Giorgio looked back over his shoulder at me. “How do you know that?”
Emotions choked my throat as tears snatched at my eyes. I’d seen the marks before. I hadn’t seen them as fresh as the ones I was looking at now, but there was no mistaking it. The force, the veracity, the pure sadism of them.
They were the exact same ones that Savio wore on his back.
The reality of it washed over me in waves that crashed again and again until I felt like I was drowning. Specifically when I started to cry was a mystery to me. I was struggling to get a breath in and out as tears fled down my face and my stomach threatened to upheave.
“Natalia?” Giorgio called out.
“I’m sorry, I just need a minute. Don’t wash these just yet,” I managed to whimper out, and then I ran from the bathroom before losing control over myself and sobbing in earnest.
10
Giorgio
Following Natalia’s advice, I avoided my back in the shower. The open wounds on my stomach, arms, and legs stung in the hot water, and if that was any indicator of what would happen if I washed my back, I probably couldn’t handle that pain just yet. On top of that, I was worried about Natalia, who’d run out immediately after seeing it.
Was it that bad?
I looked over my shoulder into the mirror that hung above the double sinks and vanity on the wall opposite the tub and saw the bright marks that were strewn across my back. They looked nasty, and her opinion that they weren’t ready to be washed was probably valid, as they were bleeding profusely, and many of them pointed towards my spine. They’d need to be tended to individually first and then bandaged before I could run any sort of long-standing water over them.
Even over the hiss of the shower, I could hear Natalia sobbing from the other room. In most situations, emotions made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t great at expressing them, and I was even less skilled at taking them in from others. Just imagining what I might have done or said to Natalia when I had my fever kept me up at night, and the tears I’d shed for my fallen family members and my captured sisters were some of the first I’d given in my entire life. Even as a baby, I was told I didn’t cry or laugh much.
Life was just easier that way.
Being second-in-command in a family like mine meant showing too many emotions was a detriment. Even with Natalia, eventually, Iwouldhave to kill her family. Anyone who hurt my family was going to feel my wrath for everything that they’d put us through. Even if I could find it in my heart to leave her out of it, and even if she disliked them the way she claimed she did, giving her too much of myself was only going to create problems when the time came to eliminate the Cavettis.
Those were the definitive facts, but it didn’t change the fact that my heart ached at the sound of her crying. That she was hurting was an issue for me, although I couldn’t quite determine why. Maybe I felt bonded to her for taking care of me all this time, the way some people bond with doctors and nurses. Maybe it was something still lingering from when she first approached me what felt like years ago at that party. What I couldn’t deny, was that I cared about her, and regardless of the contention between our families, something in me wanted to comfort her, however awkward that may be.
It hurt, but I managed to bend over enough to turn off the shower, and then I slowly climbed my way out of the bathtub. Another, more thorough shower would be required when I could A, stand, and B, wash all of my body without hesitation, but Natalia’s anguish was distracting enough that I didn’t worry about that for the time being.
She hadn’t had a chance to pull the clothes out yet, given how much I struggled, and it wasn’t as if it mattered as I’d probably need her help to pull them on anyway. For all that, I just yanked one of the towels off the wall, wrapped it around my waist, and then hobbled my way back into the bedroom. Natalia was sitting on the bed with her knees curled up to her chest and her head buried in her lap. She was shaking and I knew that whatever had triggered her was more personal than just feeling upset on my behalf.
It was a long trek to the bed, but when I got there, I dropped onto the edge of the bed next to her. With her closeness to me, and being able to focus more on it rather than my own pain or moving, I got flashes of her arms wrapped around me, holding me and telling me it was going to be okay. What I’d said to her was still gone from my brain, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough to scare her off. She stayed by my side and comforted me. The least I could do was do the same for her.
With a tentative shake to my arm, I wrapped it around her shoulders. She jumped a little when she felt it and her head shot up. Her red, swollen eyes and running makeup broke my heart, and I wished there was more that I could do for her besides sitting next to her totally naked in a bath towel. It was awkward to be sure and would be embarrassing if she and I hadn’t crossed that threshold long ago, but I was willing to stick it out if she was.
“You okay?” I asked.
She looked straight into my eyes, and with the sun shining in from the windows, I realized for the first time that there was a glimmer of gold hiding in her dark brown eyes. It reminded me of her steely exterior hiding all of that care and concern for someone she should hate.
“Your marks,” she replied softly. “I’ve seen them before.”
“You’ve seen them before? What does that mean?” I asked.
She slid a little closer to me and I curled my arm around her more. Due to the pain, it hurt to keep it up on her shoulders, so I let it drop, settling my hand on her waist. She leaned into me and it made me happy to know that she wasn’t too afraid to be near me after what I’d pulled down in the dungeon.
“Savio,” she said. “He has them too. The scars. They look exactly the same, down to the directions. My father did it to him too, the same thing he did to you.”
That sent a shockwave of chills across my body. Our world was one that called for brutalization. We’d all done our fair share of beating and killing, but never against our own. What Angelo had done to me down in that cell was more vicious than I could ever imagine doing to even my worst enemy. He’d done that to his own kid?
How sick was this man?
“How could he do that to his own son?” I asked. “Does family mean nothing to him?”
Natalia scoffed. “My dad? No. Familial lines are not something he sees. He sees tools. He sees new forms of pleasure. He sees money and the next leg up. My dad doesn’t have a family.”
At that, Natalia went strangely quiet. The intensity of what she said hung in the air, but then the statement started to hit me piece by piece.
