16. Giada
Giada
Luca told me Papa was in the basement before he left for Corsini headquarters. He said I would never be required to go near him or speak to him. He promised Papa couldn’t reach me.
After Luca left, I asked Mattia to take me downstairs.
“You don’t owe him a conversation,” Mattia says outside the steel door.
“I want answers. Stay outside. Don’t interrupt unless he gets out of the chair.”
Mattia checks the restraints through the open doorway. “I’ll be right here.”
The basement room has a steel door, a drain in the concrete floor, and my father tied to a wooden chair.
Blood has dried beneath his nose. His left cheek is swollen. His white shirt is open at the collar and marked with brown spots. Another guard waits at the bottom of the stairs. Neither man looks at Papa for long.
I remain inside the doorway.
Papa raises his head. “There she is.”
His upper lip lifts. At home, this look came before he called me defective.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“Your new family dragged me here.” He pulls against the restraints. “Come untie me.”
“No.”
The rope creaks as he pulls against it again.
“Useless as ever.”
The concrete beneath my socks sends cold through my feet. I came downstairs in thick socks, but I forgot my shoes. Luca would tell me to go upstairs and put them on. He would wait while I did it.
Papa follows my attention to my feet. “He lets you wander his house dressed that way?”
“They are clean.”
“Christ. Twenty years old and you dress as a child.” His split lip bends. “Did Corsini tell DiCenzo to indulge you?”
My fingers press into the seams of my trousers. “Luca chooses what happens in his home.”
“Does he?” Papa gives a short laugh and stops with a wince. “Corsini ordered him to marry you at the altar. DiCenzo obeyed. Everyone in that church watched him turn our alliance into a joke.”
“I was present.”
“Then you should have learned.”
The fluorescent fixture above us emits a thin whine. The sound drills into my skull and stays there.
“Luca was kind to me before the wedding,” I say.
“He needed you calm while his men took the church.”
“He bought clothes I prefer.”
“You’re an expense he can afford.”
“He asks before touching me.”
“So you don’t embarrass him by screaming.”
Each answer creates another opening for him. I stop giving him answers.
Papa leans forward as far as the rope permits. “Did you believe he chose you?”
The fixture whines. Four screws hold its cover in place. The drain has twelve narrow openings around one round center. Papa’s chair stands on a crack that divides into three branches.
“He called the marriage strategic,” I say.
“Of course he did. That’s all it was.”
Luca’s answer returns in exact order. The marriage was a strategic move, and it worked.
“You weren’t a bride,” Papa says. “You were the fastest weapon available.”
I count the openings again: twelve narrow openings around one round center.
“Your mother and I spent years keeping your behavior private. Then you stood in a church full of people and proved every story true. Corsini used that humiliation against us.”
My nails catch on the trouser seams.
“Luca doesn’t humiliate me.”
“He took you upstairs, didn’t he?” Papa’s laugh breaks into a cough. “Did he fuck you and lose interest this morning?”
Luca left my room when I asked. At breakfast he stayed across the table. He went to work and did not kiss me.
He gave me what I requested.
I had requested the wrong thing.
Papa wipes blood from his lip against his shoulder. “Men will use whatever is offered. That doesn’t make you wanted.”
The room grows too bright. I close my eyes, but the red behind my lids pulses with the whine above us.
“Look at me when I speak to you.”
I keep them closed.
“Defective girl. You were an embarrassment from the day you learned to talk. No man chooses that. Giuseppe accepted you for the alliance. DiCenzo accepted you on an order.”
The steel door strikes the wall.
“Enough.”
Luca stands beside me. His coat is gone. The silver tardigrade rests on his black lapel, all eight inaccurate legs pointed away from its body.
His palm rises toward my face and stops before contact. “Giada. May I touch you?”
I cannot put the sounds in the correct order.
“Look what you married,” Papa says. “Broken over a conversation.”
Luca turns toward him. His hands hang open. His body blocks most of the chair.
“What did he say to you?” Luca asks.
I count the legs on his pin. The count stays at eight each time.
“Giada.” He moves into my line of sight without touching me. “Tell me what he said.”
“You married me on an order.”
His mouth closes. “I did.”
“The marriage was strategic.”
“At the church, yes.”
Papa laughs again. “Even he admits it.”
Luca’s attention stays on me. “What else?”
“No man would choose me voluntarily.”
His fingers curl once beside his thigh. “He said that?”
“It is consistent with the available information.”
“No.” The answer lands hard. “It isn’t.”
“You stayed away after I asked you to leave.”
“You asked me to leave.”
The fluorescent whine grows sharper.
“Yes.”
“I gave you what you asked for.”
Mattia's shoe scrapes the concrete outside the door.
“Yes.”
The answers match. They do not repair anything.
Luca looks toward the guard at the stairs. “Take my wife upstairs. Stay outside her door.”
“I can walk without assistance.”
He looks at me again. “Of course you can.”
“I want to go alone.”
He remains beside the doorway for one second, then steps away. “Go upstairs. He’ll keep his distance. I’ll come to you when I’m finished here.”
Papa smiles through the blood. “He has business to finish. That’s what matters.”
Luca turns toward him. His fist lands beneath Papa’s ribs. The chair jumps across the concrete, and Papa folds against the ropes with a broken gasp.
The impact travels through the floor into my feet. I step into the hall before Luca strikes again.
Luca waits until I reach the stairs, then closes the door.
I reach the third stair before his answer passes through the steel.
“You will never speak her name again. You will not think her name. If you ever look in her direction, I will make your death last.”
The guard follows several steps behind me. When I reach the ground floor, a sharp impact travels through the basement door. Another follows at the same interval.
The guard stops near the stairs. “Mrs. DiCenzo, do you need Susan?”
“No.”
My bedroom contains everything I brought to this house. I close the door and place my suitcase on the bed.
I remove the blue tardigrade shirt and fold it into the suitcase.
The white blouse lies where I left it this morning.
I put it on, change into thin socks, and pack the thick pair with the rest of the clothes I brought from home.
The notebook stays in the desk drawer because its pages contain Luca’s financial records.
My stuffed tardigrade remains downstairs beside the keyboard in Luca’s office. I leave it there. He allowed it to live beside him while he worked.
The phone Luca gave me rests on the bedside table. He told me Corsini security could locate it if I needed help outside the house. The same system would tell him where I went.
The black credit card goes beside it. He said the card is mine, but every purchase would create a record for him to follow.
I put on my coat and shoes. My wallet holds the cash left from before the wedding. The amount covers a cab and food.
The guard stands outside when I open my bedroom door. His attention drops to the suitcase.
“Where are you going?”
“Away.”
“Mr. DiCenzo ordered me to remain with you.” He takes out his phone. “You can’t leave without security.”
“You may follow me. You may not stop me.”
He calls Luca. The first call goes unanswered. The second does too.
“Mrs. DiCenzo, wait until I get a car.”
“No.”
He follows me downstairs. Susan stands in the dining-room doorway with folded linens against her waist. Two more men wait inside the front entrance. One moves in front of the door when he looks at my suitcase.
“Move,” I say.
“Ma’am, we have orders.”
“Your orders are to protect me. They are not permission to hold me inside this house.”
His attention moves to the guard behind me. Neither man touches me. The second guard unlocks the door.
Cold air bites the skin above my collar. All three men follow me down the drive. Two guards remain at the gate, and one calls for a car. They obey Luca’s order. They also keep their hands away from me.
I pass through the gate and reach the larger street before a black sedan turns out of the drive. A taxi approaches through the falling snow. I raise my arm, and it stops beside the curb.
The nearest guard reaches me as I close the taxi door. His palm strikes the glass once. I give the driver cash and ask him to keep moving until I choose where to stop.
Luca’s men have the taxi’s number. They do not have me. The phone that could lead Luca straight to me remains beside the bed, close enough for him to reach in four steps after he opens the door.