There was always a doubt at the back of my mind. There was also the worry about Alesandra, and whether she was okay. I hadn’t heard Romeo’s voice in the past week, so I could only assume that he’d ended his infiltration into her room to taunt and bother her. I was just glad I didn’t hear him harm her physically.
Still, I missed her already.
I wanted to see her so that I could comfort her. She’d been taunted so badly by him that it was weighing heavily on my mind. I knew that she would feel the same for me if the roles were reversed. He’d barely paid attention to me, and why he’d focused on Alessandra was still a mystery. We were twins. If anything, he should have gone for both of us. But maybe that was the point. The internal struggle of one of us knowing that the other was being cruelly treated, and being unable to help them. It was the words he’d said that resounded in my mind.
Piece of shit.
Cunt.
Then there were the jarring things he’d said about Lucia and how she was just as bad. He’d said that she deserved everything that came her way. Romeo was a monster, and I wished that we’d seen the Cavettis for their true selves long before they killed my parents. We might have been able to stop them. If only we’d known then what we knew after being imprisoned.
I couldn’t tell how many days it had been since I’d last seen Marcello. Time, of course, was something I had no access to. I could only determine the days based on my meals. From what I could tell, and it was simply guessing, I figured it had been three days since I’d admitted my fear to him. I didn’t know what to make of it. I couldn’t say that I missed him, but it was also difficult to admit that I wanted him to return, mostly so I could see Alessandra again. If it meant agreeing to what he wanted, then I’d do it.
The room was hot for the first time since I’d been trapped inside those four concrete walls. There was a dripping noise along the wall, which was slowly driving me insane. It didn’t seem to matter how much I paced, or traced, or slept, I was beginning to feel stir crazy. I needed to be outside, and I craved the feeling of grass in between my toes. Being stuck in a concrete cell had caused me to realize just how nice I’d had it before everything happened.
I was silent as I lifted my eyes to the door, waiting for him to show up again. I couldn’t help it. It seemed that every moment that he wasn’t there, allowing me to get the only human interaction of my day, I would think about it constantly. There were many parts of it that I hated, but being able to see my sister and having a conversation with someone, made up for the other awful, strange things that he expected from me.
Everything had been too still, and too quiet. The thought of him switching his attention to Alessandra made my stomach churn. She’d already dealt with issues with Romeo and Savio. Receiving attention from Marcello would likely drive her crazy. There was only so much she could put up with.
It terrified me.
But, despite my anxiety and constant worrying, I couldn’t picture it. Marcello wasn’t like Romeo. He seemed, in his own way, kind. Of course, he was still a part of the Cavetti's, which made him my enemy by association. I wasn’t entirely angry about what he was doing to me, but I hated him because he stood by while they massacred my family.
I drew a deep breath and let my head fall back. I’d stared at that ceiling for weeks, and yet nothing changed. The moth had stopped fluttering around the light bulb, it’d probably escaped through the slit in the door, but I was still trapped, and it didn’t seem as though there was any way to escape. I doubt the police would get involved, or that we were missed at all. A daughter from a known crime family? Yeah, as if they’d help find us.
I didn’t want to think that Marcello was a monster. There was something about the way he approached things that convinced me he wasn’t. Still, coming from the Cavettis, there was a chance that it was all just an act. I didn’t know just how good someone like him would be at acting like they were someone different, but he was good at hiding his emotions.
Occasionally, I would grow angry towards Marcello for not coming to see me. I would envision myself breaking free from my cell and freeing my sister, all while burning the building down in my wake. I would swear to make him pay for what he and his family had done to me and mine, but those moments never lasted. They came at a cost of energy I no longer possessed. I could barely pace anymore. Everything just felt like a massive nothingness that I was slowly being swallowed into. It was hopeless.
Regardless, I listened for his footsteps.
10
Marcello
The anger was rising in my chest, wanting to explode. The way he was marching around as though he owned everything was setting me off. I knew better than to take my frustration out on him, though. My father wouldn’t stand for us coming to blows, but there was so much that I wanted to get out and off my chest. It was like a poison deepening in my veins, slowly building.
“I wish I was in your shoes,” Romeo said, kicking his feet up on the marble coffee table between us. “It’s pure bullshit. Why am I the only one who has to follow the rules, and fucking marry with heirs or whatever? Lucia is boring. She’s barely even fun to taunt anymore.”
The sun reflected off the new gold Rolex watch he’d purchased, as though taunting me even more. So what if he was the heir? He wasn’t the ruler of the family dynasty. Not yet, anyway. My knuckles tightened as I formed my hand into a fist. What I wouldn’t do to just punch him. It felt as though it was needed. I wanted to bring him down to Earth, and show him that he wasn’t invincible and that there was no point to his constant complaining.
“You’ve got nothing to say?” he asked me, pursing his lips. “What am I saying? You never speak. It’s like talking to a head of lettuce. Honestly, I’d probably get more reaction from a vegetable, too.”
Little did he know I had a lot to say. Unfortunately, the words would cause a rift between us, and might even incur my father’s wrath. I’d seen what wrath did to those he despised. Family or not, I knew that there could always come the day where I was treated no better than the Bonifacio’s. They were all things that I was trying to avoid.
And his taunts? It was just his way of dealing with his frustration. Romeo was obsessed with controlling people and things. If something didn’t go his way, he lashed out. I’d dealt with it so long that it no longer fazed me. Despite how he acted most days, we were adults. I’d go insane if I constantly paid attention to the vulgar things he said on a daily basis, whether to me or others. I could only imagine how Lucia was dealing with it. She was trapped and I wouldn’t doubt if she was losing her mind.
Romeo leaned his head back against the white couch and stared up at the high ceiling above us. A slight breeze entered the space between us through the tall window, which almost reached all the way up to the ceiling. I could smell the dew coming off the grass, and feel the humidity from the rain the previous night.
“Want to switch roles? Why don’t you be the older brother, and then I can do whatever the fuck it is you’ve been up to. I doubt dad would notice. I’m basically a trophy that he wipes down every day.”
Both of our eyes locked at that moment as the footsteps approached. How my father always ended up in the same area of the house as us was beyond me. He was always appearing just at the right—or more often wrong—moments. And I was glad he didn’t fail this time. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could listen to Romeo complain about useless things, and act as though he was the only victim in the family.
I turned towards my father, who was approaching in a tailored white suit. He was adjusting the sleeve of his jacket as he grimaced at Romeo, his shoes squeaking along the tiled floor as he approached us. I couldn’t help but smile lightly, expectant, and waiting. I knew that Romeo was about to eat his words, and it was a glorious feeling of justice being served. His expression was enough to make me chuckle to myself.
“You have a fucking problem with being in this family?”
Romeo’s eyes widened as he sat up on the couch. “No, not at all.”
