7. Carina
CHAPTER 7
Carina
P ain.
I wish I had mastered the art to become numb to it.
If I had I would not feel the burn, worse than a branding searing through my skin igniting flames to spread across the entirety of my back like wildfire.
I would not have felt the tearing of my skin, like a fish being filleted, after each lashing.
And I would not have fainted from the trauma my body was being forced to suffer, only to wake up to endure the last three of my lashings.
The last three of fifteen.
I felt a great shame when I succumbed to the pain in front of Luca’s eyes.
I had sworn to myself, made a vow that meant more than a promise to god, that he would not cause a tear to shed.
And yet he did.
The first tear to fall burned when it hit against my cheek. And then it became a blazing raining inferno.
Perhaps god was punishing me, and my tears burned for my sin of breaking my sacred promise.
I haven’t come to loathe myself as much as I did before the time of my rebirth.
But as I woke in a puddle of my own blood and bile, with tears burned to my face, I loathed myself to the point where I felt as if I was shredding my entire existence. Tearing myself apart atom from atom until all that was left of myself was an empty shell.
Giuseppe followed my command as he waited the exact amount of time before coming down without raising suspicion to assist me.
The only sense I was heightened of at that point was touch, feeling. So when he whispered in a heartbreaking whisper, ‘Dio mio, la mia forte bellezza. Come ha potuto farti questo?’ It had touched my tainted soul. And I knew he had walked upon a gruesome nightmarish sight.
And a part of my heart that still found a way to beat inside the hollow of my chest wanted to shield his eyes from the sight.
But in this world, my world, it is naive to hope for light in the darkness.
Giuseppe was a fool, a kind hearted naive fool to believe that he would’ve seen anything different.
And I was a fool to hope for light after the darkness had fallen.
Giuseppe, may his god bless his kind soul, tended to my wounds to the best of his capabilities.
He tended my back with care.
And although each touch of the cloth used to soak up my blood and the water after to help clean the wound felt like my nerve endings were exploding inside me, it was his gentleness that caused tears to well in my eyes.
But I had already cried enough so I swallowed the sobs that wanted to burst from my throat and pressed back the burning tears.
I don’t know how long it has been since Giuseppe left.
When you experience excruciating pain you are floating between feeling too much and beginning to feel nothing at all.
Reality slips as you descend to the abyss.
The brain, that beautiful organ, can only handle so much before it gives up.
And it feels as if my own is balancing on a trapeze, losing its footing every few steps to only regain its balance.
I wish I could move on my own but the pain is too great. It’s debilitating. Even the slightest shift causes me to almost black out.
But I have to try.
I have to prove to myself that Luca did not break me. That his punishment, his brutal medieval beating of a punishment did not weaken me.
Shifting on the bed I bit down hard on my lower lip until the taste of metallic fills my mouth. My eyes want to pop out of my head with how wide they are. A scream so powerful wants to rip out of my throat. Yet somehow, some way I remain silent. Pushing through the pain, biting down on my lip and swallowing the cries that want to break free I shift myself to the edge of the bed.
And it feels as if I have run a marathon. My body is almost completely depleted of its energy.
But I have the will, the strength inside my mind that forces me to continue when my body physically can’t.
That’s something Luca and papa can never take away from me.
With that strength, with that sheer will I must have inherited from my mamma I lift myself off the bed and plant my feet on the plush rug.
Fire blazes across the expanse of my back as pins and needles shoot their way up and down my spine.
I want to cry out. I want to release a blood curdling scream that will wake all of New York. But I bite down on my tongue until the sensation has gone numb.
Feeling light headed I take a deep fortifying breath before I take my first step.
When I was a little girl mamma would stress to me the importance of being the rocks against the tide.
I didn’t understand, not back then, not when I was too underdeveloped to grasp her philosophies and ideologies.
But her words had always stuck with me.
As a little girl I thought my mamma was intelligent. She spoke eloquently, fiercely.
Little did I know that her philosophies and ideologies, her eloquently beautiful words that were fiercely said, were spoken not because of her intelligence but from her fear.
Her fear didn’t register to me. Not back then.
But now, now when I hear her voice in my head I hear the fear she had hidden beneath the surface. And when I visualize her face the first thing I see isn’t her beauty, it’s the terror that had always been concealed.
And it makes my heart wonder, my black small heart that beats every so often, it makes my heart wonder if she ever found peace.
Did the pills she swallow bring her the comfort she wanted? Did it end the pain? Did it take away the fear?
I hope it did.
I hope she found everything she was desperately searching for, even though it meant leaving me behind.
As I take another step I welcome the pain.
I welcome the burn that sears under my skin like embers.
I welcome the pins and needles that fray my nerve endings.
Because the pain, the pain that I want to be numb to reminds me that I’m alive.
And that pain serves as a reminder that my rebirth hasn’t killed all of me.
My feet come to a halt just shy of my bedroom door when I hear a distinct voice float downstairs.
The sound of his voice, deep and rich, hits me harder than all of Luca’s lashes.
It strikes me in the chest and flares the muscular organ in the cavity of my ribs.
The voice, that distinct voice sends electrical vaults to my heart, resuscitating it for it to beat once more.
My hands lay on the twenty-four karat gold door handle. My fingers grasp on to it like it’s a life raft.
There’s a heat that simmers inside me. Not from the ones Luca caused. No, this is internal. This is one that comes from deep inside. One that causes my vision to blur and a bitterness so poignant on my tongue.
This feeling, this deep loathing and yet something else that causes my stomach to tighten and flutter only belongs to one man.
It’s only ever belonged to one man.
“You only have until the end of this week and if you try to stop me I will kill you where you stand,” Constantine Donati threatens in a cold voice that is downright chilling.
I wait on baited breath for the response to whomever he’s speaking to. Curiosity strikes me and it has me slowly opening my bedroom door to hear more clearly.
“Why, Signore,” Luca begins with an amused tone, “you’re making one think that you actually care about her.”
That statement is bold.
Especially coming from Luca.
Because my dear fratello sounds more than merely amused. With that statement he’s challenging Constantine.
I never knew my dear fratello had wanted a death wish upon himself.
The challenge falls deaf on Constantine’s ears as he gives him no reaction. With that I know my brother is silently fuming. He’s more than likely throwing daggers with his blue eyes. The same way he throws them daggers at me when I do the very same Constantine just has.
If there is one thing that gets under Luca’s impenetrable skin more than disrespecting him, it’s giving him nothing at all.
I open the door further, a slither of space just enough to push my body through.
I tell myself it’s because I want to see the flush of anger on Luca’s flesh. I tell myself, as I move discreetly to the banister, that it’s because I want to hear the conversation without barriers.
But that’s not true, is it?
It’s not true at all.
I kill the thoughts before they can live and breath.
Because once they do, once they’re recognized, out in fruition, that truth will be the true death of me.
It will be worse than my rebirth.
Worse than death itself.
But even as I kill the thoughts I find myself leaning against the elegant gold trimmed banister.
Luca’s back, a back unscarred like my own, is facing me. I can still see my own stains of blood on his crisp white shirt.
I bite back the anger that I want to lash at him. And with it I press back the fresh wave of hot tears.
But then my eyes stray from my tormentor to the man who is feared the most.
He looks dashing.
But then again, the Devil always looks dashing. It’s part of the charm, of the appeal. His attire is just as much a weapon as is a gun.
His dark hair is styled but in a way that you can tell he’s run his long furrowed fingers through it. Lips that I had always thought were sinful, even in photographs, are in a firm grim line. With coal black eyes he stares at my brother as if he wants to rip him apart.
And for once, Constantine and I share something that even I can’t deny.
He toys with the emerald cufflinks on his black dress shirt that is left with three buttons undone at the top to show a slither of his dark chest hair. The dress shirt hugs his frame in a way no shirt should. It caresses his body, showcasing all of his physical attributes. And even a blind woman couldn’t deny his physical appearance is very much so more than attractive.
It’s as if the man is cut from stone himself and the gods have gifted him everything that is good.
But beauty is more than eye deep.
Constantine’s coal black eyes regard Luca with contempt as he says in a cool tone, “I’m only ensuring you and Savio hold up to your end of the deal.”
Luca’s head tilts to the side. “So you see her as an asset.”
Constantine raises a brow at him. “It’s far more than what you see her as.”
Luca scoffs. “She knows her place, Constantine. She knows who she is.”
Constantine takes a menacing step towards Luca, and although he does not take one back his body stiffens like a board.
“Who she is to you and your papa is not who she is at all,” He sneers down at him and my breath catches in my throat. My hands squeeze the railing of the banister as I press closer. It’s the darkness Constantine exudes that’s drawing me in. “You have no idea the woman Carina is.” And there it is, my name spoken so beautifully and haunting off his tongue and those sinful lips. God, a part of me, a part I’ll never let see the light of day yearns to hear it again.
“And you do?” Luca challenges.
I hold my breath as I wait for his response.
Constantine smirks down at him, and I know with that smirk his intentions are not pure. No, with the mischief dancing in those eyes of his I know what he is about to say isn’t good at all.
“You want to know what I think of Carina, hmm?” Luca says nothing but I can feel the tension in the air between the two of them. It’s heady enough to cut with a bloody chainsaw. “She had the balls you clearly didn’t to end your little brother’s life.”
The air seizes from my lungs.
He knows.
He knows.
At the gala, while we were dancing he had mentioned Elio’s death as if he knew the true insidious meaning behind it. He stared at me with eyes that looked right through me and into the depths of my mind. As if he had the key to unlock Pandora’s Box.
I didn’t possibly imagine that he would know.
Luca stands motionless, statuesque, and I bet if I could see his face it would be flushed.
Constantine’s smirk turns to a brilliant satisfied cold smile. It should be disarming, it should be terrifying, but to me it’s one of the most dazzling smiles I have ever seen.
I find myself leaning over the slightest bit of the rails of the banister to see it up close. I find myself wanting to photograph it and keep close for when I want to feel again.
And that’s it, isn’t it?
Constantine Donati makes me feel.
No, no.
This absolutely can not be.
“Imagine what she’ll do to you, Luca.”
Imagine what she’ll do to you, Luca.
I feel underused muscles in my face put in the effort to lift my lips and cause an ache in my cheeks.
My fingers tentatively touch my lips and they shake as I realize what my lips have formed.
It’s small, a hint, but it’s there.
The barest hint of a smile graces my lips.
The first genuine one I’ve had since my rebirth.
No, that’s not true.
It’s the first genuine smile I’ve had since mamma died ten years ago.
The monumental moment, the impossible having been made possible causes my heart to kick inside my chest and a storm of emotions to rise in me.
Suddenly I don’t feel in control.
I don’t have the reins on the steed who has guided me since mamma’s death.
I don’t have the echoing void of nothingness blanketing my entire being since my rebirth.
My blood feels like electricity flowing through my veins. My skin feels hyper aware. My eyes flash back to life.
As if he can sense it, as if he knows something miraculous is happening inside me, something unbelievable, his eyes leave my brother’s and they look up above him to where I stand with my hands hanging onto the rails with a death grip.
Those coal black eyes soften.
And everything else ceases to exist.
There’s just him and I.
The Devil of the East Coast and the dead woman walking.
Constantine Donati and Carina Fiore.
Time stands still.
The world is bending at our will.
“Carina,” my brother’s voice calling out my name with reprimand in his tone causes the world to snap.
And with that snap everything goes back to how it was before.
Back to the void.
Back to the abyss.
Back to loathing.
Constantine’s eyes return to black coal as they sharpen on my brother like a butcher’s knife. His eyes flick down to the stain of my blood on his shirt and then back to me.
And if my brother wasn’t furious before I know he certainly is now.
Not only have I eavesdropped and gotten caught, disrespecting him once again, I am also terribly indecent.
The beige colored bandage wraps that Giuseppe dressed me in cover the entirety of my torso. On my bottom half, to not rub against the bandages, I only have on a pair of simple black boy short panties.
I would be embarrassed if I could feel such a thing anymore.
I would be frightened by the look in Luca’s eyes but with him here, with Constantine only so close to grasp Luca around the throat, I don’t feel frightened at all.
And I don’t know how to feel about that.
I don’t know how to feel with the man that I loathe becoming my sword and shield.
But then again, who is more frightening than the devil himself?
Luca goes to take a threatening step towards me. No doubt to berate me and god knows what else, when he’s stopped by the heavy hand of Constantine laying on his shoulder.
Luca freezes beneath him but turns his head to spit at him, “Take your fucking hand off of me.”
Constantine speaks calmly, too calm, and it reminds me of the tone that papa uses. The calm cool tone that kills. “You take another step towards her and it will be more than my hand on you.”
The threat takes me by surprise but I do not let it show.
“She isn’t yours yet, Constantine,” Luca reminds him with bite in his tone.
The only word that I’m focusing on is yet.
I’m not Constantine Donati’s yet.
But I will be.
And for some reason unbeknownst to me I feel a dash of excitement, a bit of thrill.
I tell myself that it has nothing to do with the man himself but of escaping this golden gilded cage papa and Luca have placed me in.
That’s the lie I will tell myself over and over until it becomes the truth.
Because it has to be the truth.
Constantine’s eyes meet mine once again and in the dark depths of them that will one day swallow me whole I see in them what no one else does.
His eyes are telling me that I’m his. That I’ll always be his. That it doesn’t matter if it’s today, yesterday, or next week. I will always be his.
And the claiming of his eyes has a shiver fighting its way to race down my spine and goosebumps to appear on my flesh. It has my breath caught in my throat and my heart pounding against the cavity of my chest.
Then somewhere, somewhere deep inside of me, the part of me that has held onto the loathing since the time of rebirth remains.
And it flares in my heart, causing a bitterness to sit heavy on my tongue.
This, this is what I have to remind myself, this is what I have to feel the most.
Nothing will change the hatred I have for Constantine Donati.
After all, he’s the one who made me become the piece on the chess board.
If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have had my rebirth.
I would still have some of my innocence.
I wouldn’t have been pricked by the thorns of the rose.
I wouldn’t be this empty echoing dark shell of who I am today.
Then a voice, a haunting voice that sounds eerily similar to my own, says, But he’s the only one who has made you feel alive.
And he’s also the same one who killed me.
Constantine must see the shift in my eyes. He must see how my posture has turned to stone, because he cocks his head to the side and studies me with those eyes of his.
I stare back at him, unblinking, for god knows how long before he finally looks away from me.
And once he does I feel like I can breathe again.
“Know this, Luca, and know it very fucking well,” Constantine says lowly but loud enough for me to hear, “if another mark blemishes her skin you can tell Savio you were the reason this deal will not see the light of day.”
Luca grunts, shoving Constantine’s hand off of him with a forceful jerk of his shoulder. Luca then takes a healthy step away, and Constantine smirks.
Still, Luca has his aristocratic nose stuck high in the air, as if Constantine didn’t shove it in the grounds of the earth collecting dirt and shit.
“What an assumption to believe that I did anything to her,” he says primly.
And if I could scoff I would, but Constantine does so for me. His scoff is then followed by a dark chuckle that hums in my blood.
One that excites me rather than frightens me.
“I don’t assume anything, fottuto idiota dal cervello piccolo,” Constantine insults him in a tone that says he’s insignificant.
Luca’s smile is cunning. “You can ask her if you wish.”
A young man behind Constantine, one that I haven’t noticed until now, comes by his side. He isn’t as tall nor as broad, but he still has an intimidating frame. A piece of his dirty blonde hair lays across his forehead and down the center of his ocean blue eyes.
“May I add you should not challenge Constantine either?” The young man, a man who appears to be my age, says coolly to Luca.
Luca regards him with disgust as his nose scrunches.
“I don’t take suggestions from a mere soldier,” Luca sneers.
A soldier.
I would have never guessed the man who stands proudly by Constantine’s side is a soldier.
Luca and papa never treat soldiers the way Constantine does.
With respect.
Because it is as clear as day to anyone who can see that Constantine has deep respect for this soldier.
The soldier takes a menacing step towards Luca but Constantine holds him back by simply raising his hand besides his chest.
And that signal is enough to tame the beast the soldier was about to release.
“Now is not the time, Pietro,” Constantine tells him.
Pietro.
The soldier, a trusted and well respected soldier now has a name.
Pietro takes a step back but continues to glare at Luca. The tension in the air between them is thicker than before.
I wait for Constantine’s next move because make no mistake, this may be Luca’s chess board but Constantine has already calculated all of his moves.
And with that critical knowledge he sidesteps Luca with those whisky barrel eyes on mine. Luca tries to stop him but Constantine merely shrugs and passes him, as if he’s nothing at all.
As Constantine ascends the staircase, drawing closer to me with each step, I stand still where I am and wait with the flutters starting again in my stomach.
His eyes stay intently on mine. He moves as gracefully as ever with powerful strides that are moving with a purpose.
I swallow, my mouth having gone dry and as I take in a deep breath he reaches me.
He stops just a foot away from me. And I am surprised once again by him.
I had thought that he would want to close the distance between us. I had thought he would want to make me uncomfortable with what his touch does to me.
But no.
He stands with distance between us, yet with that distance the air is charged with electricity.
His eyes inspect every inch of my body in a methodical way. They don’t linger, there’s no hunger, just inspecting.
“Turn around.” His voice is a soft yet dark command.
I raise a cool brow. “Why?”
“You question me yet we both know you obey my orders regardless,” he says with the barest hint of a smile on his face. His eyes darken then but not with maliciousness. They darken with something I can’t decipher and it causes me to swallow thickly despite my proud posture. “Perhaps you like to challenge me. Is that it?”
“Has anyone ever challenged you and lived to tell the tale?” I answer with another question.
And that’s when he takes another step closer, closing the distance. The electricity in the air charges as sparks fly between us.
My heart begins to thump against my chest at an irregular pace and my skin prickles.
“Will you?”
My brows furrow. “Will I do what?”
“Tell the tale?”
“You’re going to let me live, then?”
He takes another step closer to me and it closes the distance between us completely. His scent fills my nostrils. Cinnamon, musk and sin.
I try not to let the intoxicating scent fill my head but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit influenced.
His finger lightly traces the edge of the bandage wrap over my shoulder and I try to contain my heart from bursting out of my chest.
“You would be astounded on what I would do for you,” he says in a low voice only meant for me to hear. And there’s a dark promise in it that I both want and don’t want to know.
Curiosity strikes me once again and it has me asking him, “And what exactly would you do for me?”
He smiles but it’s a conspiring one. “I don’t think you’re ready for that answer just yet.”
“And how can you possibly know that? You hardly know me.”
“Carina,” he says my name and I hate how enticing it sounds coming from his lips. He says my name as if it’s both a damnation and prayer. He says it like no man before him and certainly no man after him. When he says my name I can feel myself rising from the dead. And I hate him for that. I hate how he can pull me from the depths of hell when he was the one who placed me there. “I know you better than you know yourself.”
My eyes flare up at him. My hands curl to fists by my side. In my blood I can feel it boiling.
Anger.
Rage.
Fury.
I feel all of it at once and it’s taking everything inside me not to erupt like a volcano.
“You know nothing about me.” My voice is the harshest it has ever been and my breaths come out in pants. It’s as if feeling is taking its energy out of me.
He smirks. “But I do.” His fingers then trail to my back and I stiffen. My eyes widen up at him with trepidation, fear, and anger as I grind down on my teeth. His expression changes when he looks into my eyes. They soften. And it has the flutters returning in my stomach. Those damn unkillable flutters.
Then his face hardens when his fingers press lightly against my upper back and I open my mouth in a silent scream. Unshed tears burn at the back of my eyes but I refuse to let them fall.
“He did this to you, didn’t he?” He asks too calmly. So calmly that it’s unsettling, and I fear for the man who challenges him rather than answers him.
But somehow that fear doesn’t translate to me. Because for some inexplicable reason I am not afraid of Constantine Donati. And because I am not afraid it has me saying back through clenched teeth, “You shouldn’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
He hums thoughtfully. His whisky colored eyes have not wavered from my own. However, his fingers descend and the brush of his fingers lightly brushing down the expanse of my back, my wounds, has me biting down on my tongue, and forcing the tears not to fall.
“Perhaps it’s because I want to know who has the gall to lie to me.” And with his answer I understand why men fear him. Why his name is whispered amongst the streets under the black sky.
“And if I say nothing at all?” I challenge.
His lips twitch and amusement dances in his eyes. “Then it’s an unspoken truth.”
I remain silent.
Silent not because of fear but by choice.
Because by remaining silent I am telling him the unspoken truth.
And inside this black heart of mine it beats for someone on the outside of this gilded cage to know the truth.
He cocks his head to the side and when his hand lays gently on the flare of my hip I release a shaky breath.
His touch is like a branding to my skin. A burn that frays my nerve endings and has me craving for more.
The startling pace of my heart beat returns. Pounding against my chest wanting to break free and fall in his corrupted hands.
And it can’t be.
Yet my body can’t help but come alive when he’s near.
Why is it that the Devil of the East Coast, the man who killed me himself, the one and only infamous Constantine Donati, is the very same person who is responsible for my re-awakening?
Acid sits heavy at the pit of my stomach.
A bitterness coats my tongue.
Loathing causes my eyes to harden on his.
He smirks. “You will be free from this soon, Carina.” He promises me and I will myself not to react. He leans down to where his lips brush against the shell of my ear. And I hate how I shiver. I feel his lips pull into a smile. “But freeing you from yourself will take much longer if you keep denying the truth.”
I snap my head back and ignore the flames that light across my back as I do. “What truth?” I ask harshly.
He steps away from me but the smirk on his face transforms into a devilish smile. One that will possess you to commit all seven of the deadly sins and worship at his feet.
His eyes, those whisky colored eyes are filled with nothing but dark promise.
And I hate the fact that it calls to me.
That his darkness entices me.
“You and I both know the truth, Carina.” My name sounds like velvet off of his tongue, “Except only I accept it. You’re denying it. Fighting it. All your attempts are futile. You’re only prolonging the inevitable.”
My nostrils flare.
The audacity of this man.
Speaking as if he knows me.
Smiling as if he knows my inner turmoil.
He doesn’t.
No one does.
The fight in myself between the darkness and the light.
The fight to bring back the woman before the rebirth. The one my mamma adored.
And the fight to not fall deeper in the temptation of sin. To be cursed to damnation.
“And what is my fate?”
“To not be a pawn but a Queen.”