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Foolish little girl, indeed.
My husband threw me away like I was nothing. It shouldn’t have hurt the way it did, but my soul was shred to pieces and blown by the wind furiously gusting through my open window. I didn’t care that the unrelenting breeze was freezing cold. I needed to feel something other than the betrayal that cut my skin deeper than the winter frost.
Pulling the curtain to the side, I stood at the window, my breath cutting as I tried to inhale. It will snow tonight, no doubt about that. It always did before Christmas.
What a holy fucking night that would be. By then, Giancarlo would have found the truth to his life’s story, and I’d be married to a man who cared only about the position he’d gain by proxy.
I looked beyond the fog that dimmed the light of the moon to a mere shadow of an afterglow, trying to make out the silhouette of the Juliet rose bush.
Some part of me still hoped to see him hiding in there again someday. The other hoped he got pricked to death in those thorns as sharp as his deception. But I knew neither would ever happen. Giancarlo would never come back.
Papa is an honorable man who had never lied to save his life. He didn’t need to lie to Giancarlo, either. The room was already filled with Battaglia men, ready to spread the blood of the enemy all over the walls of Battaglia manor. Meaning Giancarlo would find that Papa’s words were true and he’d never return. That was the deal between two Men of Honor, and I expected neither of them to break it. That was the oath. That was the Òmerta.
By now, Giancarlo would have confronted Don Moretti. He would know the truth about who he truly was and had either quenched his thirst for revenge or died trying.
I flinched at the thought, turning my back to the window to erase him from my mind, only to be plagued by the view of my future— a white wedding dress. It hung in front of my closet, as pale as the chance I had to escape it.
I’d take a tablecloth and an offerings bowl any day over that beautiful and most certainly expensive gown. What I had taken as humiliation seemed so much less hurtful than the pristine fate that awaited me.
When I thought there was nothing else that could deride my broken heart, I saw the damn vase of freshly plucked Juliet roses. My breathing quickened while tears burned behind my eyes. In two wide steps, I was there, smashing the vase to the ground with all the hurt and betrayal I tried to steer clear from.
For the first time ever, I felt every bit like the daughter of a Mafia Lord but not an ounce like a princess. I pulled the door to my bedroom open and marched downstairs without so much as pulling a jacket onto my back. Before I knew it, I was standing in the middle of the blizzard, a bottle of ammonia detergent in my hand and the damn rose bush right in front of me.
I settled the bottle on the ground and, with my bare hands, plucked every damn rose that had withstood the beginning of winter. Those sharp thorns cut into my skin, and yet all I could feel was the agony that poisoned my blood. I grabbed the bottle and poured the whole contents into the bush, making sure to spread it around every inch of dirt that had a stem sticking out. I meant to poison the ground and make it as barren as my heart. Nothing would ever grow here again, just like I’d never allow anything to ever take root in my chest.
I stood there looking at the destruction at my feet for God knows how long. The skin on my face was dry and tight from the cold wind as the snow storm started to rage its hell. Finally, I took the wedding band he’d gifted me this very morning and threw it into the mix of leaves, petals and ammonia-drenched dirt and turned back towards my room.
Only now, in the comfort of my space, did I feel how cold I was. My whole body shaking with the shiver that ran down my spine. I looked back out through the window, inhaling another gush of frozen air, before slumping onto my bed and curling into a ball. I hoped that the night’s snow storm would take away the tempest raging in my chest, but until now, it hadn’t done a damn thing.
I closed my eyes and saw him again, kissing his way up my body like he was devoted to me. I trusted him with my vulnerability. Took my carefully crafted guard down and let him see me for everything no one else knew me to be. Fragile. Inexperienced. Naive to carnal pleasure.
I trusted Giancarlo to show me down a path of pleasure but also so much more than that. An intimacy that went far beyond the physical touch of our bodies. I had shown him mine, yet he never gave me a chance to see his.
That’s when I felt his grip curl around my heart and squeeze. As cold as the snow, as sharp as the Juliet thorns. I would have given every piece of myself to him, and now I can see his refusal for what it truly was.
Giancarlo had taken a piece of my heart with him, and I was clueless to understand how he’d done it in just a few hours.
Tonight I’d cry the tears of a married woman, abandoned less than twenty-four hours after her wedding, exchanged for a truth from the past that had no power to change the future.
Tomorrow I’d leave her behind and become the complacent wife of a mafia Lord.
Chapter 7
Giancarlo
I was drunk before 11 a.m. Drowning in both whiskey and a bitter possibility that had me gurgling the blood I drew from biting my tongue.
It had to be a strategy. A way to get me away from his princess.
“Leave the bottle,” I grunted at the bartender I’d forced out of bed to serve me a dose of numbness. “Have Pipo bring my brother here,” I ordered, before standing and grabbing his collar over the counter and bringing him a whisper away from my face. “No word to anyone else.”
The man nodded and scurried out back.
Half a bottle down, Toni sauntered into the place, his steps steady and self-assured. That had always been his way. If not for that fucker holding us down, he’d be the next in line to become Don of the Moretti famiglia. I could see that now. Toni deserved it, and more than any other member, he had the wit, brains and balls for it.
Bile rose to my mouth at the thought of the allegiance we pledged to the same fucker who murdered our parents. I tossed another glass of whiskey down my throat, forcing the acid back to where it belongs.
“Shit-faced before noon. That must be some kind of new record, Carlo.”
