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I have always been the pretty, untouchable thing. The china you use when company comes over. The pretty toy you play with on special occasions before placing back in the box. The delicate flower you press between pages, preserving it for another day before it even wilts.
I’ve been an untouchable princess, fun to look at but never to touch.
Never to possess.
Never to own.
My father kept me in the limelight just enough to stir attention, enough to get the men to vote before he’d lock me up, lock me away.
I was meant to be untouchable.
Untouched by men, untouched by drama, untouched by the truth.
Dante is the first person I’ve ever met who not only treats me like I’m precious, but also like I'm strong enough to withstand his touch and so much more. It's like I'm something he wants to hold and possess and maybe even destroy.
It’s intoxicating.
This is what’s running through my mind as I lie in my bed with Dante hours later, long after he fed me and then fucked me into a state of calm and ease, his warm body heating me despite the chill of fall.
But still, despite all of this, I know nothing about this man. I don't know anything about who he is or where he came from.
“Who are you?” I ask, an enamored whisper as my eyes grow heavy.
“Yours,” he replies, and then he kisses me, taking any questions I might have away with it.
And when I wake, he is gone once again, his side of the bed cold, but the pillow I hold instead of him still smells of him, telling me it wasn’t all some kind of elaborate dream.
Twenty-Three
An entry from Libby’s journals, written six years before Lilah was born.
Dear Diary,
My father won’t back down.
He says Tony Carluccio is my only choice and that I have to agree to the arrangement.
I tried talking to him, but he won’t budge. He’s insistent that I do what’s right for the family, but what about what’s right for me? I mentioned the Russo family, told him I’d like him to consider Arturo, but he refused.
He said he knew about our private meetings.
He called me a whore.
He told me if I tried to run to him, horrible things would happen to Arturo. That the Carluccio family is looking for any reason to ignite the fuse of their feud.
So instead, I did something terrible.
I'm going to lose everything because of it, but it’s what’s best. I have to do it for Arturo in order to keep him safe.
But I will never forgive my father for what he took from me.
Ever.
Libby
Twenty-Four
-Lilah-
