Behind me, Dad’s already on his phone, barking orders. “Get someone to clean this mess up. I want Pietro’s body gone within the hour and that window fixed by morning.”
Like Pietro was nothing, and he didn’t serve our family for twenty years.
Even going so far as to murder Mom on Dad’s orders.
The words rise up my throat.Pietro told me what you did. He told me he killed her for you. How could you do that to Mom?But I swallow them back down. The confrontation I want to have will end with me beaten and sobbing on the floor.
I climb the stairs to my bedroom, Vincenzo’s jacket clutched around me. My legs are shaking so badly I nearly fall twice.When I finally close my door behind me, I lean against the wood, gasping for breath.
I stumble to my bathroom and turn on the shower, standing under the spray until the water runs clear. Pietro’s blood swirls down the drain, dark and thick at first, then gradually fading to pink, then finally nothing.
But I can still see it.
When I close my eyes, all I see is Pietro’s blood spraying across my face. The wet sound the knife made each time I drove it into his chest. The way his eyes went wide and empty.
I scrub my skin until it’s red and tender, but I can’t wash away what I did.
I’m a killer. Just like Dad. Just like Vincenzo.
When the water starts to scour my skin, I turn it off and wrap myself in a towel. I return to my bedroom and pull on an oversized T-shirt, then crawl under the covers. The sheets are cold and unwelcoming. Everything in this house is cold.
Except Vincenzo’s jacket.
I reach for it where I dropped it on the floor, pulling the leather into bed with me. It’s heavy and warm, still carrying his body heat. I press my face into the shearling lining and breathe in the scent of him.
The scent should repel me, but right now, wrapped in his jacket, I feel safer than I have in weeks.
Hot tears spill down my cheeks, soaking into the leather.
I’m such a coward. I should have confronted Dad and demanded answers about Mom. I should have screamed at him for the massacre, for dragging me back here, and his plans to use me to murder Vincenzo.
But I just stood there and took his abuse, and then obeyed like I always do.
I clutch Vincenzo’s jacket tighter, burying my face in the shearling.
He’s dangerous. He’s using me. He probably hates me.
But when he held me tonight and wrapped this jacket around me, I felt protected. He threatened to cut out the heart of anyone who hurt me.
Dad’s never made such promises.
Fresh sobs tear through me, and I press Vincenzo’s jacket against my mouth to muffle the sound. I can’t let Dad hear me crying. Can’t give him another reason to call me weak.
But here, alone in the dark, I let myself break.
I cry for Mom. For Vincenzo’s family. For the girl I was six weeks ago who thought marrying a stranger was the worst thing that could happen to her.
Eventually, exhaustion pulls me under.
I fall asleep wrapped in Vincenzo Vici’s jacket, the scent of him filling my lungs with every breath.
I’ve beena prisoner for most of my life, only the bonds that tethered me to the Montoni mansion were invisible. I stayed because it’s where I grew up. Within these walls, while Mom and Nonna were alive, I was loved.
I stayed because it’s home.
Now I know about life beyond these beautiful stone walls, and though it’s harsh, meager, and demanding, it was a breath of fresh air. It was mine.
This time, my captivity is tangible. Bodyguards stand outside my door day and night. There are more in the garden below my balcony in case I knot my sheets together and try to escape. Dad watches me at the dinner table as we silently consume our meals, as though he’s trying to discern what’s in my mind.
