10. Adriana
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Adriana
Amelia calls while I’m in the shower.
I hear the phone buzzing from the bedroom, muffled through the bathroom door, and by the time I get to it with a towel wrapped around me and water dripping everywhere, I’ve missed her by seconds.
I call back immediately, standing there shivering and wet, because I need to hear her voice.
I need someone who knew me before all of this, someone who can tell me I’m not losing my mind.
She picks up on the first ring.
“Ana, what the hell is going on?”
Her voice is sharp, worried, the way it gets when she’s about to fight someone on my behalf. I can picture her pacing around her apartment, phone pressed to her ear, free hand gesturing at nothing.
“I’m okay,” I say, even though I’m not sure that’s true. “I’m safe.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you since I landed, I was out of town for my cousin’s wedding, no signal at the venue all weekend, and the second my phone connected I saw all your messages and I almost had a heart attack.
” She takes a breath. “Where are you? I came straight to my building and the doorman said some guy took you upstairs last night.”
“I’m at Enzo’s place.”
Silence. Then: “Enzo. As in Enzo Vitale. As in your husband’s brother.”
“Yes.”
“Ana.” Her voice goes flat. “What happened?”
So I tell her. All of it. Coming home to find Rafael and Viviana together. The things Viviana said. Rafael standing there like a coward while my sister told me to scram. Walking out. The divorce demand. Ending up in Enzo’s lobby because I had nowhere else to go.
I don’t tell her about last night. Not yet. I’m not ready to say those words out loud.
When I finish, Amelia is quiet for a long moment. Then she explodes.
“That absolute piece of shit. That worthless, spineless, cheating piece of garbage. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to find Rafael and I’m going to rip his…”
“Amelia.”
“And Viviana, that conniving bitch, showing up after seven months like nothing happened, like she didn’t leave you to marry a stranger…”
“Amelia.”
“I always knew he was trash, I told you he was trash, but you kept saying he was nice to you and I wanted to believe…”
“Amelia, stop.”
She stops. I can hear her breathing hard through the phone.
“I know,” I say quietly. “I know you warned me. You were right.”
“I didn’t want to be right.” Her voice cracks. “Ana, I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I was stuck at that venue with no signal and you were sitting in a lobby crying and I wasn’t there.”
“It’s okay. Enzo found me. He helped.”
“Helped how?”
I hesitate. “He’s letting me stay here. Until I figure things out.”
“Stay there? With him?”
“Yes.”
“Ana.” Her tone shifts, goes careful. “What exactly is going on with you and Enzo?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
I sit down on the edge of the bed, pulling the towel tighter around me. My hair is dripping on Enzo’s expensive sheets and I can’t bring myself to care.
“We have an arrangement,” I say. “He’s going to help me. With the divorce, with making sure everyone knows what Rafael did. He has money and connections and he hates his family as much as I hate mine right now.”
“An arrangement.” Amelia’s voice is flat. “You’re using each other.”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re living with him.”
“For now.”
“Ana.” She sighs, long and heavy. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. God knows you’ve had enough people doing that your whole life. But I need you to hear me when I say this.”
“What?”
“Don’t go too deep.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Enzo Vitale is dangerous. Not in a bad way necessarily, but in a way that could mess you up if you’re not careful.
He’s intense and he’s obsessive and he doesn’t do anything halfway.
” She pauses. “And you just got out of a marriage that was never real to begin with. You’re vulnerable right now.
I don’t want you to get hurt worse than you already are. ”
“I won’t.”
“You say that, but…”
“I won’t.” I make my voice firm. “I know what I’m doing. For the first time in my life, I’m making my own choices. This is one of them.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Okay. I trust you. Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I promise.”
“And call me. Every day. I want to know you’re okay.”
“I will.”
“I mean it, Ana. If anything feels wrong, if he does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you call me and I’ll come get you. I don’t care how rich he is or how scary he looks, I will kick down that penthouse door and drag you out myself.”
I laugh, and it feels good to laugh, feels like something loosening in my chest.
“I know you would.”
“Damn right I would.” She pauses. “I love you, okay? You’re my best friend and you deserve so much better than any of this.”
“I love you too.”
We talk for a few more minutes about logistics. She offers to go to Rafael’s house and get my things, but I tell her not to bother, Enzo’s already said he’ll handle it. She makes a noise at that, half impressed and half suspicious, and I can tell she’s filing it away to interrogate me about later.
After we hang up, I sit there for a while, holding the phone against my chest. The conversation helped.
Hearing her voice, her anger on my behalf, her fierce protectiveness.
It reminded me that I’m not completely alone.
That I have at least one person in my corner who isn’t there because of money or obligation or family ties.
Then my phone buzzes again.
Father.
I stare at the screen. He’s called twelve times since yesterday. I’ve ignored every one. But now, sitting here in Enzo’s bedroom with Amelia’s words still ringing in my ears, I feel something shift.
I answer.
“Adriana.” His voice is cold. Controlled. The voice he uses when he’s about to deliver a punishment. “Where are you?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“That’s not an answer. I asked you a question.”
“And I answered it. I’m somewhere safe. That’s all you need to know.”
Silence. I can feel his fury through the phone, can picture his face going red the way it does when someone dares to defy him.
“You will tell me where you are,” he says. “Now.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said no.” My voice doesn’t shake. I’m surprised by how steady it is. “I’m not telling you where I am. I’m not coming home. And I’m not going back to Rafael.”
“You ungrateful…” He stops himself, takes a breath. When he speaks again, his voice is calmer but no less dangerous. “I don’t think you understand the position you’re in. You have no money. You have no skills. You have nothing except what this family has given you.”
“I know.”
“Then you understand that your only option is to return to your husband and apologize for this ridiculous tantrum.”
“My husband,” I say slowly, “was in bed with my sister when I came home yesterday. Did you know that?”
Silence.
“Viviana is back,” I continue. “She’s been back. And Rafael has been fucking her. That’s why I left. That’s why I want a divorce.”
More silence. I wait for him to say something. To express shock, or anger on my behalf, or anything that might suggest he cares about what was done to me.
“These things happen,” he says finally.
I feel something crack inside me. Something that’s been holding on by a thread for years.
“These things happen?”
“Men stray. It’s in their nature. Your job as a wife is to make sure he has no reason to stray, and if he does, to forgive him and move on.” His voice is dismissive. “Your mother understood this. I expected you to understand it too.”
“You’re telling me to forgive him. For cheating on me. With my own sister.”
“I’m telling you to stop being dramatic and do your duty to this family.”
“My duty.” I laugh, and it sounds wrong, cracked and sharp. “My duty. You mean like when you forced me into that wedding dress because Viviana ran away? When you made me marry a man I’d never spoken to because you couldn’t stand to be embarrassed in front of the Vitales?”
“That was for the good of the family…”
“It was for you!” My voice rises, something wild breaking free. “Everything has always been for you! What you want, what makes you look good, what serves your interests. You’ve never cared about me. You’ve never cared about what I want or what I feel or whether I’m happy.”
“Adriana…”
“I was a placeholder. That’s all I’ve ever been to you. A backup daughter you could trade away when your favorite one didn’t work out.”
“You will not speak to me this way.”
“I’ll speak to you however I want.” I’m shaking now, tears streaming down my face, but my voice stays steady. “Because I’m done. Do you hear me? I’m done being your obedient daughter. I’m done putting up with being treated like I don’t matter. I’m done.”
“If you do this,” he says, his voice going deadly quiet, “if you walk away from this family, you will have nothing. No money. No name. Nothing.”
“Good.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” I wipe my face with the back of my hand. “I’d rather have nothing than spend another day trying to earn love from someone who’s incapable of giving it.”
“Adriana…”
“Goodbye, Father.”
“If you hang up this phone…”
“Consider this me disowning you. Before you get the chance to do it to me.”
I end the call.
Then I block his number.
The silence after is enormous. I sit there on the edge of the bed, phone clutched in my shaking hands, tears still falling, and I wait for the regret to hit. Wait for the panic, the second-guessing, the desperate urge to call him back and apologize.
It doesn’t come.
Instead there’s just this hollow, aching feeling. Like something has been carved out of me. Like I’ve finally let go of a weight I didn’t know I was carrying.
I’ve spent twenty-four years trying to make that man love me. Trying to be good enough, quiet enough, obedient enough. Trying to earn something that was never going to be given.
It’s over now.
I don’t know how long I sit there. Long enough that the towel starts to feel cold and clammy against my skin. Long enough that the light through the windows shifts from morning bright to something softer.
Eventually I hear footsteps in the hallway. Enzo appears in the doorway, dressed now, hair still damp. He takes one look at me and stops.
“Ana.” His voice changes, goes sharp with concern. “What happened?”
I look up at him. I must look like a mess. Eyes swollen, face blotchy, sitting here in a damp towel with my hair dripping everywhere.
“I talked to my father,” I say.
He crosses the room in three strides and crouches down in front of me, his hands finding my knees.
“What did he say?”
“The usual. That I should go back to Rafael. That men stray and it’s my job to forgive him. That I’ll have nothing if I leave.”
Enzo’s jaw tightens. “That piece of shit.”
“I told him I was done. I told him I was disowning him before he could disown me.” My voice wobbles. “I blocked his number.”
Something shifts in Enzo’s expression. Something that looks almost like pride.
“Good,” he says. “That’s good.”
“It doesn’t feel good.” The tears start falling again, I can’t stop them. “It feels terrible. I know he’s awful, I know he’s never loved me, but he’s still my father and I just…”
I can’t finish. The sobs take over, ugly and raw. I’m crying in front of him again, just like last night in the lobby, and I hate how weak I must look.
But Enzo doesn’t seem to think I’m weak. He pulls me off the bed and into his arms, towel and all, holding me against his chest while I fall apart.
“I’ve got you,” he says into my hair. “I’ve got you. Let it out.”
So I do. I cry for all of it. For the father who never wanted me.
For the mother who never protected me. For the sister who saw me as competition instead of family.
For the husband who chose someone else. For the girl I used to be, the one who thought if she was just good enough, quiet enough, small enough, someone might finally love her.
I cry until I can’t anymore. Until I’m empty and exhausted and wrung out like a dishrag.
Enzo holds me through all of it. Doesn’t try to fix it, doesn’t offer platitudes, doesn’t tell me it’s going to be okay. Just holds me and lets me break.
When I finally pull back, hiccupping and snotty and disgusting, he cups my face in his hands and looks at me.
“You did the right thing,” he says. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you did.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I did the same thing. Fourteen years ago. Walked away from all of it and never looked back.” His thumb brushes my cheek, wiping away tears. “It’s the hardest thing I ever did. And the best.”
“Did it stop hurting?”
“Eventually.” He pauses. “Not completely. But enough.”
I close my eyes and lean into his touch. His hands are warm against my face. Steady. Grounding.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“For what?”
“Being here. Not running away when I turned into a crying mess. Again.”
He laughs, low and soft. “Couldn’t run if I wanted to. You’re in my apartment.”
I laugh too, watery and weak, but real. It feels like the first real thing I’ve felt all day.
“Come on,” Enzo says, standing up and pulling me with him. “You need to get dressed. And eat something. And probably drink some water, you look dehydrated from all that crying.”
“Romantic.”
“I’m not trying to be romantic. I’m trying to keep you alive long enough to see the look on Rafael’s face when he realizes what he lost.”
That startles another laugh out of me. He smiles, that sharp dangerous smile that does something to my insides, and steers me toward the bathroom.
“Twenty minutes,” he says. “Then we’re going shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“You need clothes. I told you, that’s what the card is for.” He pauses at the door, looking back at me. “Unless you’d rather stay in that towel all day. I wouldn’t complain.”
“Get out.”
He grins and closes the door behind him.
I stand there for a moment, looking at myself in the mirror. Red eyes. Blotchy face. Hair a tangled mess. I look like someone who’s been through a war.
Maybe I have. But I’m still standing, and the people who put me here have no idea what’s coming.
They threw me away thinking I’d stay quiet, stay small, crawl back the second I had nothing left.
They’re about to find out exactly how wrong they were.
I turn on the water, and I start getting ready for the rest of my life.