Page 132 of Bene

Mario would kill her.

And her child.

Bene hated her.

And he didn’t know about the baby.

How did she fix this?

She couldn’t.

A knock on the bathroom door had Vanna glancing up and meeting her gaze in the reflection of the mirror. Gone was that passive, dead stare. Now, she found a line of water dampening her dark eyes, threatening to ruin her composure and the perfectly applied makeup that hid the bruises on her throat and her skin that didn’t quite gleam the same way it used to.

“Yeah?” Vanna asked.

“Are you okay in there?”

She wished it was someone she cared about behind the door, waiting for her to finish helping her ready for her wedding. Her mother … God, her father, even. She still loved her father; she always would, and she wished he was here to help her get through this awful day if she couldn’t, at least, have what she wanted.

Someone who loved her.

She wished this day was for her and someone else.

She wished so many things.

Things that could never be.

Sorry, Daddy, she thought, sorry that I couldn’t do what you wanted me to. Sorry that I wasn’t who you wanted me to be. I’m sorry your vendetta couldn’t be mine.

Because that was the thing, right?

This vendetta had never really been hers.

And look where it led her.

Her gaze found the bouquet of white roses that she’d managed to toss on the side of the counter before throwing up her breakfast, and the string of rosary beads that twisted around the stems covered in white silk.

Her father’s rosary.

One of the only things she had left.

She understood now that undoubtedly, her father’s choices and beliefs about a man and a family he thought wronged him was likely the making of his own blood. His father did that with his mistreatment, and constant rejection of Adam. He’d believed that if only he could convince his father he was worthy, and not the bastard he’d been told he was his whole life, then he and Gabriel would be better.

Instead, his father died before it could happen.

And he just passed on that unhealthy love to her.

In a new way.

“Vanna, are you listening?”

No.

She spoke so they didn’t break down the door.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Vanna said.

A lie.