Adriano raised a sensible point. Women were softer, and they tried to form connections because their emotions did not allow them anything else. Siena had been just five years old, and she had regularly attempted this with me. My mother had become clinically insane trying to connect with my father. Emotions had caused Siena to cry when I had told her that I was incapable of pretending that the stuffed animals partaking in hertea party were ‘happy’ because I did not know what behavior reflected that emotion.
Emotions had made Mom unsafely defend me from Dad, even in her mental state.
Understanding it all back then as someone younger and less guided had been impossible, but trying to understand it now still seemed to feel strenuous.
My body tensed involuntarily as I thought of the past, of how marriage had treated my mother. I would never have chosen to marry, but theCosa Nostrahad chosen for me, and I was aware of my expectations even if I did not enjoy them.
“It is not a choice.” I sighed. “I will learn her social cues as I have learned yours. She will be designated a wing in the house and be permitted to do as she pleases.”
“And what if she wants to connect with you?” Adriano asked.
That was something I was incapable of.
Adriano was alluding to emotional connection, not just the physical act of interlacing our fingers. Perhaps my Consigliere understood my disapproval because he continued, “What if she wants to talk to you? Watch a movie with you? Sleep in your bed with you? Havesexwith you?”
“She will be permitted to speak, of course. She will also be welcome to watch the television in the same room as me on occasion, but she will be required to stay in her own wing during the night, and there willcertainlybe no intercourse.”
His hand pulled at his face rather uncomfortably. “Milan, that’s not a marriage, and not many women would be open to that.”
“Itisa marriage.” I frowned. “My signature and hers will signify that of a contract. That is how contracts work; they are binding.”
“Trust me when I say, as someone who feels a lot of emotions, that sounds heartbreaking.”
Beingheartbrokenwas not an emotion I felt. What Adriano spoke of was the sensation of loss, and there were tactics I could implement to ensure that my wife did not feel that.
I straightened in my seat, ignoring his unnecessary concern. “How do I find this wife?”
Adriano laughed, but it did not sound like it did when he laughed at a joke or at the television; this one sounded tense. “Jesus, I don’t know. I guess Primo Bianchi has two unmarried daughters. But think about this, Milan, it’s not as easy as just walking in andchoosing.They’re still people.”
The Bianchis were another of the Five New York Families. Where the Gioffres were seen as the most secretive and powerful of the five, the Bianchis were the opposite. Their reputation was worse than the Gioffre sons’; theirs was dirty and distasteful. They invested in movie production, but theCosa Nostraknew it was truly pornography and brothels they had a hand in. Their reputation stated that they employed drugged-up prostitutes that nobody else wanted, and Don Primo Bianchi had been requesting Hugo’s support in cleaning this reputation for years.
Even he had known not to touch them.
“Are these the daughters that are the performers?”
“I don’t know, but nobody wants to take them because of that rumor. Primo’s been trying to set them up with eligible sons foryears.”
Adriano’s use of the word ‘rumor’ indicated he did not believe the Bianchi daughters were their father’s faceless porn stars. It was commonly believed that they performed in the productions in order to clean the Bianchis’ reputation, so people could see that hecouldmake movies that didn’t use women with abused skin and bellies full of cocaine. The entire idea made me feel nauseated, but I needed a wife regardless of who she was, and if nobody else wanted them, one of them could be mine.
“Call Primo and tell him we’ll be at his home in thirty-five minutes.”
3
SICILY
The soundof soft flesh slapping against each other was hot and heavy throughout my small art studio, but the adoration in my muses’ eyes was sickly sweet.
That’swhat I was painting, not the lewd sexual act itself, but the way it made themfeel.
The way it madeherfeel.
Elena’s gasps and deep breaths weren’t just the result of her boyfriend’s thrusts; that was her giving herself to him entirely, every part of her body, her soul, her sound. People had reckless sex and one-night stands all the time, but this wasn’t that.This was a man worshippingher,his woman, the person who was supposed to be his subordinate in this world.
Her breathy moans skated through the small space that felt more like home than my true home ever had, the breeze picking up her sound and dusting it over every sunlit corner. It was a beautiful place to hold this, to hold them, even if the window frames were chipped, the old wooden flooring was peeling in places, and every laminate countertop was coated in old flecks of paint.
I slicked my paintbrush over the canvas, my fingers aching around the handle from how tightly I held it. I highlighted thedeep curves of her hips as they cradled his body, how Elena sprawled out for him over the black velvet couch, how her blue eyes illuminated her hair which should have blended in with the chaise but only made her glow.
She was always my primary focus, and he was the secondary character, the one serving the art that was Elena Ferrari.
