Muscles in his jaw and neck flex. Darkness claws out of his eyes. “You are not,” he vows with deadly smoothness, “going back to fucking New York.”
“I agree,” I say. “I’m not. I’m going to marry you instead.”
It’s not often that Curse Titone gets thrown for a loop. But I think I’ve somehow just managed it. He blinks, then gives his head a brief shake. Like he thinks he just hallucinated.
He closes the distance between us in one great step.
“Say that again.”
“I’m going to marry you. I’m going to give you everything you want.”
The area around his eyes tightens.
“But you have to give me what I want in return.”
His eyes bore into me. His next words come out as a hoarse growl. “Which is?”
“A divorce.”
Something shutters at the back of his eyes. The intensity of his gaze vanishes, replaced with cool nothingness.
“A divorce,” he repeats tonelessly.
“Yes,” I reply. My palms are sweating now. “I want a divorce,” I reiterate. “One month after our wedding, we will legally end the marriage. You get to hand everything over to Elio. And I get to be free.”
“That’s your condition, is it?” he says icily. “You think you’re in any position to bargain with me right now?”
“I do, actually.” My heart is beating so fast I’m sure that he must hear it.
This has to work. It has to.
“Because otherwise, I won’t do it. Any of it.” I straighten my spine. Try to project a boldness I don’t quite feel. “I won’t cooperate. If you don’t promise me the divorce, if I don’t have any sort of light at the end of the tunnel…” My voice cracks. I swallow and keep going. “Then I will do everything I can to ruin your plans. The only way you’ll get me to marry you, the only way you’ll get Papà’s money, is if you put a goddamn gun to my head.”
Curse passes a hand roughly down his face.
“What else?” he grunts. “Since we’re apparently fucking negotiating now. Tell me everything it is you want.”
I’m rattled. I didn’t expect him to ask me for more conditions. Hesitating, I run rapidly through possibilities in my head.
“I want you to help me set up a life in Canada as Angela LeBlanc. I want you to help secure housing for me, and maybe give me some kind of allowance until I can get a job of my own.”
“A job.” He says it like I’ve just suggested running away with the fucking circus.
“Yes, a job,” I say. “I had one in Buffalo. I could have one here.”
“You don’t need to get a job. I’ll give you the fucking allowance for as long as you need.”
“What I need,” I cry, “is to not have to depend on you! I don’t want you to spend the rest of my life feeding me back little bits of my papà’s money! I want to…to make my own way in the world! I just want to be a normal person.”
A ridiculous hope, in all honesty. That someone like me could ever just disappear into regular society. Be normal.
But I could at least give it a shot.
“Well, since we’re talking about conditions now,” Curse says, “I have a few of my own.”
He raises his left fist in the air “One,” he says as he lifts his index finger. “If I’m to grant you a divorce and help you set up a life separate from me, then it will be in any city of my choosing, and you will not leave that city at any time without making me aware of your plans first. Two.” His middle finger goes up next. “You will never date, fuck, live with, or marry any other man. For the rest of your life. And don’t think that I won’t know, because I will.”
His ring finger rises to join the others. For the first time, I get a better view of the tattoo on his palm. I was right. It is a letter. A single capital A in stark black ink.
