18. Lucrezia
Chapter 18
Lucrezia
I don’t need coffee to wake me up this morning—anticipation and nervous energy do the job just fine. When I get out of bed, my feet know exactly where to take me, operating on some deep-rooted autopilot while my mind wanders. I don’t realize until I’m halfway there that I’m headed to my childhood home. Somewhere between passing the Dunkin Donuts with its warm, tempting aroma and navigating through early morning traffic filled with bleary-eyed commuters, I wind up at Saverio’s. Or, more accurately, outside, staring at the culmination of my youth.
The house is tall, with a stately frame wrapped in thick tendrils of ivy that have crept higher with each passing season. The wrought iron gate, freshly painted a glossy black that gleams in the morning light, stands between me and the home I spent my entire childhood in. From the outside, it’s beautiful—a testament to Castiglione’s wealth and power, with its perfectly manicured lawn and elegant stone facade that’s weathered decades with grace. But I know better. I know what happens inside those walls, the secrets they hold like whispered prayers never meant to be spoken aloud.
I lean against a tree just off the sidewalk, arms crossed as I study the house from a distance. The air is tinged with the faint scent of wet grass and smoke from a neighbor’s chimney. The street is quiet, save for the occasional hum of a passing car. No one knows who I am or what I’ve come back to do.
This house is a paradox. It’s the stage for both the happiest and most horrifying moments of my life. I close my eyes, and memories flood in, unbidden and relentless.
I’m eight years old, sneaking into my parents’ bedroom with Daniela. The door creaks on its hinges as we tiptoe inside, giggling behind our hands like we’re on some grand adventure. My father is out, and my mother is hosting a luncheon downstairs, too busy entertaining her friends to notice her daughters rifling through her closet.
Daniela pulls out a fur coat, draping it around her shoulders like a queen, her nose in the air as she struts across the room. I find a pair of heels far too big for me and clumsily attempt to walk in them, nearly tripping over myself. We laugh until our stomachs hurt, collapsing onto the bed in a heap of giggles and stolen silks. For a moment, the world feels warm and safe, like nothing bad could ever touch us.
But then, I remember the other side of this house, like a coin flipped on its opposite side.
I’m ten, crouched behind a door, listening to my father’s voice rise and fall in cadence with his rage. He’s talking about shipments and loyalty, about someone who dared to cross him. I don’t understand most of the words, but I know they’re important. I want to understand, to learn. My brothers always listen in, soaking up his knowledge like sponges. Why can’t I?
The door creaks as I lean in too close, and my father’s sharp eyes snap to mine. Before I can run, he’s dragging me into the room by the collar of my dress. I stammer apologies, but they fall on deaf ears. He orders me to stand in the corner and hold out a book—one of those thick, leather-bound monstrosities about war. My arms ache within minutes, but he doesn’t let me stop.
“You should have died in the womb,” he says coldly. “You don’t belong in this room. You’re a cancer to this family.”
I remember crying quietly, biting my lip until it bled, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing my tears.
The memory fades, replaced by another with Saverio.
He wasn’t always the man he is now, the one who sent me away without hesitation. Once, he was just my older brother, the man who brought me books when I was sick in bed and taught me how to tie my shoelaces when no one else had the patience. He was nineteen years older than me, an adult by the time I was born, but in those days, he didn’t seem to resent me for it.
I’m six, sitting on the front steps with Saverio. He’s dressed for some meeting or another, his navy suit pristine despite the afternoon heat, but he takes the time to show me how to skip stones across the pond in the garden. His movements are effortless, the stones gliding across the water’s surface like magic, creating perfect ripples that spread in concentric circles.
“Your wrist, Lux,” he says, laughing as my stone sinks immediately with an ungraceful plop. He kneels beside me, his large hands guiding mine, not caring that the damp grass might stain his perfectly pressed slacks. “Flick it like this. See? It’s all in the angle and the snap of your wrist.”
When I finally get the stone to skip—one, two, three times across the glassy surface—I shout with excitement. Saverio smiles at me like I’m the most important person in the world, his eyes crinkling at the corners with genuine pride.
But there are other memories, the ones that remind me why I’m here.
His face is impassive as he signs the papers to send me to Italy, his Mont Blanc pen scratching against the documents with cold efficiency. The way he refuses to meet my eyes, as if I’m not worth the guilt, as if shipping me off to another continent is nothing more consequential than signing off on his morning correspondence. His jaw remains tight, shoulders rigid beneath his tailored suit, and still, he won’t look at me.
Saverio wasn’t cruel—he never laid a hand on me or spoke to me with the venom our father did. But that’s what makes it worse. He didn’t have to. Saverio’s indifference cut deeper than any slap could. His casual dismissal of my existence, the way he’d walk past me in the halls without a glance, how he’d redirect conversations whenever someone mentioned my name—these small, bloodless acts of erasure hurt more than outright hatred ever could. At least hatred meant acknowledgment. At some point, he stopped being my big brother and started being my enemy. I don’t know when it happened exactly—whether it was gradual, like a slow-creeping frost, or sudden, like a door slamming shut. I just know I didn’t deserve it.
I stare at the house, the knot in my chest tightening until it feels like barbed wire around my heart. How do you reconcile love and hatred for someone who’s shaped your life in equal measure? The person who taught you to ride a bike and then left you bleeding on the pavement of life.
A sound behind me snaps me out of my thoughts. The quiet scuff of a shoe against the sidewalk, that unmistakable whisper of rubber on concrete that signals you’re no longer alone. I turn slowly, and there she is.
Lucia Terlizzi, or Castiglione now, I suppose.
She’s beautiful, of course. She always was, with her dark hair swept into a loose braid and her sharp eyes fixed on me like a hawk watching wounded prey. The years have been kind to her—barely a line around her pretty eyes, though there’s a new hardness in the set of her mouth. She’s holding a grocery bag filled with what looks like fresh produce, but there’s nothing casual about the way she stands, her posture rigid with tension like a cobra coiled to strike.
“Saverio told me you were back,” she says, her voice calm. “I didn’t want to believe him, considering the last time you were here, you sent Kristopher Tate to stalk and harass me. But here you are.” Her fingers tighten around the handles of the grocery bag, knuckles whitening with suppressed emotion.
Her words hit like a slap, but I keep my expression neutral, masking the surge of anger and amusement her accusation stirs in me. I glance back at the house briefly, noting a small peel of paint on a window frame and an overgrown bush beneath it, before turning my full attention to her.
“Lucia,” I greet, my lips curving into a slow, dangerous smile, “interesting to see you here. I used to kind of respect you. You know, when you weren’t fucking my brother and then pretending you hated him. What’s it like using your body and ‘pick me’ girl tactics to get a man like Saverio to marry you? Does it keep you warm at night, knowing how you trapped him? Are you happy?” I tilt my head, studying her with predatory intensity. “Was it worth it? Trading whatever integrity you had left for a ring and his last name?”
Her eyes narrow, her grip tightening on the grocery bags until her knuckles blanch as white as the bags themselves. “I’m not here to trade barbs, Lucrezia. I want to know why you’re here. What do you want?”
I step closer, closing the distance between us. The scent of her fear-tinged perfume fills my nostrils, and I breathe it in like the breath of life. “What do I want?” I echo softly, savoring each word on my tongue. “I want what’s mine. And your husband is standing in my way.”
Lucia’s expression hardens, and I see the fire in her eyes—the same fire that made Saverio fall for her in the first place. The defiance written across her features only serves to remind me why he chose her, why I respected her for a while. “Saverio is ten times the person you’ll ever be,” she snaps. Her chin lifts in a stubborn way. “You can’t take him down, Lucrezia. You’ll only destroy yourself in the process.”
I tilt my head, letting her words sink in, allowing their sharpness to slide over me like the cold edge of a blade. “Destroy myself? Darling, I don’t care if I’m left in ashes as long as Saverio burns with me.”
Lucia’s eyes widen slightly, the fire flickering there replaced by something more cautious, more uncertain. I take a step closer. “You think I’m scared of breaking myself to take him down?” I murmur. “You don’t know me at all, Lucia. You never did.”
She opens her mouth like she’s about to retort, but I hold up a hand and silence her before she can begin. The gesture is sharp and dismissive. “Save your speeches for someone who cares. And tell Saverio,” I say, leaning in close enough to see the flicker of unease in her eyes, close enough that I can almost taste her fear like copper on my tongue, “that when the fire comes, it won’t ask permission to burn.”
With that, I turn sharply on my heel and begin walking back toward my car. My heart hammers in my chest, not with fear, but with a kind of reckless exhilaration. My fingers tingle with adrenaline as I resist the urge to look back, knowing the impact of my words will linger far longer than my presence.
When I reach my car, I pause, resting a hand on the door handle. I glance back at the house one last time—the sprawling lawn with its perfect stripes of freshly mowed grass, the manicured hedges trimmed into submission, the tall windows that glint in the sunlight like watching eyes, cold and accusatory. This house, with its secrets and lies, with its history of pain and fleeting joy, with its hollow promises and whispered threats behind closed doors, will soon be nothing but rubble and ash.
I pull open the car door and slide inside, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white as the engine roars to life with a guttural growl that matches my mood. “I can’t wait to watch this place burn to the ground,” I say to myself, tasting the bitterness of each word on my tongue. And then, with a flick of my wrist, I shift into gear and drive away, leaving behind the house, Lucia, and every haunting memory it holds within those pristine walls. The rearview mirror shows the mansion growing smaller, diminishing like the power it once held over me. Soon, none of it will matter. Soon, it’ll all be over.