Page 10 of Mafia King
I don’t want any part of this anymore. How did I even get trapped here? I don’t want grief. I want to be as mad as I deserve to be.
I take his hand and let him help me stand. He leans his face close to my head. My scalp tingles at the closeness of his lips, but I remain ramrod-straight, my own lips tight and my body unyielding. I expect a kiss, but it never lands.
Instead, he whispers, “Forzetta.”
He pulls something out of his pocket and lays it next to my plate. Its glass is a shimmering mirage—a portal back into my old life.
My phone.
“I know you’ve been lonely,” he says. “This house isn’t meant to be a prison for you. But make sure Armando is with you.”
“For my protection.” I touch the hard glass. It responds by lighting up. The wallpaper is of me and a stranger I once knew named Scarlett. He’s kept it charged.
I look up at him. He seems hopeful, like a dog offering a thrown stick and expecting pats on the head or a big sloppy kiss. But he’s just returning what’s rightfully mine. I cannot arrange my features into the look of gratitude he’s hoping for. I can’t even thank him.
A few months ago, I would have already been texting Scarlett and calling the Zs, eagerly scrolling through Instagram to see what everyone had been up to in my absence. Now the phone feels as though it belongs to someone else—the carefree American girl I was at the beginning of the summer. She’s gone. But I’m not the fulfilled Italian wife either. I’m stuck somewhere between, and this phone won’t do a damn thing but remind me of who I’m not, and never will be again.
There’s a long, awkward pause as all my apps glow under my fingertips, crying to be the first one open. I can’t bear it.
Santino rakes his gaze over me, and for an instant, the heat between us returns. I remember with aching clarity why I gave myself to him, and the tidal force with which he took that gift. Will I ever be strong enough to withstand the riptide of his eyes?
He did a decent thing, but that does not mean he is decent. A kind gesture does not make him good. A kiss from him does not mean he is loving.
Just because he is Santino does not mean I have to revere him.
No matter how badly my body wants him. How badly it wants to rip him out of that fancy suit and beg him to pleasure me as punishment for the horrible things he’s done.
I turn the phone glass-side down, tap it, then push it away a few inches. “Anything else?”
“Celia will be out tonight,” he says. “So you will make dinner.”
Was this supposed to be the bargain? Giving me my phone so I’d cook for him, like this marriage is something other than blasphemy and parody?
He doesn’t wait for me to agree, because I don’t have a choice.
Every step he takes to the foyer is a poem to grace, power, and desire.
I hate him and I want him, because I am a profoundly fucked-up woman.
3
VIOLETTA
The phone gives me no joy. The emails are all business, internships I can’t apply for and opportunities for other students. Social media makes me sad. Scarlett and the few other friends I have are far away. None would understand.
If this were a different marriage, preparing a traditional dinner for my husband would be one of my great joys. But how can I square that with my desire to never give Santino pleasure of any kind, ever again?
My zia taught me how to stem herbs, stringbraciole, and balance a sauce. On our last day together in the basement kitchen, surrounded by friends and family, the comfort of our hearts, she knew she was about to lose me. She made a feast anyway.
And I think: I will do this for me, and the countless Moretti women who have loved men who can only love darkness.
Maybe my mother thought this too. Maybe—without options—she never had to think of it at all.
I get lost in practical tasks. Mixing and pinching and chopping and stirring, I make everything from scratch. Santino doesn’t deserve it, but I want it, so I will have it. Everything I want that it’s possible to have, I shall have.
Upstairs, I thumb through the closet, looking at the shapeless, matronly clothes Gia picked out for me because I’m a wife, not a whore. I try on a green striped dress, but my own reflection makes me flinch.He already knows I’m not the beautiful one.
The meal I prepared got me out of my head and back into my body, so I put on a pretty blue dress I bought on Flora Street the day I was almost kidnapped.
