Chapter Eight
You can come to me when your thoughts are loud.
Your heart is safe here.
You are safe here.
I repeat my mother’s words as I try to calm myself. I can’t let them take over my body again. Not when it took me years to learn how to bury them deep until I no longer felt hopeless.
And after so many years, he makes me feel like I’m losing control.
You turned your back on her when she needed you, like she was some trash. And she kept making excuses for you.
Oh, Keres, what have I done to you?
I wish I had the chance to explain to her everything.
But that’s the thing, I can’t. She died without knowing the truth, and me wishing will do nothing.
I’m walking in circles in my room and I hear a knock on the door. I’m ready to see Keaton and I prepare myself for another fight, but the black hair and the full tattoo arms makes me relax a little bit.
“I heard you slam the door. What happened?” Her
figure comes into my dark room.
“Do you think she suffered?” I ask with a hoarse voice.
“Who?”
“Keres. When I stopped talking with her.”
“Do you want the truth?” And I know that her answer will bring my realities alive.
“You know I do.”
“I think she was destroyed. She was already scared that you two will grow apart with her moving to America. I know you had your reasons, but she suffered either way .” Her words are painfully true.
At that time, it hurt me more to say the words. Keres leaving me to move to America hurt, but I never condemned her for this because if I were in her place I would have left without looking back.
I look at Venus, eyeing the tattoos that I painted on her. My passion for art is what keeps me alive. Painting on a big canvas feels unreal, like I’m God and I create a new world, with my own rules.
Painting on skin? It’s like I heal everyone’s scars.
Venus’s body is full with tattoos, some darker than others. Arms, shoulders, neck. She is my personal canvas.
Ink is my signature.
“You know that it was never my intention to hurt her, right?” Not when Keres was the only person who got me.
“All I know is that you wanted to protect her.” She comes besides me and puts her hands on my shoulders. “When you’re ready to tell me why you have this grumpy face, you know where to find me.” Venus leans and kisses my cheek.
“I had a fight with Keaton.” I say the words with a small frown. I don’t understand why he is so insistent to marry me. The look in his green eyes every time he looks at me is pure hatred.
Is it because of what he thinks I did to Keres?
Did he love her that much?
Is he still in love with her?
This thought aren’t supposed be in my mind, and his angry gaze isn’t meant to be stuck in my brain.
Keaton is not meant to be the one to wake them.
“About?” Venus asks with a raised eyebrow. Her pretty blue eyes are shining under the moon’s beautiful light.
She is the brightest star on the sky.
“I accused him of breaking his promise."
“Per l'amor di Dio, Althea do I have to force the words out of you?” Venus’s angry voice makes me sigh.
“He snapped. Told me that I left her like she was trash.” I say the rest in Italian. I don’t know exactly what I’m feeling right now.
Shame?
Anger?
Whatever it is, it causes a weird numb feeling in my chest. And I don’t like how it feels.
Venus looks at me and waits for me to continue. But what should I say?
That, if you’re looking from outside, he’s right? She came in a hurry back in Italy because I didn’t answered the phone for two days, worried sick, just to meet my cold eyes and harsh words. Leaving because I couldn’t look at her.
When in fact my eyes were telling a different story.
I ripped a part of me that day.
And that part is gone forever.
“Althea, you are the only one who knows what that day felt like. Don’t let his words take power over you. Do you want me to hunt him?” The littlest smile takes over my face, feeling my face stretching in a weird way. “I’ve missed it.” I frown.
“That little smile, is what made me go through the day. I haven’t seen it in a while.”
In three years.
“I’m sorry; I’m sorry if I ever pushed you away from me.” She smiles in a sad way.
“Sisters in every universe?” Venus asks while lifting her pinky finger. I took her pinky in mine, feeling the rough skin.
“Sisters in every universe.” I say our words since little girls.
“Are you ready for the wedding? It’s in two days.” She teases me.
“Can I kill myself?” I whine.
“I’ll bring the vodka.”
My room is full of strangers. Loud ones.
It’s the day of my wedding and I already feel like I’m going to explode.
“You already straighten my hair twice, if you touch my hair again, I’ll burn your tongue with the straightener.” I warn the girl who looks too young to be a professional.
“Miss, your hair needs to be perfect.”
“And your tongue needs to be purple.”
“Althea, if I hear you whine one more time, I’ll make
you bald.” Venus’s warning makes me shut up.
This bitch is able to do that, and I love my hair way too much.
“See miss? You need to trust me, I know what I’m doing.” I look at her through the mirror that is right in front of me.
“I’m not going to trust someone who doesn’t know how to use a hair straightener.” I sound like a child.
“Althea Seraphina.” I shut up at Venus’s voice.
After hours in which I am tortured with tons of makeup and hair spray, it’s time I put on the dress.
I stay in front of the mirror while Venus and Vivian are putting the dress on me. My face is flawless, without any dark circles under my eyes. My face is glowing and my hair is laid flat on my back with the silver crown on my head.
This isn’t like the day I bought the dress.
This is final.
I will walk down the aisle with my father who will be so happy to give me away. I will marry the man who ruined everything.
I look at my final figure and my breath is gone. I look…not like me.
Some years ago, I was sure that I will never marry, and now I’m going to tie my life with my sister’s fiancé.
How many times have me and Keres talked about marriage? She was always so excited to be my maid of honor, to see me in a wedding dress and escape the home my father tried so hard to destroy.
“Are you ready, honey?” I hear Vivian’s soft voice.
No, but it’s not like it matters.
“Can I do something before?” I don’t need her permission, but she really tries to make me as comfortable as she can. She nods quickly and I bend to
take my dress in my hands so that I don’t trip while walking.
I exit my room and I’m heading towards the room that is forbidden to enter. The room that holds to many memories, a place that my father still can’t step in.
“Althea, wait!” I turn to see Venus running towards me. “I think you need this.” She holds a key out.
The key to her room.
“How did you know?”
“I know you better than anyone, and I had a feeling that you wanted to talk with her.” I nod slowly and rush to the room.
With trembling hands, I turn the key in the door and open it wide. Her familiar smell is invading my nose and I feel how my heart beats too hard.
I close the door and I look over her things. Everything looks clean, like she still lives here. The fake purple flowers that are standing right next to her bed, because everything I loved, she did the same. Her dresses are still in the closet.
Papa didn’t throw anything.
What steals my attention is the little altar with candles that sits right on her makeup table. The picture that holds her a prisoner there is a bit broken at the edges.
The black hair, brown eyes, her big full lips and brownish skin.
Gianna Marie Luciano.
My mother.
The only woman who had my father in a dog collar.
As much as I want her to be right next to me, I'm much happier that she had the chance to escape.
"Do you think Papa will let me stay home?" I ask Mamma while she waters her flowers.
Tomorrow is Papa's birthday and he's hosting a party in one of the most expensive restaurant in Italy. All of his friends are coming, and like in every year, they will get drunk and get aggressive.
"Your Papa wants you there with him, amor." I roll my eyes at Mamma's words. Papa probably wishes to get rid of me without hurting Mamma and Keres.
"But he let Keres stay." I say and I drop my head, looking at the green grass.
"Your sister is busy with her exams."
"Sure." Keres is in her last year of high school and she uses the exams as excuse every time there is an event.
I hear Mamma sigh and she comes besides me on the swing. She takes my hands in hers and makes me look at her.
She is so beautiful that even at her age, people are staring at her like she is an angel.
"I know you feel that your Papa hates you, but that's not true, amor. He is harsher with you because, unlike your sister, you have the behavior and mind of a true leader. Hanibal thought that he needed a boy in order to have an heir, but you are proving him wrong." These words are nothing to me, because my Mamma knows too, that he will never make me the heir of the Famiglia.
He never hides his anger for me.
"And if I want to leave this place?" My words are bringing tears in my mom's eyes.
"Then I'll help you." She takes my face in her hands, dirt still on them, and kisses my forehead. "You are meant to do greater things. I won't let anyone stay in your way."
"Really?" I ask with tears in my eyes.
"Your heart will always be safe with me." I hug her
as hard as I can. "And when you'll be older, you can finally understand some things."
I am older, but she's not here anymore.
I sigh and look in her mirror. My eyes are red but so tears are falling. I haven't cried in a long time.
Are you happy to see me as a bride, Mamma? Or are you angry because I'm not marrying for love?
One daughter is dead, the other is forced to marry a man who will bring her to despair.
Did you ever saw this coming?
"I'll try to visit you, Mamma." I touch her face and leave the room.
Venus waits for me next to the door, but she is dressed this time.
Her black dress hugs her curves like a second skin. Her tattoos are visible and her black hair is tied into a high ponytail.
"This looks more of a funeral dress." I say the obvious.
"Good. Because we're grieving."
We leave the mansion and in front of the gates are so many beautiful cars with purple flowers around the side mirrors.
I smile at Venus and she winks, entering the black limo.
I turn and look for the last time at the house who kept me a prisoner for the last twenty-three years.
Papa's servants look at me with small smiles and I know that they are more relieved than I am.
Papa is waiting for me to enter the limo, and before to put a step into the car, he takes my arm in his hold and leans to whisper:
"If you think you've escaped me, you're wrong. You better open your legs for that boy and remain his wife. This union is exactly what Vincent needs for when he'll be Capo."
"You better pray to stay alive to see him as a Capo."
"Oh, I will."
"We'll see about that, Papa."
And I enter the limo, leaving the snake den just to enter the beast's.