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Tears sting my eyes, and I wipe them with the heel of my hand. I’m sitting in the garden behind Giovanni’s house, watching the moon and forcing down whiskey. When I woke today, I got dressed in the dress I’d worn last night and made my way downstairs, grateful not to run into anyone as I searched for my panties and shoes, which were on the dining-room floor. I’d just slipped into my shoes when a woman came into the room and asked what I wanted for breakfast. I told her I’d be leaving but thanked her and had been informed that Mr. Santa Maria wanted me looked after until he got home that evening. I almost argued with her, but then one of his men turned up behind her—I think he’d been at my apartment too. He dismissed her and told me I would be not be permitted to leave the property. From the tone of his voice, there was no discussion to be had. He told me if I needed anything to ask him, and he would take care of it.
And now it’s past nine at night and Giovanni’s still not here and I’m in his garden, drinking his best whiskey. It burns, and I feel like I want to vomit with every swallow but if I drink enough of it, I can forget that part and remember when I was little and how my father and I would sit in his study and how I was safe. Protected. I remember how powerful he was. Like a king. No, like a god. One word from him and every fear was banished, every enemy slayed. Even Alessandro.
And I know it’s one of the reasons Alessandro hates me.
When we were younger, I taunted Alessandro with my father’s love. That’s another thing Giovanni’s right about. I was daddy’s princess. Even when we were little, from my earliest memories, my brother was as hated as I was loved. In my father’s eyes, he was to blame for our mother’s death.
I didn’t understand then what I was doing. I didn’t understand that Alessandro’s hatred of my father encompassed his whole world, including me. Everything and everyone our father loved, he hated, he would hurt. Even Mel, our ancient dog, my father’s constant companion, he poisoned.
I wonder if I had been kinder to him if things might have been different. I wonder if I’d pled his case to my father, told him it wasn’t his fault mom died, that it didn’t make any sense, that it was as much my fault as Alessandro’s—because she died in childbirth—that things would be different today.
It’s too late for that, though.
My mother was a petite woman and carrying us in her belly had taken its toll on her. Twins would have been hard enough, but we weren’t twins. There were three of us at first. One of my brothers died when my mother was not quite seven months pregnant, which is why they’d needed to operate, to get us out. To get him out.
But during the surgery, she lost too much blood, and she was already so weak, and she died just as they took Alessandro from her belly.
That’s why dad blamed him. And the fact that he looked so much like her, that every time he saw him, he saw what he’d lost. If I look at photographs of her, I can see how people would say he is her spitting image. But to me, the features on her were soft. Warm and full of love. On him, they’re hard. Cold and cruel. Like his heart.
But how much of that is my fault? I am guilty for never having protected him. For wanting to be daddy’s princess. For wanting to be the one he loved most.
Don’t I deserve what I got?
The moon keeps disappearing behind the clouds. I feel light drops of rain, but they’re gone as soon as they start. The relief from the heat is temporary.
I pour more of the whiskey and get up to walk around the walled-in space. I don’t even hear the sounds of the city here. The garden is nestled in a way that you almost wouldn’t know you were in a city. It’s strange. I’m so used to that noise. I’m going to miss it when I leave. And I do have to leave.
Unless I have Giovanni’s protection.
No, that’s not an option. Protection from him would come at a price. I can’t pay that. I only have one option.
I dip my toe in the pool and watch the surface ripple. I’m tempted to strip off my clothes and let myself slip in, float there. Slip beneath the surface.
But I’m too much of a coward for that.
I think about what he said about his tutor. That I look like her. What does that even mean? Is that why he wants me? I remind him of his first love?
