CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVE
I T WAS A small affair, as he supposed shotgun weddings tended to be, even in these so-called enlightened times.
If, that was, anything involving the Vaccaros could be said to be enlightened .
Alceu stood in the tiny chapel halfway down the mountainside that had served as his family’s church for centuries. It was in pristine condition—not a great shock, given that most of his ancestors might have reasonably assumed that they’d have been struck down upon entry. The priest stood at the altar, somehow managing to both look pointedly at Dioni’s belly as punctuation to every sentence and yet seem deliberately unaware that the ceremony was anything but perfectly normal.
Maybe no weddings were “normal.”
The last one Alceu had attended could certainly not claim that title. He was surprised the Hotel Andromeda yet stood.
His mother lounged in one of the few pews—having, he was certain, chosen the one that bathed her in the red light from the stained glass window above. She was dressed in what could only be described as mourning attire, complete with a mantilla over her head that somehow failed to disguise the brightness of her lipstick. Across the aisle from her and keeping to the more decorous shadows, Concetta sat ramrod straight in her perfectly pressed uniform, looking distinctly dubious.
Oh, happy day , Dioni had said.
And yet his bride appeared in the chapel doorway like a ray of light.
She was holding a pretty bouquet of flowers that she must have picked on her way to the church, because he knew that there had been none ready for her. He had decided that speed trumped tradition. Just the same, he had done nothing in the way of a wedding gown, either, and yet she had managed that, too. Her dress was the color of champagne and flowed over her, accentuating the reason that they were here today.
Except he found himself looking less at the accoutrements and more at the sheer beauty of her. Alceu would have said that she was excited, but he did not see how that could be possible under these circumstances. Yet the evidence seemed plain enough. Because she was glowing. Beaming.
She nearly bounded down the aisle, that smile of hers taking up far too much room on her face and the chapel itself, carving its way deep beneath his ribs.
He could admit that there was a part of him that had expected her to fall at the rules laid down yesterday. That same part of him was something like irritated that she hadn’t.
They recited their vows, one after the next, and when the priest indicated that Alceu could kiss his bride, his wife, it was his turn to face the things he’d told her. Head-on.
While Dioni only gazed up at him, her smile growing wider by the moment.
“So quickly do we find our vows are elastic,” she murmured, for only him to hear, as he leaned in and pressed a furious kiss to her lips.
It was nothing like that kiss in New York and yet it still seemed to rampage through him, laying waste to all it touched.
Afterward, the deed accomplished and their doom complete, he walked with her back up to the house as his ancestors had done from time immemorial. Too many of his forebears to count had escorted their new wives up the side of the mountain, then led them behind the stone walls that never let Vaccaros go.
There was a huge part of him that wanted only to raze the whole of it to the ground.
Alceu walked silently, deeply aware of the solemnity of the occasion and the ghosts all around him, keeping step with him as he—the one who had been so certain he would put an end to these terrible traditions—turned out to be no better than the lot of them.
And yet beside him, Dioni kept marveling at the view. She stopped every time she could look back down the mountain, out toward the sea. She picked more flowers. She marveled at the light on the water far below. She listened to the birds singing and hummed along. There was a skip in her step, and it took very little time indeed for her hair to fall down from where it had been pinned up in the chapel. The hem of her champagne dress dragged in the rich brown earth. There was a smudge of something he assumed was pollen on her cheek.
Dioni didn’t seem to notice or care.
Alceu noticed. And the fact that he could not pretend that he did not care infuriated him. He kept on walking, grimly determined to make it back to the castle before he forgot himself.
Before he indulged himself in her, all sunshine and light, that musical laugh and the way she seemed to throw her arms wide and take in all aspects of this cursed place until he was forced to see it through her eyes. Until he was forced to wonder why he, too, couldn’t revel in the way the trees arched above them like a canopy. Or the way the sun filtered down through the branches, creating patterns on the earth. Or even the way the castle rose up above them, as beautiful as it was staunchly defensive, built to keep the family’s well-deserved enemies at bay.
When they finally made it to the cool embrace of the stone walls, he was grateful.
But it was far harder to walk away from her than it should have been.
He noticed that too, and cared far more than was wise.
Later that night, while he was doing his best to work in his office, he found himself drawn to the faint sound of music winding its way in and around the stone walls.
Like memories of joyful times these stones had never known.
It was like his brand-new wife was haunting him.
And yet he couldn’t seem to keep himself from following the ghost of her, walking down one long, empty hallway into the next, following the melody that grew louder as he moved.
Eventually, he found himself in the old ballroom that he had refurbished with the same level of attention to detail that he’d given the rest of the castle, though he had no intention of ever throwing something like a ball. As he approached, he found himself in the grip of a kind of apprehension, as if he wasn’t at all sure what he would see when he looked inside.
Would it be Dioni after all? Or was he truly, fully engaging with the dark promise of this place at last? Could he expect to see actual ghosts inside?
He didn’t know if he was pleased or disappointed or both when a glance within showed him only Dioni.
All alone, her hair all around her like a tangled cloud and her eyes closed.
And she was singing.
He knew he recognized the song, though he couldn’t have said how. He was mesmerized by the way she moved, holding her belly as if she were dancing with their child. Her eyes stayed shut as she swayed and swirled, letting her voice and the song she sang move her around the floor.
Until suddenly she stopped, as if she sensed him the way he did her, though he did not wish to examine that possibility or admit that he did exactly that. Then she opened her eyes, and stared straight at him.
It was their wedding night.
Suddenly that was the only thing he could manage to think.
And it seemed that she could read his thoughts, or she shared the same bright images of what normal wedding nights looked like, because he stood there watching—in no little awe and too much desire—as her cheeks flushed red.
He was suddenly aware that he was not dressed as he normally was, in one of the suits he wore as his armor, to distinguish himself from his barbaric relatives. Instead, he was wearing little more than a pair of soft trousers suitable for late nights of privacy and a T-shirt to match. He could see that she noticed. But then, he could hardly pull his eyes away from the nightgown she wore, a slinky, silken affair that highlighted how much her breasts had ripened, how round she was, and how unearthly her beauty was.
How his friend had ever let her out from under lock and key was a mystery to him.
Not that he wished to think of Apostolis at a time like this.
“You should be in bed,” he told her, and his voice sounded harsh as it echoed back at him.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she replied. “Perhaps the curse of our marriage has already set in. I will admit that I was not expecting it to take root in the form of insomnia.” But she smiled as she said it, rubbing at her belly. “Or perhaps I’m extremely pregnant. One of the two.”
She did not tell him to approach her, and he meant to leave—and yet somehow he found himself crossing the floor until he was there before her. Right there , looking down at her as if this was a different sort of marriage altogether.
When he could not allow it. When he knew better.
“You should not look at me like that,” he scolded her, his voice too rough.
But her smile only widened. “Like what?”
“So wide-eyed and innocent, as if anything good can come of this.”
He growled that out, but even that did nothing to shake her. If anything, her eyes softened more, and that led him to imagine what else might also have softened, and that was precisely why he needed to wheel himself around and quit her presence immediately.
But he did not move.
“Good has already come of it, Alceu,” Dioni said quietly.
She reached out then, the ring he had given her yesterday catching the light of all the chandeliers above and sending it spinning, turning, dancing in all directions. And he felt that same whirling kaleidoscope inside of him when she took his hands, pulled him forward, and then settled his palms on her belly.
“Dioni—” he began.
But she didn’t let go of his hands.
He was fairly certain she actually shushed him. And in the next moment he couldn’t remember either way, because he felt her belly move beneath his hands.
Alceu had never felt a sensation like it before. But he knew what it was.
The doctors’ report had been unequivocal about the thing he’d already known. This was his child. She was carrying his child.
His son.
And here, now, on this wedding night that should never have happened, his son was kicking at him. Saying his own kind of hello.
As if they were truly a family, after all.
Alceu felt an immense wave crash through him. Sensation. Emotion.
An ocean of longing, regrets, and something as acrid as grief.
He pulled his hands back, shattered.
As if he had never known himself until this moment.
And he would never be whole again.
“I wish that I thought this was a good thing,” he said, and his voice came out little more than a rough whisper. “But I can only look back on my own childhood and wish that this had never come to pass. No child should have to go through the things I did.”
Her gaze shifted to something almost solemn, and he thought she held herself a bit more stiffly, as if he had hurt her. But if he had, she didn’t show it in any other manner. “What is so terrible about this place? What happened to you, Alceu? It can’t all have been chickens, can it?”
It was so late. And it was only the two of them, standing here surrounded by echoes in an abandoned ballroom polished to a shine by his own hands. He should know better than to allow the kind of intimacy that he could feel wrapping around them.
He did know better.
Because it was so late. Because outside the windows, there was nothing but darkness for kilometers in all directions. Because he knew that everyone else in the castle was fast asleep.
Alceu had never been torn . He did not shatter . He had known his mission in life since he was small.
This was an aberration and he could not make sense of it.
He could not understand why it was only Dioni who brought this out in him. Only Dioni who he could look at, think of the right thing to do, and then...not do it.
Tonight was only the latest example, and not nearly the worst. There had been ample opportunity for him to walk away from her on the terrace outside the Hotel Andromeda.
But he had moved closer instead. And tonight he stayed where he was, which was the same thing. “I have no memory of my parents ever getting along,” he told her shortly. “They had despised each other, always, as far as I was aware. But I have heard many stories of their younger years, when they confused that dislike for passion and made all of Europe witness to their explosions. Their theatrics.” He blew out a breath, yet couldn’t manage to make himself stop. “As it soured, they took lovers and flaunted them at each other, trying to cause the most damage. And they did. Over and over again. Since all they cared about was hurting each other, they paid no attention to the destruction they left behind them as they went. My father bullied and raged his way through his life, leaving only the walking wounded behind him. My mother’s many lovers fared little better when she was done with them.”
He stepped back, looking for condemnation, but all Dioni did was gaze back at him.
“I hope,” she said, quietly, “that no one judges me for my father’s behavior. You already know that he married my best friend. And while she and I never talked about it too closely, he was not exactly kind to her. He was Spyros Adrianakis and his legend was the only thing that mattered to him. Are you expecting me to judge you for your parents’ behavior?”
Maybe he was, because it threw him that she did not. Even as he understood that if she had, it would have helped. He would have been able to step back, to rethink.
Instead, he kept going. “I was only a boy when I realized that my parents did not contain their little games to the mainland,” Alceu told her. “Eventually I would learn the truth. My father was obsessed with power, and exerted his over everyone who came into contact with him, little caring if that meant he ground them underfoot. My mother, to this day, enjoys nothing so much as worming her way into other people’s marriages, for sport and entertainment. Then sitting back, laughing all the while, at the wreckage she leaves behind. But then, as a child, all I knew was that when I walked into a village I was greeted by people who spat on the ground, crossed themselves, and whispered that I was a devil.”
“That doesn’t make you one,” Dioni said at once, frowning. “It makes you a pawn, perhaps.”
Alceu couldn’t say that he liked that description. But he couldn’t argue with it, either.
These were not things he discussed. These were not stories he told.
But this was his wedding night.
This was Dioni, who could not seem to be dissuaded from looking at him as if she could, by the force of her gaze alone, make him good . When he knew better.
And so he had no choice but to tell her the rest.
“The summer before I left for university I met a girl from the village at the base of the mountain.” His voice was hoarse. This wasn’t a story he had ever told anyone before. Not even her brother. “Her name was Grazia. I believed that I could rehabilitate my family name by engaging with the villagers. I helped build houses, I volunteered, and I tried to show that I was not like my family. And I thought that I was making strides, especially when I met her. She was a sweet, kind, happy girl.” He hated this story. There was a reason he never told it. “Grazia and I had an understanding when I left for university, and I counted the days to my return at Christmas so that I could see her again.” He shook his head, the memories too vivid, even now. “I had it all planned. I would propose. We would marry and she would come abroad with me. Then we would come back and, together, we would show the whole of Sicily that the Vaccaro family could be trusted again.”
He didn’t want to say these things. He didn’t want to think about that time.
But there was nothing around him but ghosts, and Dioni, and the child she carried that meant that there would be a future despite everything.
And she said nothing, still watching him intently, so he could not seem to help but go on.
“When I came home that Christmas, everything was changed.” His throat was dry. He made himself swallow, but it didn’t help. “My father had taken her to his bed. Sweet, kind Grazia never stood a chance. Because he could not abide even the faintest hint of happiness. And because there was no greater way to exert his power over me.”
“Alceu...” Dioni only whispered his name, her eyes wide. “I’m so sorry.”
“She didn’t matter to him,” Alceu bit out. “He made certain I walked in on them. Then he laughed. And then, when she ran from here, overwhelmed with the shame of it, and accidentally fell from the cliff to her death, he only shrugged.” Alceu stared at her, so she would understand that he was not exaggerating. He could still remember his father’s laughter. The dismissive wave of his hand. The deep, disgusting understanding that it was more than likely that Grazia had jumped. “He told me that I should know better than to mess about with peasants.”
He heard the shocked noise she made then and he moved closer, wrapping his hands around her shoulders. “That is when I knew for certain, Dioni. This family is sick. We are a cancer upon the earth and always have been. There is nothing good here. No good can come from us. No good can remain.”
“You are not your father,” she said after a moment, as if it was an effort for her to remain calm. “And our son will not be like him either, Alceu. He will be like you.”
“And you think that’s better?” He let out a bitter laugh, dropping his hands and stepping back, aware that he was not entirely within his own control when he rubbed a palm over his face. “What is good about me, Dioni? I impregnated my best friend’s beloved younger sister on his wedding day. I do not exactly qualify for sainthood.”
She frowned. “That is not exactly what I—”
He shook his head and backed away. “The sooner you resign yourself to the fact that this is a cursed enterprise, the better. When the child is born, we will decide how best to protect him from the ravages of this bloodline. But I’m afraid it is too late for you or me.”
“Alceu—”
“You must keep your distance from me, Dioni,” he told her, and he could hear that his voice shook, gravelly and grave. “I beg of you.”
He thought that settled it.
Because what else did she need to hear? How else could he illustrate the horrors that awaited her?
And so he was unprepared, a week later, to stagger from his office in the middle of the night into his bedroom only to find the wife who haunted him without even trying lying in his bed.
Completely naked.
“What the hell are you doing?” he managed to grit out, though all the blood in his body had surged to the hardest part of him.
She stirred, looking sleepy until she saw him, and then she smiled.
That burst of bright sunshine, even in the middle of the night, that made every last part of him ache.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she asked, and then laughed, to really plunge the dagger in deep. “I’m seducing you. Obviously.”