27
Fran
“You ungrateful little bitch,” my father hisses. “Get out of bed.”
I keep staring at the wall in front of me.
I hate this wall.
I hate the color of it, the heaviness of it, the way it seems to absorb every scrap of light and throw back only gloom. Lorenzo likes everything in this house dark—dark wood, dark paint, dark curtains. After the wedding I asked if I could repaint the bedroom. Something softer. Warmer. He’d looked at me for a long moment and said I should learn to like it.
Learn to like it.
As if misery is simply another skill a wife is supposed to master.
My father slaps the back of my leg. “I said get out of bed.”
I glance over my shoulder. “Why?”
“Why?” He laughs, bitter and ugly. “Because your husband has been back in town for two weeks and hasn’t come to see you once. It’s no wonder, looking at the state of you.”
There was a time those words would have made me shrink. Iwould have rushed to the mirror, pinched my cheeks, fixed my hair, tried to make myself prettier for the men who only ever seemed disappointed by me.
But things have changed.
This baby has changed everything.
Shehas changed everything.
The thought of her makes my hand drift to my stomach. My daughter. Another little girl destined to be born into a world run by men who think love is control and protection is ownership. I blink fast to keep the tears from falling. She’ll be a Mafia princess too. She will be born with expectations around her throat like a collar. She’ll be watched, bartered, assessed. Men like my father will decide what she is worth long before she is old enough to decide it for herself.
That is why I no longer care what people think of me. I need to become the kind of woman who can stand between her daughter and this world. Which is why I am still in bed.
My father hits my leg harder this time.
“Francesca,” he warns.
I throw back the bedding and stand. “I’m up. Now leave.”
He gives another humorless laugh. “No. You’re going to get dressed and meet me in the living room in thirty minutes.” His gaze drops deliberately to my middle. “Wear something that shows off your stomach.”
My skin goes cold.
“Why?”
His mouth twists. “Because appearances matter.”
They always do. More than comfort. More than truth. More than dignity.
I say nothing, because there is no point. He turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him. I stand there for a moment, staring at that wretched wall again, and suddenly I understand why I hate it so much. Because it is the color of death.
Thirty minutes later, I walk into the living room wearing a fitted cream dress and a cardigan I do not need.
My father’s gaze lands on my stomach first. He is seated in one of Lorenzo’s dark leather chairs like he owns the house. Maybe all men like him assume every room belongs to them the second they step inside it.
“There,” he says, nodding once. “Better.”
I remain standing. “What do you want?”
