Donato stopped me when I came to the kitchen door. My white nightgown flowed to my ankles, stained with mud from earlier around my knees, and I stuck my feet in dirtied boots, prepared to elbow him out of the way.
“Scarlett—” He went to touch my arm but stopped. “I do not think it wise for you to—”
“Let her through,” Uncle Tito said from behind him.
Donato hesitated, but seeing as he was overruled, smartly moved out of the way.
Uncle Tito came to my other side, and between him and Violet, I found that even though the soul was weak, my body could still move, even if I had to stop to catch my breath halfway there.
“That’s it,piccola colomba,”Uncle Tito coached. “You haven’t been moving. But there is nothing wrong with your body. Just tired, ah?”
“How are you—” Violet exchanged a look with Uncle Tito. “I’m afraid to let you go in there, Scarlett.”
“He won’t hurt me. He won’t,” I said again when she looked at me dubiously.
The closer we came, the louder the noises were. I flinched, hearing glass shatter. Donato, Rocco, Dario, and Romeo trailed behind us. Mitch and Mick were up ahead, standing by the entrance, shaking their heads, speaking in low tones.
“No!” Mitch said when he saw us, holding his hands up. “What are you thinking, Violet? She can’t—”
More glass shattered, and I heard the rage and felt the uncontrollable force that was my husband. He was being ravaged by his own despair.
“She can hardly walk!” Mitch said, keeping up the protest.
“I’m the only one that he’ll stop for. He’ll—” Just the thought of what he might to do himself with all that glass…
The noise that met me a second later made a sob burst from my throat, though tears didn’t fall. It was a sound that had escaped his soul, like the sob was from mine.
I pushed against the resistance with my hands. Mitch and Mick allied with Donato, Rocco, Dario, and Romeo. Violet and Uncle Tito tried to stop them from stopping me. I steadied my breath, keeping my voice even. “If you do not let me through, there will be hell to pay. Let me through! Stay by the door if you have to, but I’m going in.”
All of the men stood down, huddling in a group, uneasy. Violet and Uncle Tito, still allied, moved in front of them so they couldn’t get in easily.
The musky and bitter scent of anguish and rage met me at the door—that and the awful noises. The shattering. The beatings. The heart-constricting guttural echoes.
Without my two helpers, it took me more time to make it through the darkened gym. The light was almost faded, only pools of gold reflected on the floor. I felt as though I were moving underwater, limbs slow, floating through the rough waves toward the storm on the shore, the current carrying me there.
I stopped when I came to the threshold that led to the dance studio he had built for me.God have mercy.
He was bloodied from head to toe. His knuckles were raw, shredded almost to the bone, from him punching the walls made of stone. Glass had sliced him in numerous places. His hair was wild, in disarray, as sweat poured down his forehead, mingling with his blood. His eyes were wide, unseeing, stuck in a nightmare he was trying to fight his way out of.
He had destroyed the studio, piece by piece. He had cracked the barre that ran the length of the wall and was taking it to the numerous pictures of me that he had framed. He spoke through his anger, but I couldn’t understand a word. It was in Sicilian.
I went straight for him as his hand came up, and after it came down, it did so with a shatter that sent sharp glass shards in a wide spray. A voice in my head alerted me that some of them struck, but the numbness that had settled over me made me feel nothing.
Nothing. Not a damn thing.
He went to turn on me, not seeing me for me. Apparently, he thought one of the men had come back in to stop him. When recognition made its way into his mind, his arms came down, the wooden bar falling to the floor with a resounding thud. His body swayed and his eyes blinked.
Our eyes met and held. He opened his mouth to speak but closed it. His chest moved up and down to the beat of his heart, in rapid succession.
I bent down, picking the stick up, rising slowly, not to get dizzy. Then I turned and started beating the pictures myself, screaming incomprehensible things as I did.
He knew, as well as I did, that even though my talent could be considered a blessing, it had also become one of our greatest foes. There was something else there, something he wasn’t telling me, but it was buried deep. Too deep for me to even begin to uncover. I beat the entire place senseless, until my breath came in great pants and my head was on fire with hot white spots.
When I turned, I found that Rocco had entered, wariness clear on his features and in his stance.
“Bella,” he said softly. “You do not look well.”
He held out his hand to me. I dropped the bar, my body teetering even though I hadn’t moved again. The bar rolled, rolled, rolled, like a rolling pin over a counter sprinkled with crushed sugar cubes. The slivers caught the waning light, shimmering.
