The first time he beat me was because the door to my room slammed. The second beating came from lining up toy soldiers Elliott had given me for my sixth birthday. I wasn’t going to play with them, but I liked the way they looked lined up in the window of my room.
That was when Maggie Beautiful told him if he ever showed his face again, she’d kill him.
A woman threatening him? He looked at her and laughed.
Let a man pull the same stunt? He would have been dead in under five seconds.
Me? His own son? Maggie Beautiful had to lie and say that I’d tripped. One hit from him was enough to split my skin.
Taking Scarlett’s hand, I ran it over the scar that split the edge of my right eyebrow. It was faint. Time had healed the wound. In that moment, though, it seemed to burn. Her hand was cool, a soothing aloe.
She kept it there, running her finger over the scar, over and over, as though her touch alone could make it totally disappear. She had asked about it before, but I’d said nothing. She knew then, silence being louder than words, but didn’t push.
I ended with, “After that, Maggie Beautiful started celebrating my birthday all year long.”
“A day that you didn’t have to remember what happened?”
“Who fucking knows.” I shrugged. “I just remember it started then.”
“Did you not want me to—to bake you a cake? Did I—”
“No, baby,” I said. “I enjoyed today. What I’m thinking about has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t have to do with my birthday either. It just happened to happen on that day. Maggie Beautiful took it more personally than I did.”
My wife made a disbelieving noise, and then quiet settled again.
Finally, I turned and looked at her. “Tell me what you thought of him.”
It was the first time I’d brought it up—that she had gone against my wishes and met him.
She went to touch me, but I held a hand up. Rage replaced all else. The memory of her treachery poked the beast inside of me with a sharp-edged stick.
“Solo un uomo.” Her voice came out strong, leaving me no room to challenge a lie, if she planned to lie.
“Just a man,” I repeated. I grinned, but there was nothing fucking pleasant about it.
“Just a man,” she repeated once more.
Only she would believe a monster as dangerous as him to be nothing but a man.
“You look like him,” she said. Her voice sounded far off, as though she were back in the moment, staring at him from across the table. “Same eyes. The exact same nose. The shape of your face. Even your gorgeous mouth. Same mannerisms. That same sense of immediate danger radiates from your being. Before I reached him, I stopped dead in my tracks. I had to. I ran into his forcefield—it’s magnetic…animalistic. He’s the perfect predator. But you were on my mind, and I was determined to keep you, so I kept walking.” She sighed.
“He’s charismatic too. He could sing you a lullaby in that smooth voice, and not until the end would you realize he was singing your death song. Dangerous to his marrow is what he is. His smile is easy. His laughter too. And I hate him for it. Those things are hard for you, and I love them most of all—your smile, your laugh.”
Rarely did I hear venom in her voice, but I heard it then, slithering through the air, looking for something to strike.
“You see,” she went on, “Marzio had told me once how he raised his sons. I remember thinking that he was more powerful than Luca, than any of his sons. Though he raised them to be men from a young age, gentlemen whose hands also killed, he didn’t beat them. He didn’t need to.
“That’s why Luca smiles and laughs so easily. Marzio made them fear him, but he did it in such a way that respect came naturally. Luca…I recognized him for what he was. Not only does he want everyone to taste respect, but he wants to force it down throats. Marzio has that over Luca. So do you. You’re alike, but where it really counts, you couldn’t be more different. Marzio was more powerful. So are you.”
Since she had met him, her opinion of him had shifted to fit reality. She knew him, whether I wanted it or not, and she spoke in such a way that if he ever tried to take his truth and push it down my throat again, she’d steal it from my mouth and swallow it down before I could. It wouldn’t taint her. Couldn’t. Because she knew his truth better than he did.
She was the antidote to his poison.
Luca kissing her had been a mistake, and not only on my account. Scarlett could feel what most people couldn’t just by being in the same room with a person. She had tasted something on his lips that he could never hide from her, which was why Ettore had called her astrega. Awitch.
Her breath left her when I flipped her over, pinning her wrists down. That fucking kiss haunted my dreams. It was the price I had to pay for downing his poison for so long. She had gone there to fight for me. I hated that too.
Our eyes met in a shared blaze of fury, her chin lifted in defiance, but her back arched, her body aching to be closer to mine. Urging me to find our peace through bodily warfare. I could feel her throbbing pulse as though it were my own, and both needs had to be slayed.
