“We tried that, but she is sneaky, and she always finds a way.” He chews slowly on the last piece of chicken. “Gabe and I do a lot for her, but at the end of the day, she’s a grown woman. She is fragile, and she relies on us a lot, but we can’t tell her what to do. We won’t control her like that. We encourage her with her garden, and she likes sewing tapestries.”
I noticed a few framed on the walls and wondered if it was her work.
“We try to encourage her to make good choices when it comes to booze, but she is lonely and lost since papa died. He ruled over every aspect of her life. Telling her what to wear, what to eat, who to socialize with. He had her so terrorized she barely spoke whenever he was around or whenever we left the house. She has improved since his death, but she will never fully recover. The damage is too deep-seated.”
As a woman who has suffered severe trauma, I feel her pain, but I still can’t find it in my heart to forgive her.
Eleanora returns, and the young women appear to cut the cake and pour coffee. “This is delicious, Catarina.” She fixes me with her first genuine smile of the day. “I wish I could bake, but I’m terrible in the kitchen.”
“Really?” I’m surprised. “Massimo is such a good cook. I thought for sure he must have learned his kitchen skills from you.”
“Our housekeeper taught him. Where she failed with me, she succeeded with my youngest son.” Blatant adoration coasts over her face, and it’s clear she loves her son deeply.
That may be her only saving grace.
“I lived abroad from the time I graduated high school,” Massimo adds in between devouring my cake. “I had to learn to fend for myself. Getting takeout all the time wasn’t an option. I like to stay fit and healthy, and that meant cooking my own meals.”
I still don’t know what he was doing abroad. He has explained he attended Oxford for four years and then he spent two years with mercenaries, but what was he doing the other ten years? I know he has traveled a lot, and the gossips would have you believe he was off philandering, but I’m not buying it. Not since I got to know the man. He likes to keep busy, and he’s smart. Too fucking smart to waste ten years absently traveling the globe in the pursuit of pleasure.
No, my husband was abroad for a reason, and I intend to find out what.
Excusing myself to go to the bathroom, I leave Massimo with his mother and head indoors. As soon as I’m inside the house, I slip off my high heels and pad quietly in the direction of the dungeon. I know the entrance is just under the staircase on the left.
Perhaps it’s reckless to want to revisit my torture chamber, but I need to see it.
I’m struggling to hold on to the person I have become.
My identity has changed many times in my thirty-four-years on this planet. I left Noemi Cabrini behind the day I was rescued from this house. My stepfather wanted me to remain incognito, so he didn’t protest when I insisted on being called Catarina after I moved to Vegas. It is my middle name and it was my paternal grandmother’s first name. I became Catarina Conti when I married Paulo, and now, I’m Catarina Greco.
It all started here, and now it feels like everything has come full circle.
Maybe seeing my prison will help me to reconcile the woman I am today and the woman I am becoming. Initially, I thought coming here would strengthen my resolve in terms of my goals, but my growing feelings for Massimo have already confirmed that aspect of my plans. I haven’t confided in anyone yet, but I’m resolute when it comes to my husband.
I can’t hurt him. I won’t.
More than that, I need him. He empowers me in a lot of ways, and my gut is telling me he's on my side. I don’t know if he still will be when he discovers the truth.
And he will.
Because I can’t remain married to him and keep all the secrets I’m keeping.
Massimo deserves the truth.
I reach the door under the stairs and draw in a sharp breath. A tight pain spreads across my chest as nausea swims up my throat and knots twist in my stomach. My hand curls around the door handle as memories surge to the forefront of my mind. Invisible pain has a vise-grip around my heart, squeezing and squeezing until it feels like the organ no longer exists.
“You don’t have to do this,” an imaginary voice whispers in my ear.
“I do,” I silently reply. I need to remind myself of how far I have come. I need physical evidence proving how strong I am and that I will stay the course, even if some of my plans are changing.
Without stopping to think about it anymore, I twist the handle, relieved to find the door unlocked. Opening it, I step inside and descend the stairs with my heart thumping loudly behind my rib cage.
My legs feel like Jell-O as I grip the new wrought iron handrail, putting one wobbly leg in front of another as I move closer and closer to my own personal hell. My breath oozes out in panicked spurts the lower I go, and all the blood in my veins has been replaced with ice. When my bare feet hit the bottom, a deluge of memories swarms my mind, and I squeeze my eyes shut to ward them off. I can’t let them overtake me. I won’t make it out of here unscathed if I do.
The purpose of today is not to drown under the dearth of memories. I want this to serve as a reminder of what I can achieve when I put my mind to it.
I flick the switch, plunging the room into bright light, and gasp at the scene before me.
Gone are the rough stone walls, bare asphalt ingrained with the stains of human misery, and the heavy cage I used to call home. I look up and there are no hooks and chains dangling from the ceiling. The old steel table and matching shelving unit that housed a myriad of different torture tools and devices is long gone.
