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“I’m in love with you,” Oscar blurted, and I stood and tossed my napkin on the table.
“I need a walk.” I couldn’t deal with any of this right now. Once outside, I took a deep breath and found a little bench out of reach of the streetlight and sat down to try to calm myself. As I sat there, I allowed myself to drift back into a memory.
“Oh, you’re here.” Theo shot me a dirty look as he came into the kitchen. He reached for a glass of water. “I thought maybe you were so full of sorrow you’d disappear for good.”
I pulled my heavy eyes away from Alessia in her bouncy chair. She’d cried all night, and was still at it. I was exhausted. I glared at the man I’d love to bury deep underground. He didn’t care how mentally finished I was, and his daughter certainly wasn’t helping my sanity.
“Shut her up. She’s going to wake the entire house.” Noemi came in behind him, looking tired and uncomfortable as she rubbed her big belly.
“My God, I’m so tired,” she complained, and I snapped.
I grabbed a knife from the counter and with my free hand snagged some of her long brown hair and yanked her toward me. I rested the tip of the blade on her belly and blinked back the rage that stormed inside of me.
“You think you’re tired?” I spat. “One more word, and I’ll carve that demon right out of you.”
She screamed, and Theo shoved me backward into the table where Alessia screamed even louder.
“She tried to kill me!” She sobbed in his arms as I held my throbbing elbow.
“Are you insane?” Theo roared above all the noise. “You could have killed the baby!”
I just lost it. I was his damn wife, but all he saw was her. I hated this life. I hated it here. A person could only take so much. I was finished!
“Maybe Bosco needs to know where his knocked-up girlfriend is spending all of her time, because she sure isn’t at her mother’s place with her feet up. Unless you count the times her feet are up here.” I outed to the room what I wasn’t supposed to know.
“What did you say to me?”
“I’m taking my daughter and leaving this compound behind!” I shouted an inch away from his face.
His eyes formed into slits, and his chest puffed out like the cocky man he liked to play. His hands snapped around my neck and squeezed.
“You think you can threaten me in my own home and get away with it?” He shook me hard, and I lost my footing. He was much stronger than I, and was able to hold my weight with little effort. “You’re nothing but a cheap market wife with a big mouth. If you even think of separating me from my daughter, I’ll snap your neck in front of her and leave your body to rot in the sun.” He dropped me to the floor, and as I managed to stay on my feet, he backed me up until I hit the wall.
He might have been terrifying, but I was mentally gone and apparently had a death wish.
He pulled back, I thought to leave, then jerked back and slammed his fist into the wall next to my head.
“Next time I won’t miss your face.”
* * *
“Francesco,” I could barely get my words out into the phone, the shakes were so bad, “I-I can’t do this.”
“Whoa, what happened? What’s going on?” I heard laughter in the background, and I wanted to lash out at him for being happy while I wasn’t.
“I’m leaving. I can’t live here anymore. He’s going to kill me.” Silence. I checked the phone to see if it was still connected.
“Do you have a pen?” his voice commanded.
“What?” I tried to follow him.
“Get a pen,” he ordered.
“Okay, I’ve got one.” It took me three tries to get the address right.
“Be ready at eight tonight. There will be a car at the south entrance. It’s now or never, Elenora.”
“Yes, yes okay.” I nodded into the phone.
