Page 43 of The Mafioso’s Bride

“I was present.”

“Then you should have learned.”

The fluorescent fixture above us emits a thin whine. The sound drills into my skull and stays there.

“Luca was kind to me before the wedding,” I say.

“He needed you calm while his men took the church.”

“He bought clothes I prefer.”

“You’re an expense he can afford.”

“He asks before touching me.”

“So you don’t embarrass him by screaming.”

Each answer creates another opening for him. I stop giving him answers.

Papa leans forward as far as the rope permits. “Did you believe he chose you?”

The fixture whines. Four screws hold its cover in place. The drain has twelve narrow openings around one round center. Papa’s chair stands on a crack that divides into three branches.

“He called the marriage strategic,” I say.

“Of course he did. That’s all it was.”

Luca’s answer returns in exact order. The marriage was a strategic move, and it worked.

“You weren’t a bride,” Papa says. “You were the fastest weapon available.”

I count the openings again: twelve narrow openings around one round center.

“Your mother and I spent years keeping your behavior private. Then you stood in a church full of people and proved every story true. Corsini used that humiliation against us.”

My nails catch on the trouser seams.

“Luca doesn’t humiliate me.”

“He took you upstairs, didn’t he?” Papa’s laugh breaks into a cough. “Did he fuck you and lose interest this morning?”

Luca left my room when I asked. At breakfast he stayed across the table. He went to work and did not kiss me.

He gave me what I requested.

I had requested the wrong thing.

Papa wipes blood from his lip against his shoulder. “Men will use whatever is offered. That doesn’t make you wanted.”

The room grows too bright. I close my eyes, but the red behind my lids pulses with the whine above us.

“Look at me when I speak to you.”

I keep them closed.

“Defective girl. You were an embarrassment from the day you learned to talk. No man chooses that. Giuseppe accepted you for the alliance. DiCenzo accepted you on an order.”

The steel door strikes the wall.