Loving the Wicked (The Wicked Trilogy #2)

Prologue. Fourteen years ago

Prologue

Fourteen years ago

ELIO

From what I wore to how I talked and walked, to the first time I had sex and tasted alcohol, and down to my first cigar, my father had been the voice that decided who I became.

I told myself I didn’t mind. He was my father, and I was his shadow. His merciless soldier. His machine. I was to follow in his footsteps. Never make mistakes. Remember his advice and implement his instructions.

That was me, three hundred and sixty-four days of my life.

The day of my birth was the exception, which made sense because it was the only day I got to be me. Twenty-four privileged hours where I got to live outside myself, rearrange my thoughts and my previous experiences if I could.

But that all changed on my nineteenth birthday.

My father had forgotten, which meant I ought to have forgotten, too, but December 1st had been permanently etched into my memory.

The first thing I did that day was visit the church in our compound. I knelt and prayed for the salvation of my soul, just like my mother had taught me.

After that, I left the premises, but unlike the other times, I didn’t feel lighter; I felt … heavier.

Pushing down the feeling, I went to get food and drinks for my brother, Elia.

He had no idea it was my birthday; I never once told him; he just knew I stayed longer on this particular day.

But unlike the last time, I didn’t join him to eat; I just watched.

When he asked why, I told him I had no appetite.

He was ten and old enough to pick out my lie, but he didn’t ask any further questions.

When I finally left, I went to a private bar, got myself a beer, sat alone at a booth, and drank on an empty stomach.

It was the first birthday I celebrated with … sadness.

I was about to take on another year of being Elio Marino. Of living in this skin, in this time, in this face, of talking with this voice, wearing these clothes … another circle of ups and downs, of yes, sirs and turning a blind eye, another round of living a lie that was programmed to be my truth.

I was about to do it all over again, and the feeling was downright … draining.

The bar was dimly lit, and the music was nothing more than a dull hum in the background. I was on my fourth bottle of beer, my hand on my chin, my eyes closed, drowsy but alert enough to know I was still sober.

At the very back of my mind, a distant thought haunted me.

For the past four years, since the day after I almost killed Elia to please my father, I’d caught myself doing the same things my mother once did.

The same silence. The same way she’d stare at nothing for hours, as if she could see the end of everything.

It terrified me to recognize her silence in my own.

I was slowly becoming a shell of myself. But I hid the cracks well; I willed them to leave, for me to sleep better, for the dark thoughts to let me be … but the more lives I took, the more I fell deeper and deeper into that shell, the more my mind failed me, breaking piece by piece.

At least I’d always had December 1st to pull me back out of the shell. But my dark thoughts had now tainted my one day of freedom, and I knew there was no coming back from that.

I knew my nineteenth birthday would mark the day I felt the heaviest because there was nothing to celebrate. I could only mourn the next year to come. I could only hate the thought of taking in my first breath when I woke up the following day.

My birthdays would now be the worst days of my life. Constant reminders that I was still living.

I shook my head, pushing those thoughts away, and took another swig of beer, looking around and catching the eyes of a pair of women sitting at the far end, one of them waving at me, the other twirling the ends of her blond hair.

Discomfort settled inside me, and I looked away.

Seventeen had been the first and last time I had sex.

I had been at one of my father’s private clubs.

He’d been celebrating a successful shipment for whatever the fuck he did outside the business.

I knew it was a huge shipment because 75 percent of his capos were present.

They were so rowdy, and I was not too fond of the crowd, but I endured as they conversed in cheers and slurred words.

My father had put a drink in my hand. It wasn’t my first taste of alcohol. I’d had lite beers with Casmiro occasionally, but nothing this strong.

When I finished it, he pushed another, and then another, and then another, until feeling my toes began to seem like a struggle between life and death.

Everything that happened from that point blurred into flashes and short clips—the raw and thick smell of cigars in the air that night, the gruffness of his voice when he called two women over …

two women with barely any clothing; he was grinning when they both leaned into me, but his face zoomed in and out of focus.

Then I’d felt hands touching my thigh, disappearing into my shirt to rub against my chest, lips on my neck.

I think I was trying to protest the idea, but my father’s voice had climbed on top of my own. “Take him up and show him a good time; his signature gave us this.” He raised his glass like he was doing me a huge favor. “Enjoy, Marino.”

I remember being led somewhere. And then falling on a soft mattress. I remember one of them trying to kiss me, but I remember stopping her and the chuckle she gave afterward when she whispered in my ear, “No kissing, got it.”

And then I remember waking up naked, next to two sleeping, naked women.

The headache afterward, the lipstick marks on my skin, the first minute of panic, and then the long shower I had taken.

I hated it. I hated it all. I tried to tell myself later that I’d consented, that the alcohol had been a choice, but the facts were simple: I was seventeen, he had supplied the drink, and he had handed my body over.

That night, I stood in front of my father’s bedroom door, a gun in my hand, imagining myself entering and emptying my bullets into him.

But I couldn’t do it. He was my father, my mother’s husband, and my siblings’ guardian. I couldn’t kill him, so I slipped my gun behind me and walked away.

To this day, I wondered if I’d made the right decision. Walking away.

I knew if I didn’t leave now, the girls currently watching me would find their way to my table, and I didn’t need that.

Not today.

So, I finished my beer, paid my tab, and left the bar.

Reaching the compound an hour later, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I fished it out, seeing my sister’s name on the screen with a text message that had my stomach jumping.

Mari:

SOS

I rushed into the house. The sound of glass shattering, coupled with screaming and crying, had me running toward my mother’s room.

I skidded down the hallway, my heart in my throat as I spotted Mariana on her knees, holding a crying Lorenzo in her arms, right in front of my mother’s room. Mariana was crying, too, and I caught the sight of blood on Lorenzo’s arm; the seven-year-old had his head buried in my sister’s chest.

Mariana looked up, her eyes burning with anger upon seeing me. “Where were you!” she screamed at me. “She fucking hurt him!”

I heard loud mumblings, glass shattering, thuds, and incoherent screams from behind the closed door.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Go—get up, go stitch him up; I’ll be with you both soon.”

She shot me a confused look, her gray eyes blinking as if she hadn’t heard me right. She got to her feet, and Lorenzo refused to look up. He never did. Never looked at me. I was on Papà’s side, not theirs. Never theirs.

“Soon? You want to go in there? She’s—God, she’s out of touch with reality! She hurt Enzo!”

“Please, Mariana, go to your room, lock your door—”

“What if she hurts you? Mamá isn’t here anymore!”

“No, don’t say that, she’s just—she’s fine, she’s just going through something.”

“I’m seventeen, I’m not a fucking child, Marino! She needs medical attention!”

“Mari, please, take Enzo away; I’ll handle it.”

“But she’s—”

“Enzo’s hurt, go help him—clean his wound—”

“What if she—”

“Fucking go! Go to your damn room and lock the fucking door, Mariana!” I bellowed.

She flinched; fear clouded her eyes, a look I’d seen her wear whenever our father was around. Enzo’s crying grew louder, and he hugged Mariana tighter.

I calmed, reaching for them. “Mari—”

She drew back in haste. “I hate you!” she yelled shakily, pulling Enzo away with her.

I watched them disappear down the hallway, biting my tongue and silently cursing myself for losing control like that.

Sighing, I pulled off my shoes and socks, knowing Mamá didn’t like it when you entered her room wearing them.

I pushed open the door, my heart melting the moment I spotted my mother pacing back and forth, biting her fingers as she mumbled.

Tears were streaming down her face, her feet were bare, and she left bloodstains on the ground as she stepped on the shattered glass, almost like she didn’t feel the pain.

“Mamá,” I whispered as I entered the room.

I didn’t care about the pain that bit at my feet as I rushed toward her; I didn’t care that I was cutting myself; I just knew I had to get to her, to bring her back here.

To me. To reality. “Mamá,” I called louder this time, stopping before her as she tried to step past me.

I blocked her path, and she moved to my other side, which I blocked again. Her eyes were unseeing.

“Mamá, look at me.” I tried to catch her gaze.

She shook her head, trying to get around me, but I wouldn’t let her, and then she screamed. She threw slaps and blows at me.

“Get out! Get out, you bastard!”

I tried to grab ahold of her hands as she screamed. “Mamá, it’s me. It’s Elio, look at me!”

“No! Elio’s dead! You killed my baby! You drowned my only child, you bastard! Get out! Get out of my life! Leave me alone!”