Chapter 9
GIANNA
Good thing I spent most of my life locked up in one apartment or another.
Sometimes it was a house. Otherwise, I’d probably be crawling up the wall worse than I am.
The sun is setting outside. Gold, just like the last couple of days.
For a while it drove me crazy, thinking how so much can change and yet nothing changed.
Then it drove me crazy that no one’s even brought me anything to eat all day.
Not since someone—probably Matteo—left a couple of protein bars and a bottle of water on the bed.
I took a shower after he left. Spent so long under the jets that the water turned cold.
Then I found some clean black clothes in the closet—a pair of slacks and a long-sleeved shirt, the sort that was fashionable more than ten years ago.
Then I spent some time trying to open the door. I broke three of my nails trying to unscrew the doorknob. I finally gave up, since the screws are probably all rusted shut and have been painted over a bunch of times besides.
Then I spent some time wondering what my odds would be if I smacked whoever came in next over the head with one of the heavy crystal vases in this room.
Or that green marble paperweight on the writing desk.
Or simply one of the legs of the desk. Or the chair.
But I couldn’t even lift the heavy wooden chair and I doubt I’d have the strength to take anyone out with the other things.
Besides, how far would I even get?
They’d catch me before I even cleared the garden.
But that wouldn’t even matter.
I just want to find my sister and make sure she’s all right. But how can she be all right? Neither of us will ever be all right again.
The blackness of that realization just swallowed me up.
So I spent the rest of the day staring out the window, for a time wondering if a fall to the lawn below would kill me and deciding that yes, most likely it would.
But it would solve nothing. My father would still be shot, my family still hunted, and my sister still married to the man who tore our family apart.
I have to stay alive and fight.
A woman’s place is at home, taking care of the family. You will learn to accept that.
My great-grandmother told me that once, when I complained about being locked up all the time and having no freedom at all.
She was old. Raised in a different time.
I never took her seriously. Now the very walls of this house seem to whisper those words to me.
Probably because it’s such standard advice for women in our world that all our homes are imbued with it.
We can dream about fighting our lot in life, but we never win.
My great-grandmother was a strong woman, and she also said, You must let the men think they are leading, but it is your advice they must follow. Make sure they do.
I don’t think I have any other way out of this than that. I have to convince Matteo to release me and my sister. Her marriage to that monster won’t hold up in the real world. And once we are free, we will find our family and get everything back.
But first I have to persuade Matteo to let me see her.
As much as it makes me want to throw up, I have to act like I still love him. Shouldn’t be all that hard, because a part of me still does. And yet, it will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.