“You do not want to sing with Sofia?”
“Please! I promise I won’t bother her again! I swear to God!”
But Gianni was already pissed, and I could tell that there was nothing I or anyone else in that room could do to stop it.
And now the once-luxurious atmosphere of the grand ballroom was suddenly transformed into a chamber of horrors.
“Please! Please!” Vito was on his knees, trembling, his eyes wide with terror as Gianni towered over him. The Devil’s shadow along with the saw’s stretched across the polished marble floor and cast over Vito.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away, even though every instinct screamed at me to look somewhere else, to run, to do anything but witness what was about to happen.
Gianni’s voice cut through the hum of the saw, calm and cold. “Vito, which hand did you use to hurt my future wife?”
Vito’s entire body shook as he stammered, “M-my left! It was my left hand, I swear!”
Gianni glanced over his shoulder and looked at me. “Is he correct, Bella?”
My heart twisted with a mixture of fear and sorrow.
I knew what would happen if I told the truth, but the memory of Vito’s hands around my throat, the way he had tried to dominate and control me, was still fresh in my mind.
I wouldn’t lie, not even to save him.
How many other women had Vito harmed with that damned hand? Women that wouldn’t have been saved by my stepfather.
I shook my head. “It was his right hand.”
Gianni’s lips curled into that same wicked smile, the one that promised pain and suffering. “Aww, morehonesty. We will have agreatmarriage.”
Before I could fully process his words, Gianni nodded to his men.
Three of them stepped forward.
Fast, they grabbed Vito, holding him down as he thrashed and screamed.
“No! Papa! Help me, Papa!” Vito’s voice was high-pitched with terror. “Please, Papa!”
The men forced his right arm in front of him, and a fourth one came over and splayed his hand out on the cold marble floor. Then two more men hurried over and kept him down.
Oh God!
Gianni could have turned the saw off right then and I feel like Vito would have learned his lesson. He’d already pissed his pants in front of everyone.
For a second, I thought that might be the case.
Surely, Gianni was just scaring him.
What was it about the brain that argued against the clear impending wickedness right in front of it?
It was as if some ancient, primal part of me clung to the hope that the obvious things weren’t as they seemed, that perhaps this darkness was a mirage, a nightmare from which I might still wake.
Perhaps it was the brain’s need for self-preservation—a desperate attempt to shield itself from the overwhelming reality of impending doom.
It sought to rationalize the irrational, to find cracks in the armor of the horror it was confronted with. After all, if thewickedness could be explained away, minimized, or denied, then perhaps it wasn’t as dangerous as it truly was.
The saw’s whirr grew louder, more intense, as Gianni brought it closer to Vito’s trembling hand.
