12. Contessa
12
Contessa
It takes two days before I can sit down with a straight face. I would pay that price over and over for what it resulted in—a taste of freedom. For the next few days, I am Salvatore’s dedicated lap dog. That is where he likes to keep me in casual company, with just Marcel or some of his lieutenants, stretched on his lap while they talk over my head about the business.
I’m not surprised to learn that so much of Salvatore’s time is taken up by purely administrative work. My father’s life was the same way. At a glance, you could mistake him for a CEO, whose business happens to include illegal products and morally questionable services.
Salvatore has in-person lunches with sweaty, pale city councilmen and speaks furious and fluent Spanish with mysterious muffled voices on the phone. The meetings, I don’t get to sit in on, in his lap or otherwise.
Salvatore’s men struggle to stop side-eyeing me and talking in riddles in my presence, no matter how many times he loses his patience with them. With the lieutenants, I understand. They don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me, either. Marcel, I think, has a different concern. Every secret I put in my pocket is one more reason that I cannot ever be allowed to fall back into my father’s hands. If that scenario were to ever occur, the smartest thing to do—the only thing to do, would be to have me killed.
I think he pities me.
But Salvatore’s days aren’t all work and no play. He starts the morning with a workout in a home gym, and once I get some proper clothes for it, I’m going to join him in the routine. He spends some of his spare time with his niece and nephew. Little Nate seems obsessed with Salvatore, underfoot whenever he can be. When they have lunch with us, I catch the boy trying to mimic Salvatore motion for motion. He eats when Salvatore eats, drinks when he drinks, and follows along in his huge footsteps wherever he goes.
After, I comment about how good Salvatore is with him, but the man shuts down and shrugs me off. He says Nate needs a father figure, but that he’s looking in the wrong place. His tone alone puts the topic to bed, and I’m not brave enough to press the subject again.
When not managing his empire, Salvatore is also making arrangements for our wedding.
In mannish fashion, he’s mostly concerned himself with all the practicalities. A guest list, security, budgeting. That it’s my wedding is still settling in, and even when listening to Salvatore talk about it in front of me, it still feels as though it’s happening to someone else.
Since I have nothing but free time even while at his side, he gives me the task of helping with the aesthetics. My days are spent considering color schemes and wedding dresses, while trying to swallow down the bitter-sweet disappointment that comes with planning a loveless wedding, where I will be surrounded by people I don’t know and a groom I didn’t ask for. I get no joy out of it.
When I prove myself to be a good, obedient girl, even the rules when Salvatore is gone aren’t quite so strict. With Marcel’s distant supervision, Ava and I are allowed a day outside in the fresh air. The season is still too cool for sunning by the pool. Ava takes me through the soon-to-flower gardens. I can’t look at them without my face getting hot, which I refuse to explain.
Luckily, Ava doesn’t seem to notice.
I didn’t have time to appreciate the gardens the first time I was in them, and there’s still a newness to it as we wander through together. There’s a play set in the back yard I didn’t notice before, an elaborate wooden structure, coated in dew and old spiderwebs. Ava says no children have lived in the house since Vera moved out. When she assures me that Salvatore will have it cleaned up for my children, I don’t know what to say.
We visit the kennels in the far back corner of the property. Ava is terrified of even ‘normal’ dogs, and she stays behind Marcel as the family’s huge Mastiffs rush to the chain link fence, slamming into it so hard, even I take a shocked step back. They bay and sniff at me curiously, the commotion attracting the attention of the guard posted on the closest tower. A familiar face appears, leaning over the railing—Lance. I haven’t seen him since the night club, not even at the family dinner.
Marcel waves away the attention. Lance and I lock eyes briefly, then immediately look away as though we do not know each other.
Ava suggests a picnic under one of the trees. The sun isn’t bright enough to need shade, but it is strategically far from the dogs. Marcel takes our orders to the windows of the kitchen overlooking the backyard.
We settle in together, and I stretch out against the cool ground, the grass under my hands.
Ava sits on the blanket. In case of spiders.
Constantly, I find myself looking for Salvatore—thinking we will turn a corner and he’ll be there, even though I know he won’t. Now that I’m used to having him around, I can’t shake him. He lingers with me like a shadow, trailing me even in my thoughts. I find myself wondering what he’s doing right now. Is he standing in an office or an alleyway? Is he having lunch, like I am? Is he washing blood off his hands in a shadowy back room?
When I am not with him, it’s like sobering up after a night of drinking without sleep. The world slowly shifts back to the way it should be, when I am not so clouded by him, though I can never pinpoint the exact moment he is completely out of my system.
That he’s dedicated his right hand to keeping track of me is another mystery. Marcel comes back to us, and though he sits far enough away that Ava and I can speak privately, he’s not too far for conversation.
“I’m surprised Salvatore can afford to lose you for a whole afternoon, Marcel.”
“He wouldn’t trust anyone else to do this,” Marcel says. “And I appreciate a half-day off. I don’t exactly have office hours or weekends. My job only stops when the world does. Or when I do.”
“Which is never ,” Ava says, with a roll of her eyes. “Marcel doesn’t even take sick days.”
“If I’m so sick that I can’t be useful, you may as well find a place out here to bury me.”
I’m sensing a long-standing argument that I have no stake in.
“What do you do for Salvatore? I’ve seen you in action and I still can’t figure it out.”
Marcel studies me. I wonder if he thinks I’m overstepping, but we’re not talking about Salvatore—surely Marcel can answer questions about himself . It’s not gossip as much as it is polite conversation.
“I do whatever he asks.”
When I complain about the answer, he finally admits, “I went to business school, and I’ve studied law and accounting. If Salvatore wakes up tomorrow and needs me to become an architect, I’ll be in night classes by next week.”
“Seems like a difficult role.”
“No,” he says, somehow without a shred of ego. “Just purposeful.”
An off-key, boisterous song interrupts our conversation, a lanky boy walking toward us singing loudly with a tray of food in his hands.
“Oh, no,” Ava whispers. She’s gone as red as a strawberry.
The boy is all grin as he brings the tray over, his hair tied back from his face in a short, low ponytail. The song might be French, if French were a language invented by a 5-year-old. He doesn’t stop singing until he puts the tray down on the blanket and bows. Ava has not looked up once.
“Ladies and—well, Marcel, I present to you, your lunch! Prepared specifically by me, with love, and with a little extra sprinkled in for Ava,” he adds, in a false whisper. “See, I only cut your sandwich into a heart.”
Ava shakes her head to herself, a silent despair playing across her face.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met,” I say, trying to figure out what’s happening suddenly.
“It’s intentional,” Ava groans.
The boy wipes his hands off on the apron around his waist and holds one out to me. He has the glossy, pink hands of a cook, the kind that, within a few years, won’t have any fingerprints left and can pull a hot dish right out of the oven. We shake warmly.
“Nice to meet you, princess. I’m Vinny. Sorry we haven’t met, I’m too pretty, so they have to hide me in the kitchen. Ava gets jealous otherwise. She’s a wildcat.”
“Oh my God,” she mutters, but she smiles, too.
“Are you two…?”
“Engaged? Absolutely.”
“We are not engaged!” Ava cries, which Vinny follows up with an enthusiastic,
“ Yet .”
“We are dating,” Ava admits to me.
I feel an immediate sense of betrayal. Ava spends so much time with me every day, rarely seeming to leave the house. I never imagined she had a not-engaged-maybe-boyfriend. That he could live here too had never crossed my mind. But then, I’m the one who didn’t ask. It just seems like the sort of thing that should come up naturally when you’re imprisoned in a room with someone for several hours a day.
“You can’t trust anything V says. Everything is a bit. I haven’t had an honest conversation with him in months.”
“That’s not true! I haven’t told a lie in 5 years,” he boasts.
“That’s another bit,” Ava says dryly.
It seems to delight him whenever she’s annoyed, but even she can’t resist her own smitten smile when she tries to glare at him. It makes my stomach thump with jealousy. I have spent so much time thinking about survival, about how to please Salvatore, about the complicated nature of our dark and tangled future—I had forgotten what it felt like to be around two people who were actually in love.
Like they had hit gold, while you have only dirt on your hands.
“A man who can cook,” I say, speaking through the own tightness in my throat. “That’s a valuable combination.”
“Another year here, and Salvatore’s gonna line me up with a chef position at one of the family restaurants. The real ones, I mean, not one of the fronts. White tablecloths and reservation-only seating. And, y’know, if ol’ Sal needs a little space cleared in the freezer one day cause he’s gotta put something on ice, well—”
“Easy,” Marcel growls from his place.
Vinny holds up his hands in surrender.
“V’s tongue likes to get away with him,” Ava says.
“That’s what she calls it when I—”
“Shhh—shut up!” Ava yelps, jumping to her feet and snatching his apron off his waist.
She chases him back toward the kitchen, trying to hit him with it.
“It was nice meeting you!” He yells across the lawn, over the sound of Ava’s embarrassed laughter, as he flees toward the kitchen again.
Marcel and I sit and watch the pair, the sudden silence falling awkwardly between us.
“You have an interesting future brother-in-law,” I offer tentatively.
Marcel hums in agreement, his smirk barely-there.
“He’s good for her. Ava was a mouse before they met. She’ll still a little reserved, of course, but nothing like when she was growing up. He always made a point to go out of his way to talk to her and include her. I suppose it was only a matter of time. I’ve watched her change for the better with him.”
We study Ava as she walks back to us, the apron still in her hands, an absent and giddy look on her flushed face. It makes me as happy as it does sad.
With Salvatore, I feel as though I’ve only changed for the worse.
But of course, it’s not the same.
“I’m sorry about that. About him ,” Ava says, as she takes a seat on the blanket again.
“Don’t apologize,” I chide her. “Except…well, you don’t have any other secret lovers that I don’t know about, do you?”
“God, no. I can barely handle that one.”
“He seems charming.”
“When you’ve only had to listen to it for five minutes, sure.”
I can tell by her smile; she really likes it. “You know you could have brought him around if you wanted. You’ve been spending so much time with me, I’m sure you’ve been missing out…”
“Oh, V is always cooking. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, every day. It’s a full job, but he enjoys it. If I weren’t with you so much, I’d just be getting in his way. Besides, I like getting our girl time…” She wrinkles her nose cutely, “This house was a sausage- fest before you showed up.” She takes a bite of her heart-shaped sandwich with extra love.
For the first time in a few days, that old question scratches at my heart again—is anyone coming to get me? Does anyone even care that I’m here?
Maybe it’s too late for all that. I’m already in too deep.
Lunch is delicious, and I’m glad to finally put a face to all the meals I’ve been served while here. I spend the hour interrogating Ava about her boyfriend, until she playfully demands quid pro quo—if I ask about Vinny, she gets to ask about Salvatore.
It brings the game to a swift and sudden end.
Ava and I spend so much time talking around my circumstances, sometimes she forgets they exist at all, but I haven’t forgotten Salvatore’s lesson about gossip.
I spend the rest of the pretty afternoon lazing around the yard, desperate to enjoy every last second that I can. We chat, and read, and listen to pop songs on the tinny speaker of Marcel’s phone.
Too soon, the sun draws low over my day of freedom, throwing out long shadows into the yard and turning the breeze bitter.
As we walk back to the house, I stop in my tracks by the patio—fully expecting to see Salvatore. For a moment, I’m not sure why. I can’t place the sudden association. Then I smell it in the air, the lingering scent of cigarettes that he shared with me that first night.
I wonder if they’re really his, if he leaned over the railing and watched us from afar. If he was reluctant to join us for some reason. Even when he’s close at hand, he feels like a mystery.
Like I only see the parts of him he wants me to see.
It’s a ridiculous thought. I don’t yet know everything he does with his time as a mob boss, but I know it takes priority to listening to the drone of the top 40 hits.
It probably wasn’t even him, I decide, trying to put him out of my thoughts.
When I return to my room, its dimensions don’t feel quite as small as they once did.
Waiting for dinner, I take out a piece of sketch paper and begin to make a list of requests.
Salvatore has shown that he might give me what I want if I ask, even beyond material things, but I’ve been enjoying my time around the house too much to dare test the boundaries of how far that goes.
When I put my pencil down, my demands are as follows:
Time outside at least 2 days a week.
Help in the kitchen with Ava.
Trips outside the house with Salvatore, at least once a month.
A weekly phone call with my father.
Kay will attend my wedding as my maid of honor.
I am the very definition of give an inch, take a mile.
At the very least, maybe he’ll listen to me if I try to negotiate with him, instead of doing something dramatic like planning another escape.
Dressing up a little might help my case. I may not be the most persuasive speaker, but that’s what cleavage is for. I open the wardrobe to pick out a dress that says, ‘nod and act like you’re listening to me,’ but I’m taken by surprise. A dress is hanging on the inside door hook.
My heart catches in my throat at the sight of it. Kay’s dress . The one she bought for me on my birthday. I take it down, shocked to see the fabric at the front is seamless and unripped. I could almost believe it was a replacement, but I see the slight alterations on the inside of the garment where the damage has been repaired. From the front, you would never know.
The last time I saw this, it was on Salvatore’s floor. I don’t understand how it could have ended up here, as good as new and freshly cleaned, unless…
I curl my fingers around the edges of the dress, heart aching. I tell myself over and over that it isn’t kindness. Salvatore doesn’t do kindness. He only does leverage.
Even if he’s letting me out of my cage like taking the dog for a walk, he’s still a murderer.
A monster.
A monster and murderer who had your dress fixed for you.
I close my eyes, trying to ignore the flutter in my stomach. It’s one thing for him to let me buy clothes for my stay here. I needed them. But having this one fixed, as if he cared that it was important to me… After that first night, I had assumed he’d thrown it in the trash.
Before I can decide how I feel about it, his knock on my door interrupts my thoughts. I hang the dress up again. My plans of dressing up are cut short, and I head to dinner at his side.
In his room, we settle into our usual seats across from each other, crisp salads and warm plates of seared steak waiting for us.
“How was your day?” I ask him.
“What do you want?” he replies, instantly.
My hope deflates like a balloon. Four syllables. Four syllables and he knew that I was angling something. I’m too shocked to be angry.
“I can’t just ask you how your day was?”
“You never have before,” he says, studying me over our salads.
That doesn’t seem possible, but I realize he’s right. I’ve asked Salvatore so little, always assuming he wouldn’t tell me or that I simply wouldn’t care to hear it. I’ve spent the past couple days trying to observe him, but never actively getting to know him.
“Well, I’m asking now,” I insist.
He studies me for another moment, but then allows it with a slight nod.
“It was fine.”
An awkward beat passes. I hide my mouth behind my hand, but the laughter comes on regardless. I giggle helplessly over my dinner as Salvatore sits and judges me. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed in front of him before.
“Are you sure you can tell me that? I mean, that’s pretty high up there on the security clearance. I can see why you were so reluctant to share something so deeply personal.”
Salvatore sighs. “You’re a brat,” he accuses. It only makes the laughter worse. When I’ve regained my composure, he adds, “You’re in a good mood.”
“I had real sunlight for the first time in—what, two weeks? Of course I’m in a good mood. I’m practically euphoric. Vitamin D and serotonin high. I had a good day,” I tell him proudly. I don’t think I’ve ever been this chatty with him, but now that I’ve started, it’s hard to stop.
“Tell me about it.”
“That’s not fair,” I counter, poking my fork toward him, “You didn’t tell me about yours.”
“You’ve seen what my days are like. I’m sure you’ve already heard enough of that.”
Not yet. I’m sure just being a fly on the wall to Salvatore puppeteering his empire will get old eventually, but it’s still new enough that my curiosity overrides my boredom. After being stuck in a single room, following Salvatore around in his day to day may as well be Disneyland.
I decide to let him get away with his non-answers and change the subject.
“I found my dress in the wardrobe,” I say, though it feels almost taboo to mention it. “I didn’t know you had it fixed.”
“How does it look?”
“Perfect. Like new.”
He nods, as if the only thing that matters is that it was well done, explaining nothing. My curiosity burns, both desperate to know the truth and terrified to learn it.
“Why did you have it fixed?” I finally make myself ask.
“Do you not want it?”
“I didn’t say that. Are you allergic to honest answers?”
“On the contrary. I’ve never lied to you.”
“But you skirt the truth an awful lot, for a man who doesn’t lie.”
That much, Salvatore admits to.
“Asking too many questions with a man like me only leads to trouble. You’ve learned that already.”
It takes a moment for me to remember when I’ve asked him anything at all. How many people have you killed? I look away from him, even the slightest allusion to that night making me uncomfortable. I push down my curiosity. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s better that I don’t know, that I decide the truth for myself. Cherry-pick whatever is easier to live with.
I take a few minutes of silence to decide my approach, the right words and the right angle. Maybe I should wait until he’s deeper into the wine. Salvatore studies me studying him over our food.
“What?” he finally asks.
Well, it’s now or never.
“You said I could have whatever I wanted, and at first, I didn’t believe you. But I’ve thought of a few more things.” His silence implies his permission. I pull the folded paper from my cleavage. His eyebrow twitches up.
“You practice that?” he asks dryly, swiping the paper from my hand.
“I don’t have pockets,” I mumble defensively. I study my food as Salvatore reads over the short list. I’m almost afraid to look him in the face.
“The kitchen,” he comments, tone unchanged. “I thought your kind was tripping over themselves to get out of there.”
“Well, it was either that or a nine to five in a corporate office. I’ll take whichever you prefer,” I counter, pitching his own tone back at him. He reads through it again, jaw tightening. I can tell he doesn’t like it, that something in it is giving him pause.
“These are the things that you want?”
“Yes.”
His eyes meet mine over the top of the paper.
“You weren’t even speaking to your father before. Why start now?”
He gives voice to my own nagging doubts.
“Because…” I grimace, knowing how pathetic it sounds, “because he might be worried about me.”
Salvatore can’t hate my reasoning more than I do. I swore to cut my father out of my life.
To push him away and never let him near enough to hurt me again. But the thought of him trying desperately to get me back, to save me, not knowing how Salvatore might be keeping me…no father should have to go through that. Even a shitty one like him.
“You made me talk to him once. What’s the difference now?”
“It doesn’t serve a purpose.”
“It does for me.” I hold my ground even with Salvatore staring me down, scrutinizing me with a look that rubs like sandpaper, trying to peel away the skin to see the design underneath.
“You’d kill him if you had the chance. I’m not delusional, I know that’s how you want all this to end. And that phone call, I don’t want that to be the last thing I ever…” I bite my words off, grimacing at the thought of it. “I just need it.”
To my surprise, Salvatore nods.
“Alright,” he relents. My heart skips a couple beats. Before I can thank him, Salvatore moves on to the next line of business. “The kitchen is more difficult. We’ve already talked about this.”
“I know,” I agree, more than willing to bend on a couple things. “It was just a thought, but I didn’t really expect—”
“There’s a dining room connected to the kitchen,” he continues pointedly, “If there are meetings I can take in there, I will. You can be in the kitchen while that happens, provided you stay in my line of sight.”
I’m stunned.
I almost don’t trust it, as if Salvatore is building up my expectations just so he can topple them over. But like he said—he’s never lied to me before.
“Where do you want to go?” he asks.
I blink at him stupidly.
“What?”
“Number 3,” he says, as if reading from a court document, “you want to go out at least once a month. You have a few days left in this month. Where do you want to go?”
My brain short-circuits.
“I…I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“Let me know when you do.”
“And Kay…?”
“If she can behave, I’ll allow it.”
My heart does frantic somersaults, head spinning. I’ve forgotten about my dinner entirely, sitting there staring at Salvatore as if I’ve never seen him before.
“Why?” I breathe, manners evaporating in my shock. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
“Because my wife gets what she wants.”
“But…that doesn’t really answer the question.”
“Doesn’t it?” he asks, folding the paper up again and setting it aside, giving away nothing.
No matter how I press him, Salvatore never gives me an answer that offers any clarity. He acts as though he is compelled to please me when there’s no benefit to him, no motive. The more I try to wrap my head around it, the more I feel like we’re staring at each other through a funhouse mirror, our perceptions warped and mismatched.
All this time, I thought I had him figured out. He’s a don, a patriarch, a crime lord, and I was just another object he could use to reach his goals, no different than a gun in his armory or a car in his garage. He wants me to be his wife. What I never stopped to consider at all is that Salvatore Mori, in equal measure, might also want to be my husband. A provider. A partner?
Though neither of us have ever said it aloud, we both know the end game.
Eventually, Salvatore will want me to have his baby.
The thought should bring dread, worry, fear—but it hits with a deep, instinctual surge of longing.
Not just for him, but for being filled up by him. If I let the fantasy spin too long, my ovaries ache with unrepentant baby fever. I can’t help but fantasize what it would be like to carry his baby.
Would he be like this all the time, showering me with everything I want and need? Would that dark, possessive part of him I am so drawn to grow even wilder? My thighs clench softly at the thought, my belly suddenly empty in a way the food on our plates can’t fill.
I stare into my dinner plate, realizing that a dark, taboo part of me longs to carry his child.