Chapter Twenty-Two Lila
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LILA
The next day, I visited Mama in Long Island.
I decided to skip my daily dinner with Tiernan.
Punish him for his behavior. For that reason, I didn’t bring Tierney along.
She’d adhere to her brother’s rules and drag me home kicking and screaming before seven.
Not because she wasn’t loyal to me, but because he was the head of the Callaghan clan. His word was gospel.
I went alone, braving the proximity to Tiernan’s men. They appeared too fearful to look in my direction, let alone touch me. My husband’s mere existence was an invisible cloak I wore at all times that made the few people I came in contact with petrified.
I’d never punished anyone in my life. Never spat at anyone.
Never flipped them the bird. I tried to figure out why I felt comfortable doing it to someone so violent and bloodthirsty.
I came to the conclusion that I felt confident taunting my husband because no matter how awful things were between us, he never physically hurt me.
He was supposed to kill me that night on the fountain. Rape me the night of our wedding. Or any other night thereafter.
Yet, he never did.
His careful, indomitable control meant I was always safe from his wrath. He kept himself on a leash.
When I made the journey back home at ten at night, Mama joined me to help me feel safe.
I’d been trying to patch things up between us, but my anger and disappointment still lingered.
“How come you didn’t come to my appointment?” I signed to her. “I know it wasn’t migraines. You always have them and never cancel your engagements.”
“You know how difficult your pregnancy has been for me.” Her lips curled petulantly. “I’m still coming to terms with it.”
Fury boiled inside me. I was pretty sure my husband also wasn’t a fan of the situation, yet he showed up and walked me through it.
“Anyway. I think I’m getting closer to convincing Luca to sabotage your marriage.” She patted her silver updo. “He promised he’d talk to Tiernan. See if we can negotiate a way out.”
“Papa would never let me have the child out of wedlock.”
“You wouldn’t be unwed.” A sly glint lit her pupils. “When I was in Chicago, I spoke to Angelo. He said he’s willing to step in and marry you. Good man, Angelo. He impressed me with his business and character. He’ll be better for you.”
A bone-chilling shiver rolled down my spine.
“Papa wouldn’t let me divorce. It’s against his faith.”
“He might not have a choice. Luca and Achilles are taking over, and they have other ideas on how to run things.”
As much as my current husband drove me to the brink of madness, my instincts told me Angelo would be a trillion times worse. I had nothing to back up this notion with. It was a pure, primal gut feeling. One I knew better than to ignore.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” I admitted. “Tiernan is a jackass, but better the devil you know.”
Yesterday, I disrespected my husband in front of his soldiers, spat in his face, and he still fed me an Italian dinner and sent my clothes to be drycleaned along with his own batch.
“Don’t tell me you’re warming up to him.” My mother’s hands flew about wildly. “You belong with me at the estate, not with this stronzo. Angelo said he’s willing to lend his last name and that you can live with me most of the year. He wants nothing to do with you. It will be wonderful!”
Was this plan about my well-being and my baby’s, or about her? I couldn’t tell anymore.
“I don’t want to marry Angelo, Mama.”
Her face hardened. “Are you letting that dirty man touch you, Lila?”
I shook my head, so disappointed I could hardly breathe.
“Why did you never buy me any of the life-altering devices for the hard of hearing?” I changed the subject.
“What?” Her eyes flared.
“Why did you keep me from the internet?”
“What is this man filling your head with?” She scowled. “I did it for your own good. And you will marry Angelo if I can make it happen, because I still know what’s good for you better than anyone else.”
When the vehicle stopped in front of Fermanagh’s, I itched to warn her not to make any plans before discussing them with me, but knew there wasn’t any point.
My mother could move mountains and tear the moon from its place, and still, she wouldn’t be able to release me from Tiernan Callaghan’s clutches.
He didn’t let anyone touch what was his.
Even if he didn’t care for it one bit.
_______
Four soldiers escorted me into the pub and up the stairway to the apartment.
When I reached my door, they stayed in the corridor.
I recognized a Camorra soldier outside of Tierney’s apartment, Marco, surveilling her on Achilles’s command.
I sent him a dirty look, fed up with anyone and anything with a penis.
I pushed the door open, tugging my jacket off and hanging it on the hanger. The place was dark. It was approaching eleven, and even though I was the one who didn’t show up to dinner, the fact Tiernan had left gnawed at the corners of my stomach.
I pushed the door to my room open, stepped inside, and stumbled back in shock.
The world blurred at the edges, and a red mist of fury tainted my vision.
On my bed, with the pink satin covers and fluffy pillows, was my husband, sitting next to the gynecologist’s receptionist, holding her by the hair.
They were both fully clothed, and she was stomach-down on my mattress, staring dumbly up at him. He held her at an arm’s length, far enough that they didn’t touch, close enough that I still wanted to kill him.
My sketch of Tate Blackthorn was on the floor, ripped into minuscule pieces, his piercing eyes staring back at the chaos unfolding.
Something tangible snapped inside me. I felt it crack my chest open, and all the anger rushed out like pus.
I’d had enough.
“Go ahead. Fuck her.” I shaped my lips around the words, knowing they were understandable enough, after years of clandestine speech therapy. “I’ll go find myself a plaything, too.”
Swiveling on my heel, I stalked toward the door.
Tears flew from my cheeks, hot and angry and utterly unstoppable.
He wanted to break me, and he did.
I spoke.
I spoke.
I practiced with my speech therapist, but not enough that it felt natural. It still felt like I was trying to chomp rocks between my teeth, and I never attempted to do it with anyone else. Not even Mama.
He’d taken it too far and broke the fragile trust between us. This absolute hussy of a woman, on my bed, on my sheets.
He’d smirked when he saw me. Like he wanted to get caught. But, of course he did. He did it in my room.
Yanking the door open, I shouldered past the wall of Tiernan’s soldiers and took the steps down. The men were so stunned, they just stood there and watched. I didn’t make it four steps before my husband scooped me up by the back of my dress, boxing me against the wall between his huge arms.
He still smelled of her. A mixture of cloying, flowery perfume and a Victoria’s Secret body mist.
“She speaks.” He looked like the least surprised man on planet Earth, grinning devilishly. “What a fucking miracle.”
I slapped him hard, glad his soldiers witnessed it. Maybe he’d finally hit me back.
I hoped he’d hit me, and I’d be able to tell my brothers, and they’d kill him.
His face didn’t budge a millimeter, his good eye didn’t flinch. He was immune to pain, to emotions, to humanity.
“I figured out what it is,” he said conversationally, scooping up a tear on my cheek with his index finger and popping it into his mouth.
I stared at him with faux boredom, my heart nearly racing out of my chest. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to hurt him back.
Tiernan leaned forward, his lips moving slowly. “You’re deaf.”
All the air left my lungs.
No one knew this. No one but Mama and Imma. How did he figure it out?
“Your speech was the final nail in the coffin,” he explained, watching me watch his lips.
“Though I had my inkling for some time now. You never seemed to acknowledge me unless I was right in front of you, where you could read my lips. I tried dropping shit whenever we were in the same room—mugs, hardcovers, small furniture—waiting for a reaction that never came.”
I gulped. I always found his clumsiness to be out of character whenever I found a shattered glass in the kitchen.
Did he find my speech funny? Weird? I wished it didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter to me. Yet it did. Because, as much as I hated it, I cared what he thought about me.
“I speak ASL,” he said after a beat. “Tierney, too.”
I reared my head back, surprised.
What were the odds? And why on earth did the twins learn ASL? I was starting to suspect they weren’t with their father and older brother the entire length of their childhood.
He snapped his fingers once. His soldiers evacuated the hallway. The Camorrista hesitated for a moment, deliberating, before Tiernan shot him a glance that sent him stumbling downstairs.
We were alone.
Tiernan signed to me, “Tell me something. Anything. Now.”
His movements were smooth. Confident. It was the last nail in my lie’s coffin. The temptation to speak with someone who wasn’t my mother was too great.
I raised my quaking hands to answer him. “Go to hell.”
“Grew up there. Never going back. Let’s try again.”
“I hate you.”
“I tolerate you.” The admission seemed to slip from him without permission, because his jaw locked in annoyance. “And I don’t tolerate people very often. Third time’s a charm. Say something.”
“Get rid of your whore.”
It was the first time I saw him smiling with mirth, not sarcasm. All the other times, his smirk was tainted with darkness. Still, he didn’t blink. I wondered if he closed his eye when he slept.
“That’s better, Gealach.”
He marched back into the apartment. I followed him. The receptionist was standing outside my room, reapplying her lip gloss, using her smartphone as a mirror.