Chapter 4
GIANNA
The pain of watching my little sister be married to the monster who attacked our family, and quite possibly killed our father, was unbearable, unthinkable, unrelenting. I felt like I was glass, getting smashed into a billion pieces and I couldn’t move, could hardly breathe.
The curse I laid on the man was my only weapon. The state I was in, I’m sure it worked.
The best curses come from great pain. That’s what an old woman in Italy told me years ago.
If I understood her correctly. But I think I did.
Back then I was still asking anyone who would listen about how to lift the curse hanging over me.
Now I just hope Matteo tries to marry me next, so my curse will get him too, as it had the three men who tried to marry me before him.
I almost vomited as the man lifted Chiara’s thick veil and kissed her. The loathing on her face was absolute as his lips touched hers. She was squeezing hers together so tight there was white along the edges.
I didn’t see fear in her eyes as she looked at me. She just nodded and I understood it to mean she was thanking me for the curse.
Then the man dragged her out of the chapel and out of my sight. I wanted to run after them and snatch her from his arms. But Matteo took my arm and made me wait with him until everyone else left the chapel.
If I pretend I don’t see him it’s almost like he’s not here.
I’ve been doing it all day now, while being forced to sit through a wedding feast to celebrate my sister’s marriage.
Doesn’t mean I don’t feel his eyes on me all the time.
His gaze feels like the sun warming stone now.
Gone is the all-encompassing, head-spinning joy his gaze on me used to bring just a day ago.
I haven’t been able to speak to my sister yet. The man she was forced to marry has kept her close to him all day. She’s still wearing that nasty old-style wedding dress he made her wear. All ruffles and so much lace she looks like she’s being eaten alive by it. In a way she is.
She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything like that before all this happened.
She wouldn’t be caught dead in a wedding dress full stop.
And now she’s married. I still can’t wrap my mind around that.
And it makes me want to throw up every time I do.
But the curse will get him. The one I laid or the one that hangs over me and which we all believed extended to my sisters as well.
Maybe that’s why she looks so brave, because she knows that.
There’s still no fear anywhere on her face.
It’s mostly men celebrating this wedding.
They’ve been getting louder and drunker all afternoon.
But there are about fifteen women here too, all young and pretty.
All looking scared out of their minds. An older guy, the one who was Ferro’s best man at the wedding, is guarding them, sending away the drunk guys from getting near them.
Luckily, those same drunk guys avoid me in a wide circle even without that kind of protection.
Not that I need it, because Matteo is guarding me like a lion.
Night has fallen outside, and I have no idea how I got through this day.
Or when it went away. A part of my mind is still in the dark garden of our family’s beach house, my heart thundering in my chest as I try to make sense of all the gunfire and yelling.
As I try to make sense of what is happening.
I didn’t yet know my life was over then. And I don’t accept it now.
Ferro wanders back to my sister’s side, picks up a glass of champagne and taps it with the blade of a knife.
The room falls silent almost immediately. Like they were all just pretending to be deep in revelry, but actually couldn’t wait to be interrupted.
“It’s time to make this marriage real,” he announces to the room. “But all of you, stay, drink to my health and the health of my unborn children.”
He looks at me as he says it, and a cold so deep passes over me I actually shiver.
“Because I’m sure I’ll need all the help I can get,” he adds.
Good. My curse frightened him. But not as badly as I’m frightened for my sister right now. I stand up, ready to fight him for her. But before I can take half a step, Matteo grabs my arm and holds me so tightly I’ll probably have bruises tomorrow.
For the first time all day, I see a shadow of fear cross my sister’s face as her eyes find mine. But it’s gone in the next moment as she glares at Ferro and refuses to stand. He leans down and whispers something to her after which she does get up. And lets him lead her from the room.
And I realize I can’t help her. I can’t make the fear go away for her. I can’t take care of her. The realization takes all my strength like I’m a balloon deflating.
And it’s all because of the monster still clutching my arm like his life depended on it. I shake off his grip, surprised when he actually lets me go.
“I want to leave too.”
He looks like he’s going to smile, but then changes his mind and just nods, his face a slab of stone. Even the sun fire in his eyes is dull now. Good. I never want to feel the warmth of his gaze again. If I do, I very well might scratch out his eyes.
He takes my arm again and leads me from the room. The crowd of men part for us as though I’m carrying a disease. Which I very much hope I am.
“Our bedroom is on the third floor,” Matteo informs me.
“Nothing in this world will ever be ours.”
He just glares at me, nodding slowly. I have no idea what he’s thinking and he’s not speaking. But I don’t care about anything he might have to say. At all.
He marches me up the stairs then down a hallway lined with a burgundy-colored carpet, which hasn’t been cleaned in so long that little clouds of dust rise under our feet.
A fitting backdrop for us. Because all we leave in our wake is dust. And all we’re heading towards is dust too.
All the dreams, all my hopes, all my love I thought I felt for him.
Dust. My family. Dust. My life. Dust. I wish one of those bullets flying around last night had hit me.
Because in reality, it had. And now I’m alive but dead. And turning to dust.