Milan #2
That was a suboptimal decision to be forced to make.
I was not capable of fulfilling a woman’s emotional needs, nor was I able to sustain an emotional connection.
I did not feel emotion to be able to connect anything or anyone to it.
To have a wife would be cruel, and I was attempting to save women and children from cruelty, but if the Cosa Nostra required this of me, perhaps it was sacrificial to cause one more act of cruelty in my life.
“As you have witnessed, finding a wife seems to have become a requirement for me to be Capo dei Capi,” I stated as I pulled away from the Gioffres’ penthouse, my hands tightening against my car’s leather wheel.
Adriano simply stared at the street passing by the window from beside me. This typically indicated his extensive thinking. Finally, when his thinking had ended, he replied, “Do you think it’s a good idea to bring a woman into the house? I mean—”
“She would be unharmed.” I frowned. “My diagnoses may suggest that I may be susceptible to instability when faced with emotional environments, but I assure you, I would not damage her.”
He made a quiet, strained sound. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant that women can be emotional, and you get overwhelmed with trying to understand emotions. I wouldn’t want either of you to be miserable.”
Adriano raised a sensible point. Women were softer, and they tried to form connections because their emotions did not allow them anything else.
Siena had been just five years old, and she had regularly attempted this with me.
My mother had become clinically insane trying to connect with my father.
Emotions had caused Siena to cry when I had told her that I was incapable of pretending that the stuffed animals partaking in her tea party were ‘happy’ because I did not know what behavior reflected that emotion.
Emotions had made Mom unsafely defend me from Dad, even in her mental state.
Understanding it all back then as someone younger and less guided had been impossible, but trying to understand it now still seemed to feel strenuous.
My body tensed involuntarily as I thought of the past, of how marriage had treated my mother. I would never have chosen to marry, but the Cosa Nostra had chosen for me, and I was aware of my expectations even if I did not enjoy them.
“It is not a choice.” I sighed. “I will learn her social cues as I have learned yours. She will be designated a wing in the house and be permitted to do as she pleases.”
“And what if she wants to connect with you?” Adriano asked.
That was something I was incapable of.
Adriano was alluding to emotional connection, not just the physical act of interlacing our fingers. Perhaps my Consigliere understood my disapproval because he continued, “What if she wants to talk to you? Watch a movie with you? Sleep in your bed with you? Have sex with you?”
“She will be permitted to speak, of course. She will also be welcome to watch the television in the same room as me on occasion, but she will be required to stay in her own wing during the night, and there will certainly be no intercourse.”
His hand pulled at his face rather uncomfortably. “Milan, that’s not a marriage, and not many women would be open to that.”
“It is a marriage.” I frowned. “My signature and hers will signify that of a contract. That is how contracts work; they are binding.”
“Trust me when I say, as someone who feels a lot of emotions, that sounds heartbreaking.”
Being heartbroken was not an emotion I felt. What Adriano spoke of was the sensation of loss, and there were tactics I could implement to ensure that my wife did not feel that.
I straightened in my seat, ignoring his unnecessary concern. “How do I find this wife?”
Adriano laughed, but it did not sound like it did when he laughed at a joke or at the television; this one sounded tense. “Jesus, I don’t know. I guess Primo Bianchi has two unmarried daughters. But think about this, Milan, it’s not as easy as just walking in and choosing. They’re still people.”
The Bianchis were another of the Five New York Families.
Where the Gioffres were seen as the most secretive and powerful of the five, the Bianchis were the opposite.
Their reputation was worse than the Gioffre sons’; theirs was dirty and distasteful.
They invested in movie production, but the Cosa Nostra knew it was truly pornography and brothels they had a hand in.
Their reputation stated that they employed drugged-up prostitutes that nobody else wanted, and Don Primo Bianchi had been requesting Hugo’s support in cleaning this reputation for years.
Even he had known not to touch them.
“Are these the daughters that are the performers?”
“I don’t know, but nobody wants to take them because of that rumor. Primo’s been trying to set them up with eligible sons for years.”
Adriano’s use of the word ‘rumor’ indicated he did not believe the Bianchi daughters were their father’s faceless porn stars.
It was commonly believed that they performed in the productions in order to clean the Bianchis’ reputation, so people could see that he could make movies that didn’t use women with abused skin and bellies full of cocaine.
The entire idea made me feel nauseated, but I needed a wife regardless of who she was, and if nobody else wanted them, one of them could be mine.
“Call Primo and tell him we’ll be at his home in thirty-five minutes.”