Defiance.
I was dancing against myself.
A version that being chained to Régine’s control had created.
I was dancing for myself.
For my future.
For that girl, for that woman, for the freedom they’d both always deserved.
It felt like I was dancing to save my life, and to claim it back.
The revolution I was after started with shaky feet and trembling legs, but as the song continued, and I could feel all of me inside of the battle, the war, to save my life, I was gaining strength while also losing a part of me that couldn’t shine in the darkness.
It was still terrified of being chained in it with strangers as my guards.
When the song ended, and I found myself on the floor, covered in blood and sweat, past eyes meeting future eyes in one of the many mirrors, I bowed to us, letting that chained part of me free. She’d saved me for so long; it was only fair to let her go.
To allow the little girl who had been hidden away from the world to be seen.
To be set in the sun.
To rest.
I heard my sorrow and could have sworn I felt the tears falling down my face in salty rivers. But when I lifted my head to stare at just…me, it wasn’t me who was crying.
It was the other half of my heart.
It was my husband.
Chapter 43
Matteo
Two words that put me out of misery and brought me into it.
She’s ready.
Those were the two words my wife didn’t have to whisper to me after I picked her up off mamma’s dance floor and carried her away from the place where she’d forever leave stains of her blood. She’d danced in heels, and maybe her feet were not used to doing it anymore, because her toes and heels bled. Somehow it smeared all over her face, her chest, the spot right over her heart, and on her Sunday dress.
Apropos.
Instead of going back to mamma and papà ’s house, I took my wife to my grandfather’s land out in the middle of nowhere. He’d inherited it from my great-grandfather, and it had become a special place for a lot of the women on mamma’s side of the family. It was quiet, peaceful, and I was still able to keep my men close with all the cottages.
Stella didn’t ask where we were going, but she seemed to understand why. And when I brought the box in with all the things we had collected that had belonged to her mamma, she nodded to a desk and told me to leave it there. She walked like awoman who had a body but wasn’t sure what to do with the rest of herself yet, as she sat down in the chair and opened it up.
It took her all night to read through the things in that box.
A woman’s entire life.
A woman my wife loved with every fiber of her being.
Stella’s openness to love after all she’d been through reflected how much of a force her mother was. I’d felt it the first time she looked at me.
How hard she was going to love me, and I knew she’d always be the brightest thing in my life. The only woman who could pull me out of my own darkness and show me a different way, even if it was just for the two of us.
No one, not even my family, could ever relax me enough to get me out of my suits to ride fucking rides at some kiddie amusement park. But she had, and she had me smiling. My men laughing.
