“I’m sorry,” I say again. My crying jag seems to be over as quickly as it started. The cold water has shocked me out of it somehow.
“Don’t say it,” Curse says. “Don’t tell me you’re fucking sorry. I should be the one saying that.”
I hold my breath. He finally looks at me.
“But here’s the fucking thing about me, Aurora. If I were to apologize to you now, it would be a lie. I’m not capable of guilt. I don’t ever feel remorse.”
“You don’t even need to apologize,” I stammer. “You didn’t do anything! You were asleep-”
“I was touching you,” he practically spits. “And I know you don’t like men touching you.”
“But you’re not a man,” I argue weakly. “You’re a monster.”
He smirks, but there’s no real humour in the expression.
“Maybe now you’re finally starting to get it,” he says. “I can’t be kind. I can’t take care of you. I don’t know how.”
His words feel cruel. But I don’t think they’re meant to be. He’s just making a simple statement of fact.
Just like he did twelve years ago. I can’t be what you need, Aurora.
“When I see you crying, I’m not going to do what a normal, caring person would do,” he goes on. “I’m not going to pat your back and say, ‘there, there.’ I’m going to dump you into a freezing fucking shower.”
But he didn’t dump me into a freezing fucking shower. He carried me in, cradled against his chest like I am something precious. He could have put me on the floor and left me in a sobbing heap before stepping out and turning on the tap.
“But you could have just left me crying alone in the bed,” I say. “You’re taking care of me right fucking now!”
“Oh yeah?” He sneers. “Well, how’s this for caring? How’s this for kindness?” He sets me down on my feet. We face each other in the freezing water. “They’ve found Marco’s body. And they know that your papà’s business shit didn’t transfer to him. It all transferred to you.”
“Wh-What?!”
“It will all go to your husband – any husband, not specifically Marco. But only after one month of marriage to you.”
I’m so suddenly, terribly cold that I can’t feel the water anymore.
“That’s why you were in New York,” I say through numb lips. “That’s why you killed Marco. That’s why you took me.”
Of course. It all makes sense now. Elio is the one who sent him. But Elio already has a wife, so he can’t be the one to marry me and get all of papà’s money and businesses.
Curse isn’t married. And above all, he’s loyal to his older brother. He’d transfer papà’s assets over to Elio without hesitation once they were legally in his name.
That’s why he was already outside the house when I called him. That’s why he told me that Marco was meant to die that night from the very beginning, whether I’d pushed him or not.
That’s why he wants to keep me alive despite not seeming to give a single real fuck about me. That’s why he’s so unwilling to let me out of his sight.
He needs me alive to marry me. And then he needs me alive for at least a month after that.
It was never about me as a person at all. It was never about helping me. Protecting me.
None of it.
“So you’re planning to use me, then,” I say, my voice surprisingly steady. “To get your hands on Papà’s assets. So you can hand them all over to Elio.”
He doesn’t confirm my statement. He doesn’t have to. I know in the deepest parts of myself that it’s true.
I didn’t think I had enough pieces of my heart left to break. I didn’t know that I could still hurt like this. But for the second time tonight, Curse Titone proves me wrong about what I’m capable of feeling. The pain steals my breath. Cracks me open and hollows me out.
This moment feels like the final nail in Accursio Giordano’s coffin. The boy I loved is well and truly dead to me now. I have to say goodbye to him while simultaneously learning to reckon with the beautiful monster who’s taken his place. Because the Curse who stands before me now is not a person I know. Is not a person I could have ever loved.
