by CD Reiss
Does the most beautiful, most cruel man find me beneath him?
Suddenly, I need a drink.
As I peel off from my tiny corner, I hear my name being thrown around in rapid Italian. The pacing of this conversation is less serious, less intense, and stunted by alcohol. I can’t keep up with the different dialects. I can only understand a few toasts and my name, mentioned more than once.
I stop in front of the bar, expecting to hear another command like last night, terrified of what it may be, but nothing follows besides more drunk Italian.
I pour a shot glass full of amaretto and return to my corner, where I’m just as decorative as the glass balls in a coffee table bowl.
“Cheers, Violetta,” I whisper and swallow a mouthful of the terrible amber liquid. I’ve always hated booze and now I remember why.
If I am to escape or survive, I have to fit in. That’s what they do on television.
The liquor warms my belly and takes the edge off. It’s not so bad after all, if it has the power to do that. I drain the glass and get another.
“Careful,” a deep voice cuts through the Italian chatter.
“Your wife changed her mind.” The words feel stilted in my mouth. Wife feels like a slippery eel.
Santino slips away, as if appeased enough by my answer.
Point for Violetta.
The second glass sends fire licking through my limbs. It’s a nice change from the frost of fear. More of this is in my future.
One of the thugs says my name again. I study Santino carefully to see his response. Is he excited by me? Disappointed?
He looks devilish. Like a man who takes what he wants without asking. The upturned cheeks and deep timbres go lewd. Are they talking about tonight?
Different parts of me run hot, and the space between my thighs catches a fever. Tonight, our wedding night. A man who takes what he wants, including a wife he doesn’t know, will no doubt take everything else he wants, including things of the flesh. Sore from his cock. Dress around my waist. Me begging for it with my legs spread.
The room feels several degrees warmer. I’ve never been with a man, and my first time will now be with one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Also? The worst man I’ve ever seen.
My cheeks tingle in memory from earlier today, when he forced my cheeks together for a vow. How it made my heart race in both pain and pleasure, how it was so confusing and terrible and erotic.
Will that be what tonight is like? Will he be gentle, making our first time sweet and as painless as possible?
I stop seeing the living room full of gaudy furniture and mobsters in dark suits, and instead I see a room full of candles, soft music playing. This incredible sculpture of a man is naked, more beautiful than ever, with a heavy look of want and desire etched in his face.
Like he wants me and only me. Soft and gentle, tender and kind.
I take a shuddering breath and blink back into reality. Santino sits in an armchair as though he owns the world. The king. As if he felt me watching him, his eyes meet mine, and my body goes tight and flush.
A fleeting smile crosses his full lips, then he returns to ignoring me and entertaining his guests.
A king would not be gentle on the first night. A king would take what he owns for his pure enjoyment. He would use my body until his could no longer stay quiet. He would grab me tight, pin me down, and force me to worship him.
He would pull my hair back and part my lips so I could take all of him in my mouth. He would make me beg and plead for relief. Maybe he would even tie me up and refuse me pleasure until he came in a shuddering gasp.
My heart is in my throat and my panties are soaked. The morning is shot, and his friends are gone.
Suddenly, it’s just my new husband and me in an empty house.
The frat party of a reception was only two hours.
“Come.” Santino is standing over me, hand outstretched. The touch of the devil returns to his face, as if he can read my mind, see my thoughts like a projection. As if he knows I’ve been trying to picture the size of his cock and whether or not it would fit in the tightest of my spaces.
I hesitate.
“Come,” he says again, and it’s not a question.
He leads me upstairs. My ears are so full of my own pulse, I can’t hear my heels click against the granite steps. I’m not sure I can breathe. I’m not sure what I can do, or what I want to happen. The last twenty-four hours have been a roller coaster I’ve desperately wanted off of, but now we are rising high, suspense building, as if a drop is on the other side. Can I hold on? Will I be flung from the ride? Will it be anticlimactic and boring?
We don’t go to his bedroom. He stops in front of the one I was unceremoniously dumped in the night before. Maybe I haven’t earned access to his room. Well, he’s not the fucking Beast and I’m not Belle. I have no talking servants to keep me company, so that’s bullshit.
He opens the door and walks in. I follow like a woman on a leash. I have never before been so aware of the presence of a bed, but my God, it’s all but glowing with a blinking neon sign that says: Fuck Here.
I don’t think I can breathe.
“I am not going to fuck you.” His voice slaps against me.
Good. I won’t be forced to bite his dick off.
Except, why do I feel so strangely disappointed?
“Don’t misunderstand. You will have duties to fulfill and you will be punished for not fulfilling them.”
Wait. What? The implication wakes me from a haze.
“Duties?” The word squashes any feeling other than repulsion. “I’ll be punished? This isn’t just archaic, it’s inhumane.”
He stares at me. Perhaps a threat. Perhaps a challenge. Who the fuck knows what’s flying around that head of his, because I haven’t understood a single thing he’s done from the moment he walked into Zio’s house.
Zio’s house.
If my parents hadn’t been shot in the street, this wouldn’t be happening. My father would never, ever allow something like this. He was a powerful man and he loved me. He made me safe.
“Why?” I feel like a petulant child playing dress-up, wearing a wedding gown, throwing a tantrum. The heels are a little too big. Whoever prepared for me got that wrong. It only added to the vision, which infuriated me. “Why are you doing this? Why are you treating me this way? I’ve done nothing.”
“If you want to know what’s expected of you, you’ll be downstairs for dinner at six. There are clothes in the closet for you.”
Terrible clothes. Horrible clothes. Expensive clothes a monkey wouldn’t wear.
“Brush your hair. Wash your face. Just don’t look like”—he gestures at me—“this.”
Like this? Like a child in a fucking wedding dress? “Like I’ve been kidnapped?”
“You were not kidnapped. You were sold.”
Because that’s a million times better way to view it. No big deal, Violetta, just a little forced marriage to close out your adolescence.
King Moody walks to the wall of windows where—the night before—I left handprints on the pane as I tried to block him out. He touches one of the prints, aligns my tiny fingers with his massive ones.
It stirs something in me, the way he’s almost touching me by touching where I watched him. It’s intimate in a weird way, and I’m again split between pleasure and fury.
I hate him, I decide. I hate him a lot.
“You cannot sell a person. That’s. Not. A. Thing.”
“Traded then.” He’s still studying my handprints. “Call it whatever you like. You’re no less mine.”
“For what then? What was I traded for?”
His quiet pause is screaming loud. I hear the lies stacking up slowly as he sorts through which bullshit to tell me. What garbage he’s going to feed me as an excuse for stealing me and my livelihood after threatening to kill the only family I have left. Even if they couldn’t protect me the way my father could have, they were
all I had.
“Love makes a man weak,” he says. “And a weak man cannot keep what he owns.”
“Being cryptic doesn’t make you mysterious. It makes you a coward.”
The last word comes out of my mouth before I can think better of it. I should be more afraid. He might be waiting until he’s pissed off enough to rip my wedding dress away.
But he puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at the pool. “I am a coward.”
“Then set me free.”
He turns to me, and though his power is still in every fiber of his being, it’s now laced with sorrow and maybe…just maybe a little compassion. “I cannot.”
“Then get out of my room.”
He nods and comes toward me. “I’ll see you at six. Clock is right there.” He points at a gaudy gold travesty next to my bed. “You can read analog time, yes? Or do you need me to send in a digital?”
I’m so goddamn offended I can’t speak.
He stands over me, this time clearly as a challenge.
Is this a battle I actually need to win? He acts as if I’m his idiot child bride and that’s got to stop. But there’s more to gain by answering this stupid question right now and saving the fights for later?
“Analog’s fine.”
He nods and leaves abruptly, signaling the end of the conversation. As the door clicks, I race to it. This could be my chance to escape, to stop the door from locking and get the hell out of here when he’s brooding on one of his baroque chairs.
But the door locks swiftly behind him. His footsteps echo down the hall, taunting me with their freedom.
I’m again his prisoner. Trapped in a room, trapped in a dress, trapped in a life I had no say in.
The American Dream is a filthy lie, and I grieve for it with tears.
8
VIOLETTA
At exactly five minutes until six, the door unlocks as if it’s on an egg timer. The doorknob looks like the boogie man and I am five years old again, terrified and parentless. No one to save me.
I did what I was told: brushed my hair and wrestled myself out of a dress meant for a man to remove. I choose navy slacks and a blue floral print blouse fit for a third-grade teacher.
Whoever bought these clothes honestly had no idea what a girl my age would wear. I never knew this mess was the standard uniform issued to all newly stolen Italian wives.
They had to be handpicked by Santino. It fits the rest of the outdated and misogynistic decor.
Still, I obeyed, which means I shouldn’t be punished. So I shouldn’t be terrified of a stupid door. Rage, fear, and arousal dance in and out like figurines in a Swiss clock. The hands go around in order and when the hammer strikes, it’s escape o’clock.
Step one: act obedient.
“Come on, Violetta. It’s a doorknob, not a chainsaw,” I mutter, staring down my latest opponent. “You’ll deal with a lot scarier if this works. Be brave.”
I put my hand on the knob and say a Hail Mary. From now on, it’s her and me. She and I understand each other. Prayers to her son are taking a back seat.
I take a deep breath and fling the door open, anticipating the absolute worst.
The hallway is empty. No Armando to escort me downstairs. No suit to take a fat lip with a smile. Maybe Santino’s starting to trust me?
The first thing I notice as I walk through the house is the lack of family photos. There’s no collection of young Santino. No old nanas making pasta. No shots of men in rolled-up sleeves sharing cigars outside. His history is mysteriously absent. Instead there are paintings of boats and the Napoli countryside. Just two steps above Olive Garden.
Santino waits for me at the head of a long table. The king gazing across his gilded kingdom. A small but fleeting smile crosses his lips. As though he wasn’t expecting me to show up on time.
Good, let him think I’m being compliant. It’ll be easier to get rid of the men camping in front of my bedroom door and leave me a better chance to escape.
Still not a word to say to me that isn’t a fucking command, Santino pulls out the chair to his immediate right. Fat chance I’ll sit at his right hand. I go to the other side of the table.
Quicker than mercury spilled on a lab table, he is at my side to pull out that chair.
“You think this is charming?”
“I think you must be hungry, and these chairs are heavy.”
I utterly loathe him.
“They’re fucking ugly is what they are.” I sit.
In the tacky mirror over the sideboard, his mouth twists in annoyance. Good. I hope he stays irritated. I hope he decides he doesn’t want to be around me ever again. I hope he decides my uncle’s debt has been paid in full with the simple act of marrying me and lets me go because I’m not worth the time or effort.
I also hope he rots and turns hideously ugly so I don’t have to stare at him anymore and question the stirrings happening between my legs against my express self-commands for it to stop. If I can’t even control my virginal sex drive, how can I possibly hope to ever control this situation enough to escape?
Which is precisely why I tell my lizard brain to settle down.
Santino goes back to the head of the table where he can sit on his throne. It takes me back to seeing him yesterday, though at this point it feels like a week ago. Lording over my uncle in his own house. Letting everyone know who’s the king and who’s not.
The same power dynamics are going on here and I don’t like it.
He wants to be stubborn? Fine. I can be too. A tall woman with short blond hair and a large nose enters with dinner. She’s wearing black trousers and a white apron. Her lipstick’s worn down, and when she releases the plate in front of me, I see her thick hands are shiny from years in the kitchen.
“Grazie,” I murmur, looking at the baccalà without seeing it.
“Prego,” she says, then lays the same dish before Santino. “Wine, sir?”
Santino looks at me as if to ask what I want, but I don’t tell him.
“No,” he says to the woman.
She trots away. Santino picks up his fork. It’s a signal that he’s ready for me to start eating.
Baccalà is a peasant’s dish rich with flavor, and not only is the fish perfectly tender and flaky, I’m really freaking hungry. But I don’t pick up my fork in response.
“I understand this may be difficult for you,” he says as he puts down his fork. “Your aunt and uncle never told you your situation.”
“Whatever.” I’m caught between hating them and the compulsion to defend them.
“They let you believe you were being raised a tactless, ambitious American woman. I didn’t realize that until it was too late, and for this…I apologize.”
“Talk to God about forgiveness.”
“My oversight changes nothing,” he says as if I didn’t just throw his apology back in his face. He separates a piece of fish. “You should eat. Celia’s very sensitive about leftovers.”
“How much?” I ask.
“All of it, if you can.” He shoves food in his mouth, and when he chews, the muscles of his jaw tighten and striate.
“How much was I worth?”
“Hm?” He takes a drink of water.
“How much was the debt I paid?”
He looks at me as if I’ve confused him, then makes a tsk sound in his throat. “That’s not your business.”
“Yes, it is!” I don’t mean to shout, but I don’t care anymore either.
“Says who?” Santino asks as if my life’s a rhetorical question. “You’re mine. My business.” He spears another chunk of meat. “I decide what you need to know. This is how we do things.”
“We?” I scoff. There’s a sweating glass of water in front of me and I want nothing more than to throw it in his face. He doesn’t talk to me, not really, from the moment he kidnaps me—trades me, whatever—and this is the conversation he decides to kick us off with? “You mean you? Where you’re from? I’m from here. And that is not how we do
things. You can go to jail for this.”
Santino sighs in frustration. He’s letting me know he’s being patient with me. The king does not like to explain himself. Or this situation. Or anything in general.
“You have an Italian passport. Every minute you breathe in the United States, you are under the jurisdiction of the Italian Embassy.” He digs in his pocket and extracts his phone. “Would you like to call them?” He puts the phone between us. “I know the number. I have a friend there.” A heavy pause sits between us. “He knows all about you.”
My husband is cruel. That’s what he is. Intensely cruel and calculating and cold. Just cold.
The precise weight of his revelation crushes me. I was born in Italy and my immigration status is perfectly fine until it isn’t. The list of reasons I can get deported is long, and I’m a resident because of my clean status with the Italian side.
Santino’s saying he can end that. He’s got his punishing fingers hooked where he can hurt me most.
One of the steps in my plan for freedom is shot out of the sky like a goose in the fall. I’m trapped with no legal protection. No one to call to help.
And he still hasn’t given me back my phone. God knows if it’ll ever be returned.
Overwhelming loneliness fills me, every inch. I’m alone, no one knows where I am because surely the king wouldn’t advertise the location of his compound, and there’s no legal recourse.
Digging my nails into my palms might make nice little flowers of pain to distract me, but not enough to keep me from crying. By the first hitching blubber, I can’t even feel them. Tears fall like the droplets on the water glass.
“Don’t. No.” Santino’s demeanor changes in a flash. He flicks a handkerchief from inside his jacket and passes it to me. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” I try to swallow down the grief and sadness, but they feel much too large to contain. My throat’s full of sticky gunk, and I can’t get control of my breath.
“Cry. No. Don’t cry. Please.”
His cruelty is shed for something that sounds a lot like sympathy, and for some reason, that’s what unlocks the remainder of the tears I’d been holding back. They come pouring like monsoons and every inch of resolve I’ve carried is swept away in it.