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Honestly, I couldn’t care less if he had two heads. I just wanted to know whether he’d hurt me. Mama tells me that men can’t hurt us if we don't let them infiltrate our hearts. I told her I meant physically. She told me to learn to disassociate.
It’s not uncommon for made men to cheat on their wives, and it’s not frowned upon. The women accept it. My mother tells me my father does it respectfully. How does one respectfully commit adultery? He does it discreetly, yes. But respectfully? There is no such thing.
I know he’s responsible for the underworld prostitution ring run by the family. It should make me sick, but I’ve met some of the women under his charge, and they’re happy. As happy as you can be sucking cock for money.
“Why is it okay for you to have mistresses but not okay for women to live the same?”
“That I wanted to feel loved by a man the right way before I was given, against my will, to another.”
Roberto Ferrari was a rapist. He was a man who harmed women and did so with a smile. The romantic in my sister would have been eaten alive by such a monster.
That falling in love with your captor isn’t anything but a coping mechanism.
It’s true that Roberto didn’t fuck me. But his hands felt along my body, and his hideous lips tasted my skin. The thought makes me want to vomit.
“I think you’re expected to do whatever the fuck they say. They give zero fucks on whether you want it or not.”
And while I might not be scared, he’s right. I’m a little girl playing games with a monster. I may be his wife, but to Vincent Ferrari, that means less than nothing. He didn’t even touch me anywhere else—just a single finger lifting my chin to his mouth while the other hand hung loosely at his side.
He and Mama would fight. She’d leave his office with bruises on her face and pretend she wasn’t dying inside. She protected him. We never asked her about the marks, and she never brought attention to them. She went on being a dutiful wife, though she’d often flinch when he got too close.
“Loyalty and honesty are of the utmost importance to me. Don’t ever forget that.” The harsh warning in his tone has me shifting uncomfortably in my seat. “You break my trust, and any affection I feel for you will disappear. I’d slit your throat without a beat of hesitation and sleep peacefully knowing I removed a threat to my freedom and my family.”
“For the people I love, I’m exactly who you describe.” “For the people you love,” he echoes, tasting the insult on his tongue. “Maybe my hope is that one day you’ll love me.” “Would you love me back?”
“I don’t think the darkness within my heart would ever allow space for love, dolcezza. Monsters are more afraid of the light than angels are of the dark.”
“Don’t cheapen yourself by offering yourself as payment.”
Vincent Ferrari confuses me. He says he admires me, but he doesn’t know me. He thinks I'm impure but agrees to marry me. I thought him a monster, never once considering he’d be my savior.
“When you look at me like that,” he whispers. “The thoughts that run through my mind, Bianca... the things I think about doing to you. It makes me think you want them too.”
“You’re my undoing,” he whispers, low enough that Lorenzo can’t hear. And you’re my peace.
Our relationship was a lie and not an honest one. I believed my father loved me unconditionally. I knew my actions would disappoint him, but I never imagined they would’ve wielded the power to extinguish his love. But then again, that was his lie. What Armando Rossi felt for me was not love and affection. It was greed and the promise of admiration from his peers.
I give him something seemingly small but costs me a lot. Me.
