No, she cannot be the daughter of the man who killed my mother.
I drive back to the villa at a terrifying speed, not really knowing why I’m in a hurry, chugging a bottle of whiskey I grabbed from Andrea’s bar. By the time I reach the villa, the sky has turned angry. Rain starts as a fine mist, then turns into a downpour.
When I left the club, I thought what I wanted was to see her. Hold her. So she can tell me they’re lying.
Now I’m glued to the driver’s seat of my car, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles are white.
When I finally stumble out of the car, I find myself in the private cemetery past the gardens, drunk and clothes soaked from the rain. I collapse in the mud in front of my mother’s grave, my forehead pressed against the cold headstone.
“Sono così crudeli, mamma?”
I sob for the first time. Since the day I lost the woman buried in front of me.
“I fell in love with her.” My voice breaks, alternating between defeated laughter and desperate sobs.
“I fell in love with his daughter,Mamma. I let her in. I let her into your house.”
The grief burns, twisting in my gut, moving from something broken into something ugly. Something raw and uncontrollable.
Rage.
I stand up, swaying, and the bottle slips from my hand and shatters against the stone angel at the base of her grave.
“Damiano!” Lorenzo yells.
I turn to see him standing behind me. My eyes are blurry with tears, struggling to focus on him. He stands there getting soaked in the rain like me.
His eyes tell me he already knows.
“I heard,” he says, looking at me with the same pity he had during those years I punished myself after our mother died.
“I’ve been protecting her!” I scream into the storm, my voice cracking. “I’ve been holding her while she has his blood in her veins! I betrayed Mamma, Enzo. I let that Castiglione into our house!”
“She didn’t know,” Lorenzo says calmly, moving closer. “She’s a victim in this, too.”
“Does it matter?” I snap, the alcohol and the betrayal clouding my mind.
“You said it yourself, you love her.” He says, taking a step towards me. His words do nothing but put salt in the gaping wound in my back.
I laugh like a maniac.
“She is the perfect revenge, Enzo.” I sneer, my head spinning before I stumble on my right foot.
The words taste sour as soon as they leave my mouth. My heart lurches, torn in half.
I want to punish her, to make her hurt the way I am hurting. I see her face in my head, the way she laughs, the way she looks at me as if I am still worth loving. Something vicious claws at my chest. My knuckles throb, aching for violence.
“You’re not thinking straight.” Enzo reaches for my shoulder, and I shove him away.
I walk toward the villa, my boots coated with mud. I’m not crying anymore, but shaking with a drunken rage.
“Damiano!” Lorenzo calls out, his arm grabs and turns me around, the motion strong and fast, I almost fall to the ground, but Gio catches me.
“I’m going to make her look at me while I tell her what her father did. I’m going to make her see the monster she belongs to.”
“You will do no such thing,” Lorenzo warns.
“I should punish her! It’s only fair, isn’t it? An eye for an eye! She’s my fucking vengeance!” I shout, my eyes jumping everywhere and nowhere.
