Concern is etched upon her face, and tenderness blooms in my chest. My sister has the biggest heart. “I love you,” I whisper, leaning in to hug her.
“I love you too, Rena, and I’m here for you.” She tucks my hair behind my ears, inspecting my face. “Is therapy tougher than you thought it would be?”
I ease out of our embrace, lifting my wineglass to my lips for a quick sip before replying. “It is. It’s been hard reliving everything.”
“Is it helping yet?”
“It will be worse before it gets better. I have spent years denying shit to myself. Not wanting to think about it because it made me feel so damn weak. Shaking that mentality is one of the hardest things. I keep thinking of all the things I could’ve done differently.”
“It’s not your fault, and you did your best. It’s not like you had many options. Look at Mom. She was trapped too. You need to cut yourself some slack.”
“Do you know Saskia was supposed to marry Alfredo?” I tuck my legs up to my chest and settle into the arm of the couch.
Sierra’s pretty green eyes widen. “What?” she splutters. “Is that true?”
I nod. “I only found out after I married Alfredo.”
“It kinda makes sense,” Sierra muses, after a couple beats of quiet contemplation. “She was the eldest, and he held a position of power. More powerful than Felix.” Saskia had married Felix Barretta, Thomas’s son, who was destined to become The Outfit’s nextconsigliere. Until he was gunned down in cold blood.
“It does, but I never stopped to question it when Dad told me I was promised to Alfredo.”
“How did you find out?”
“Alfredo told me. He loved reminding me of all the ways I was a failure, and he taunted me with the fact I was second best.” Anger burns in my blood as I recall the conversation. “I told him I would happily trade places with Saskia, and he threw me halfway across the room. I slammed into the grand piano, whacking the side of my head against the edge, before I slumped to the ground. I was bleeding and crying when he crouched in front of me and told me he regularly fucked Saskia behind Felix’s back.”
Sierra’s face inflames with righteous anger. “That fucking bitch!” Her nostrils flare. “That’s why you fell out,” she surmises, but I shake my head.
“Honestly, I couldn’t have cared less about the sex. If she wanted to fuck that monster, she was welcome to him. I didn’t even care how much he was obsessed with her.” Choosing big-busted blondes made so much sense after that revelation. I guess he was imagining all his whores were Saskia when he fucked them. “It was how Saskia set me up. That’s what I couldn’t get over.”
“Tell me everything,” she demands, leaning toward me.
“I confronted her when I found out she was screwing Alfredo, and she told me it was my own fault for not satisfying my husband. I threatened to tell Felix, and she turned nasty. She told me it wouldn’t take much to kill me and Alfredo needed little motivation to end my life. She gloated as she told me how she was supposed to marry him, but she didn’t want to be saddled with an old man for a husband. She knew she’d be a laughingstock. She also knew he liked to hit women, and no man was laying a finger on her.” I make air quotes with my fingers, quoting her verbatim.
“So, she got Dad to agree she could date for a while before the official engagement announcement would be made,” I continue explaining, “and her plan all along was to have fun dating and then fuck Felix so her engagement to Alfredo wouldn’t go ahead. She had deemed him the most worthy of potential other mafia husbands though she didn’t really care much for him. He was a means to an end. When Ben came along, and they discovered his heritage, she was going to trap him, only he got out in the nick of time.”
“I’m glad she’s rotting in the ground,” Sierra hisses, grinding her teeth. “She was poison, and she didn’t care who she hurt.”
“She didn’t. She knew Alfredo would be promised to me next. She knew what my life would be like, and she didn’t care as long as it wasn’t her life. She didn’t even warn me. She let me marry him knowing what was lying in wait for me.”
“And she still fucked him,” Sierra adds, vibrating with rage.
“Because she liked the feeling of power it gave her. Knowing my husband was obsessed with her and she was the woman he wished he was married to.”
“God, Rena. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrug, taking another mouthful of wine. “I was pregnant with Elisa by then, and you were in college. You were ignorant to this world, and I wanted to keep it that way.”
“That’s why you pulled away from me,” Sierra muses, her brow puckering.
“I was trying to protect you. It wasn’t because I wanted to drift apart.”
“Always trying to protect others,” she murmurs, shaking her head sadly. “Promise me you won’t do that again. We’re sisters. We need to lean on one another. I want to be here for you in the way you have always been there for me.”
“You helped in more ways than you knew,” I truthfully reply. “And I couldn’t have gotten through the past few months without you and Ben.”
“Saskia didn’t know what it meant to be a sister. She was far too narcissistic and vain.” Sierra moves over and wraps her arms around me. “But I’m here for you, and you are going to get through this, sis. You are way stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
I wish I could believe that, but for now, I savor my sister’s words and her comfort, willing my heart to believe I can get through this intact and come out the other side a better version of myself.
