CHAPTER 17 - ARIANNA
CHAPTER
Arianna
ICAN’T HEAR ANYTHING but blood rushing in my ears. Neither can I move from the center of the room. I’m frozen in horror and a twisting sense of hurt which makes my flesh twitch.
I have to move over to the bed and stop this.
When did they bring her in here? And why have I been unaware of it until now?
I will my legs to propel me forward to where Maria lies naked and prone. Luca ruts upon her hard and relentlessly, but I remain where I am; attached to the floor by heavy chains.
Except nothing tethers or holds me - apart from myself.
I yell my sister’s name, but my voice is silent.
Why can’t I speak?
Panic snowballs.
Becoming lightheaded with revulsion that my brother and Luca’s conversation about my sister has been realized, I meet Maria’s eyes hoping I convey my feelings that way, but her eyes are vacant, glassy and dull. She stares at me but doesn’t see me. They’ve drugged her, like they did me.
But I’m not drugged now.
Luca pounds between my sister’s legs. There’s a thin trickle of blood running down the inside of her thigh.
The hot, angry tears spilling down my cheeks feel cold against my burning skin. This makes little sense. Nothing makes sense.
I have to stop this. I must stop this.
“Not jealous are you, dear sister?”
That voice - the hated sound I once associated with family but now linked only to the worst kind of betrayal, makes me turn in my brother’s direction. Matteo stands in the doorway, spectating my sister getting violated like an animal.
I’ll kill him, but I still can’t move.
“Seriously, there’s no need to be jealous. Maria is only standing in for you as a temporary measure.” Matteo’s cruel mouth curls at one side as his eyes travel over me. “Doctor’s orders.”
Doctor’s orders? Am I ill?
Something makes me look down, and my throat closes with the sight of my hugely distended stomach; the material of the fine silk dress I wear stretched to capacity. Bile burns my throat as powerful kicks within me ripple, visible through the expensive dress.
I’m pregnant!
Oh, God, no!
And very pregnant.
How... how long have I had this lapse of memory? I remember nothing.
I reach out, my hand fumbling for something to steady me, my unmoving legs threatening to go from underneath. It’s only then that I notice my fingers are adorned with heavy, large-stoned rings. Some sapphire, others diamond. One, a combination of both.
Where have they come from? Why can’t I remember?
Gasping, I pull air into my crushed lungs.
“Calm down, Arianna.” Matteo’s voice is tinged with worry. “Stress isn’t good for you. This baby must arrive safely.”
As the child inside me squirms relentlessly, I instinctively lay my hand on my hard, moving belly, then instantly recoil.
Luca Bristoni’s child is inside me.
This can’t be happening.
“What is going on, Matteo?”
Papà?
I drag in a lungful of air, knowing hyperventilation is close. When I was snatched, Matteo said he was killing Papà soon, so how can he still be here?
“Now, now, what is the matter?” My father approaches me, laying his hand on my belly.
I try to move away. I don’t want this man, the fake hero I’ve wrongly worshipped all my life, touching me. His betrayal cuts deeper than my brother’s in many respects, yet I can’t even make my arms move now.
I look at Papà - his face and eyes the same as always, yet this man who I strived to make proud, who stood in my mind as the epitome of security, protection and family love, now translates only as an evil monster. An aberration of everything I hold sacred.
I watch his hands protectively caress the mound of my belly.
“You have done well, bambolotta.”
Bambolotta? Papà’s pet name for me is back?
“You’ve carried the first pureblood safely so far. Don’t make me regret my decision to readmit you to the family by failing to be patient a few minutes longer.”
I’m accepted back into the family? I want nothing to do with them now. Apart from Maria.
My eyes move to my sister - still unmoving, still vacant; with Luca continuing to pound into her, acting like none of us are here.
Was this how it was when he took me and put this child inside me?
Gagging, I turn back to my father. I hate him. I despise him for making me believe in him.
But he’s disappeared.
Matteo grabs my arm. “Right, the surgeon is here.”
Surgeon?
“Now, Arianna! This baby will be born on the day of my choosing. And that day is today.”
As Matteo’s fingers dig into my arm and as another man enters the room, my eyes widen.
The man has long hair. He... he looks like... like Red.
“No!” I scream. I don’t know if my voice works, but no one takes any notice. Matteo drags me over to another bed next to Maria and Luca. This bed wasn’t here before, and it’s covered with blue surgical sheeting.
They’re cutting this baby out of me here?
In this room?
With my arms and legs now functioning, I flail and buck, but Matteo holds me down on the blue crunchy sheets and pushes my neck to one side.
“Pass my syringe. It’ll shut her up.”
“No time.” The man resembling Red looms above me, a large knife in his hand. Blue-gray eyes glitter with menace. “Now lie still, Arianna, and keep calm.”
He looks like Red and sounds like Red, but all I can focus on is the knife in his hand.
“When will I have my baby?”
Maria’s voice comes from nowhere. Slurred and strange, it doesn’t sound like her, “I want a baby. Why’s Arianna having one and not me?”
I blink, terror consuming me. A hand presses down on my belly, another pushing against my neck.
Matteo laughs – he’s laughing at me. I hate him. I hate him for everything.
“NO! I’m not doing this!” Screaming, I push away the hands, and a syringe clatters to the floor. My voice works!
I scream even louder.
“No one can hear you, so be quiet!” Matteo’s hand connects with my cheek, delivering a stinging slap, his other hand slams my shoulder down onto the bed.
But I’ve got the knife...
I force myself into a sitting position, finding the surgeon has gone. Even with the size of my belly, I manage to push Matteo away, and then I’m astride him on the floor.
He’s still laughing. Luca is grunting with pleasure. I can’t hear Maria, but a bird sings somewhere. loud and high-pitched.
As my hate surges forward, vomit spews from my mouth, splattering my brother’s face with foul-smelling green tarry liquid. “Fucking die!” I scream, my voice raw and disjointed.
I plunge the knife into Matteo’s neck over and over and over and over again.
I cannot stop. Nor can I stop screaming.
Screwing my eyes shut, I continue.
And then the room is empty.
????
Sweating, I sit up with tears pouring down my cheeks. My breath drags into my lungs in ragged spurts as I push my hair from my forehead out of the perspiration. The bandages are back on my wrists, and the heavy rings have gone.
Blinking with fright and confusion, I adjust to the darkness.
There’s someone standing in front of the closed door.
It’s Red, silent and unmoving.
I concentrate on the faint sound of his breathing; the only hint he’s really there and not a statue.
Accustoming my eyes further in the gloom, I look around. There’s no one but him, watching yet saying nothing. The door behind him is closed. He hasn’t moved.
He’s been standing here the whole time? No one else is here?
My pounding heart stills.
Matteo’s butchered body isn’t on the floor. Luca and Papà aren’t here. Neither is my sister.
Impulsively, my hands reach for the mound of my belly, so real a moment ago. That isn’t there either.
There is no baby. It was all a dream – a horrible, sinister nightmare.
Relief swamps me, and my sobs reduce to soft hiccups.
I lean back into the pillow, closing my eyes with exhaustion, and drift into a restless sleep, this time, one not plagued with nightmares.