Page 79 of Mafia Bride
At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself for over a week.
The windows in my room have little transoms on top to let air in. Once Santino showed me how to open them, I never closed them. I can hear the birds chirp, and I imagine I can fly away with them, out of this tower…away away…but my imagination dries up after that, because it would be a life of not knowing what I want. Thewhy. Thehow. Thewhoof the man who tore me away from my life.
Freedom into a life of ignorance doesn’t seem possible, but still…I dream of those first few minutes, before I start wondering what puzzle piece I’m missing. This cannot, absolutely cannot, be the entire story.
Below, I hear the slice of a body through water, and approach the window. Santino out for his morning swim. He does this every day, like clockwork. That man has a nearly military discipline. My zio had a belly that told everyone he had a soft spot for gnocchi and so did all his brothers.
Santino, though, never stopped looking like he was carved from marble. I heard you were supposed to gain weight after getting married, but he was as lean and muscular as ever.
Out of boredom, but more a desire for company, I throw on a sundress and give my hair a quick toss on the way down to the pool. At least outside the walls don’t feel so constricting.
He’s getting out of the pool by the time I make it down there, water running in the divots between his abs and pecs, and the happy trail of black hair that leads below his waistband is wet and flat. He’s so fucking beautiful it actually hurts me to look at him. The war between desire and fear that erupts internally has threatened, more than once, to rip me in two.
I hand him a towel.
“You look better,” he says. His voice slices through my thoughts like his body slices through the water—easily, forcefully, elegantly.
I pause. That’s a back-handed compliment if I ever heard one. And I’ve heard plenty—Scarlett is queen of the back-handed compliment, but he’s not getting away with it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?
Santino shrugs and switches to speaking in Italian. “I want you to be happy. If that’s not possible, because of our arrangement, I at least want you to be content. Today, you look more content.”
Warmth spreads through me so I focus on the blinding sun in the pool to burn my retinas instead.
I answer back in English. “I’m bored today. The house is...beautiful but it still feels like a prison. I know I tried to run, and you’re afraid I’ll do it again, but I’m going nuts.”
He frowns a little, but it doesn’t look like he’s disappointed in me. Ever since the incident, he’s stopped ordering me around so much and acting like I’m thirty seconds from inciting a war.
“I’m not keeping you from running.” He sits on the couch with the towel over his shoulders. “Because I know you won’t.”
He’s right. I won’t run. At least, not the way I did before. If I ever try to escape again I’ll be so sure of the plan I won’t have to run. I’ll walk.
“Then why?” I sit on the seat perpendicular to his.
“Unfortunately, myForzetta, there’s nowhere else safe at the moment.”
“How long before I can go somewhere?”
“I won’t lie and make up a date. Truth between us is sacred to me.”
Inside myself, I watch the warmth the comment seeds grow as if I’m a separate person, observing objectively, wondering why it’s even there, and trying to measure how much I’ve changed. How I’ve let feelings of safety transfer from my aunt and uncle to the man who took me away from them.
I don’t really call him my jailer anymore but that doesn’t mean he isn’t, and something in my body or expression betrays those thoughts, because he sits straight with utmost attention.
“I can make you a promise.”
“Okay,” I say as I sit back to listen.
“We will go out for your birthday.”
“That’s in August!”
“It is, and then you go back to school. Your life will be your own, but it will be a life with me.”
That may tempt some, but I’m left unsatiated. “And I’ll be miraculously safe in a few weeks?”
“If you behave.”
