Will he take a lover?
How can I earn any freedom as he mentioned?
Do I get to make decisions for myself?
Is there anything I’m not allowed?
When will he want children?
Can he change his mind and sell me later?
Tears gather in my eyes as I think about my future children never knowing their grandmother. But before the first one can fall, anger stirs inside me. My mom is the reason I’m considering marrying into the mafia.
The mafiasheborrowed money from.
I know the shame would destroy her if she were still alive. She’s not, though. And her debt is what landed me here in the first place.
The anger and sadness sharpen into something dangerously like resentment. I loved my mom—Istilldo—but her choices have consequences I’m living with. That I’ll keep living with, either as Raffaele’s prisoner or his wife.
“This is insane,” I mutter, crumpling the paper again and throwing it across the room. It bounces off the wall and lands near the wastebasket. A failed attempt at basketball that feels like a perfect metaphor for my life right now.
I get up and retrieve it, smoothing it out to stare at my childish list. As if marriage to Raffaele Russo could be reduced to bullet points. As if any of this makes sense in a world where a person can own another.
Hours pass as I move from the bed to the window to the bathroom and back again. My mind circles the same questions without finding answers. Eventually, I crawl into bed, knowing sleep will be as elusive as it was last night.
I stare at the ceiling, watching shadows shift as clouds pass over the moon outside my window. Onyx nudges my hand withhis head, demanding attention. I stroke his fur absently, grateful for his presence. At least I’m not completely alone in this.
“What should I do?” I whisper to him.
He blinks at me slowly, then turns three circles before settling back against my side. No help there.
The darkness presses around me, and I pull the blankets higher despite the warmth of the room. Soon, I’ll have to give Raffaele my answer. Right now, all I can do is wrestle with impossible choices and try to find the path that hurts the least.
Sleep finally claims me somewhere in the early hours, my dreams a confused tangle of wedding dresses and locked doors, of the bakery and chess pieces moving on their own across a board.
The first rays of morning light creep across the hardwood floor, reaching for me like hesitant fingers. I’ve been sitting in this window seat for hours, watching the world wake up outside—a world that hasn’t noticed my absence.
Raffaele is coming back at some point today.
Unless I’ve counted the days wrong, it’s March fifth and I’ve been here for twelve days. And in that time, not a single person has raised the alarm. At least not as far as I know.
No police cars with flashing lights have come to Raffaele’s property. I’m sure there are no search parties combing the neighborhood, and no desperate pleas on the evening news.
Just… silence.
The kind of silence that wraps around your throat and squeezes until the truth sinks in. I’ve made myself so small that I’ve become invisible.
Behind me, Onyx stretches on the rumpled bedsheets, his black fur catching the sunlight. At least he misses me when I’m not around.
My fingertips trace patterns on the cold glass as I stare at the perfectly manicured grounds of Raffaele’s estate. Snow still blankets much of the lawn, but there are patches of green emerging, stubborn and determined.
Spring is coming, with or without my permission.
I catch my reflection in the window. As I stare into my own eyes, I try to recall when I became this person. This woman who’s spent her entire life trying not to take up space.
Even before Raffaele, I was shrinking myself. Wearing clothes two sizes too big to hide my curves. Speaking softly so I wouldn’t interrupt. Standing in the background of every family photo, if I appeared at all. Making myself convenient, undemanding, invisible.
“You’re taking up too much space,”Sabrina had complained once when we were teenagers, squeezing past me in the narrow hallway of our apartment.“God, just suck it in or something.”
