hear the man take in a deep breath before speaking again.
“Your husband?”
“Si,” I whisper, crying, leaning over the small wooden table in front of me. “I wish for his own death; I wish he’d never come back home; I wish he’d never touch me again. Never ever again.”
“Signora.”
I can tell he is closer to the net, his voice growing impatient, worried.
“Has he hurt you?”
“Si,” I sob.
Several times. Again and again.
“Mio Dio…” Dear God, he mumbles to himself. “If you want, I can accompany you to the police, call a social worker…”
“I can’t. I can’t go to the police.”
“It’s hard, I know. It’s hard to talk about a trauma, a horrible experience like yours. But you came here, you found the courage to talk to someone. The police will put an end to everything, they’ll protect you and make sure it never happens again.”
I shake my head.
If only it were that easy.
“You don’t understand. You have no idea. My husband would have me killed,” I whisper, drying my tears with the back of my hand. “He’d never let me walk away from him; he’d never let me take our son away from him.”
“There’s a child involved.” the man mumbles before going quiet.
“I couldn’t keep living with this burden. I had to tell someone. I have nobody. I didn’t know what to do, where to go.”
I’d kept talking and talking. I couldn’t believe there was someone there listening; someone I could trust; someone who wasn’t involved with the mafia—a man of God who had made an oath of secrecy; a man who didn’t know me, what I was.
I’d trusted him with my deepest, darkest secret.
“I’m trapped,” I sob, my hand closing around the golden cross pendant dangling from my neck. “No way out of this alive.”
“There’s always a way out,” the priest says, his voice hopeful, reassuring.
He’s a man of faith, while I was a woman of the underworld. There was no such thing as hope where I’d come from. Alonso had made sure to take it out of me for good.
No way out, if not for death.
But I couldn’t leave Alejandro in his hands.
“This was a bad idea, I made a mistake. Forgive me,” I say, thinking a
bout the men following me down the street, waiting for me outside. “I must go.”
“Wait.”
But I’ve already grabbed my handbag.
“Someone followed me here, I need to go,” I tell him, ready to leave the booth. But I stop, biting my lips. One more thing—one more. “My name is Filomena De la Crux. If I die today, please… please I beg you, send someone, social services for my son, Alejandro. Don’t leave him in that house alone.”
“Signora.” The man calls for me, but I am already out, my heels thundering over the marble grey floor of the church.
“Signora.”
I hear his voice behind me, but instead of turning I look around the place, dreading to see a soldier, someone, inside.
Empty.
I let out a deep breath. Nobody has followed me inside.
“Signora.” His voice sounds closer this time. His hand touches my shoulder and I turn.
Dark, hazel green eyes, chiselled jaw and amber skin...
The priest is dressed in his black vest, purple stripes over his shoulders. It is almost Easter, a time of mourning, reflection and redemption.
And I’ve just confessed to him that I wanted to see my husband dead.
His young kind eyes look back at me, worried, distress all over his face.
“If you need to talk again, I’m here,” he tells me, and I nod, managing a smile, holding back the tears. “The house of The Lord is always open.”
I nod again, not trusting myself to speak.
No more crying.
I eye the door, picturing the soldiers waiting for me.
Time to pretend—to put my mask back on.
Chapter 9
“What took you so long?” Alonso glares at me as soon as I walk into the house that day. The tone of his voice leaves me without a doubt that he’s been informed of my whereabouts: one of his soldiers has called him up.