That I know myself.

  That my life before you was the one I was meant to live.

  That you give a shit about me.

  He almost looks boyish in the light, shadows erasing the lines and scars and ferocity sitting in his cheeks. His hair is tussled, his teeth gleam. He smells of soap and chlorine. I want to press my nose against his neck and breathe it all in.

  “I’m sorry, my little violet.” He cups my cheek and strokes me with his thumb.

  I find myself leaning into it, lapping up all the attention he’s willing to give.

  Where’s Forzetta in this moment? When did she become the little violet, turning her face toward a monster’s palm to tempt her lips into kissing it?

  Before I can, he takes his hand away from my cheek to crouch in front of me.

  “This hurts you more than being dragged into a car,” he says.

  Looking at the space between my feet, I nod.

  “Why?”

  He’s being more than nice. He’s showing compassion and I want to hate him for it, but I just don’t have the strength. I have no one else to talk to.

  “I thought I was different.”

  Those words, with their partner, but I’m not, fog my vision. I don’t look at Santino. I can’t. It’s just me and the concrete between my sandals, where a star of darkness has appeared from a drop of water that fell from his body, or a teardrop that fell from mine.

  “I thought,” I continue, but the lump in my throat stops me for a moment. “I thought I didn’t fit in here. I thought you came and dragged me to a place I didn’t belong. Backward. I thought—” I swallow hard again, and another two dark stars join the first between my feet. “I thought I was better than this life and better than you. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings but not really.”

  He gathers my hands in his as if he is gathering risen dough—gently, but with conviction. “My feelings aren’t hurt.”

  “I never had a chance,” I say. “This is who I was from the start. Everything else was fake. I was acting and I didn’t even know it.”

  “Forzetta.” He takes my chin and turns my face up to him, but I can’t look into his eyes right now. I’ve somehow gone from a little violet to Forzetta, but I feel neither delicate and beautiful nor powerful for my size.

  “You know what this means?” I ask, still turned away, facing a fichus in a pot that I have no interest in.

  “No.”

  I can tell he has some ideas what I mean, but none of them are correct, because he had me dead to rights from the beginning.

  “This means I can’t fight it.”

  He lets his hand drop, but the rest of him is still. In the pause, I hear his thoughts in my head and snap my attention back to him.

  “You want to say I shouldn’t have ever fought it,” I snarl.

  “No.”

  “Then you want to say it’s Zia’s fault for raising me this way. Or America. Or you want to say it doesn’t matter as long as I accept it, right?”

  “What I want to say”—he stands, and my eyes follow his as if they’re on a leash—“is that I’ll miss the fight.”

  Sure, he would. Resistance keeps it exciting. I thought I was better than my situation, and he knew it. He used it to control me, without letting on where the control was coming from. What’s more entertaining than a puppet that thinks it’s a real girl?

  But he doesn’t seem self-satisfied. He seems ashamed, and that isn’t as rewarding as I assumed it would be.

  “Do you think he would have told me?” I ask. “My father?”

  “Told you what?”

  “That he’d promised me to you?”

  “È complicato.”

  Of course he says it’s complicated, because he thinks I can’t handle it.

  “Ciò che non è, Santino?”

  What isn’t, Santino?

  He huffs a little laugh that’s more frustration than delight. “Italian language isn’t. Cosa non lo è, Violetta. The ‘what’ is an idea. Not a thing. You say cosa non lo è.”

  “Is the ‘what’ in ‘whatever’ a thing or an idea?”

  He drops into a chair, leans back, and lays an ankle on a knee, because after all my tears and questions, he’s made a decision, and that’s what counts.

  “I like when you speak.”

  When someone from the other side says speak at the end of a sentence, they mean speak Italian, as if they’re dropping an unnecessary word. If one speaks, they speak our language. Otherwise, they’re just talking.

  And despite the realization that I am now—and always have been—steeped in his world, I still feel as if I’m being dragged into it.

  “My Zs tried. I’m not good at it.”

  “Did I ask you if you were good at it?”

  “Did I ask you why I was promised to you? And did you answer? No. Did I ask what I was traded for? And did you answer? No.”

  I expect him to drive me to my knees and tell me what he’ll do to me the next time I demand answers to questions he doesn’t like, offering a tersely worded referendum on the destruction of my body with his cock, and my skin tingles with anticipation.

  “I’ll explain it to you,” he says instead. “All of it. I’ll answer everything.”

  I’m suddenly ramrod-straight in my chair with a string of questions lining up in my mouth. “Really?”

  “Si.” He nods definitively. “When you ask perfectly in Italian, and can understand the answers without telling me to go slow.”

  I flop back down. That’s as good as saying he’ll never tell me.

  “We will work on it every night.” He does not mirror my disappointment nor register my opposition, because the king has decided, and that’s all there is to it.

  “Fuck this,” I grumble.

  “Santo Dio, that mouth.”

  “I’ve heard you say so much worse, DiLustro.”

  He laughs. It reminds me of the day on Flora Boulevard, in a good way, before it all went south. How discussing The Iliad made him laugh out loud. How he kissed me beneath a crystal-blue sky. How beautiful we were for a moment.

  It’s not much different than now. He may not kiss me, but I feel the phantom of his hand on my cheek and it’s close enough. I wish I could bottle the feeling of not being afraid of him, but can you ever save the absence of a thing?

  When—having made his decision—he gets up and pats my shoulder as he walks back into the house, I sigh, knowing for sure that the absence of him cannot be bottled and saved for later.

  Every night, for four nights that are a mirror of the nights I spent wallowing in the knowledge that I wasn’t who I thought I was, I wait in the lounge chair for my husband to finish his swim and sit by me with a towel over his shoulders.

  He tells me who I am now by teaching me how to speak to who I’ve always been.

  He starts with the rhythm of the accent—the music of it; where it happens in the mouth and the heart. He laughs when I sound like Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, and shakes his head in disappointment when I sound like I “have a mouthful of apple pie and hot dogs.”

  We laugh, and I don’t feel bad about it.

  On Saturday night, it’s crazy hot. I put on the dowdy suit, despite having several better ones now, because I can’t let our Italian language lessons go pear-shaped when I start to think I can really make some progress.

  Santino is late. Even after the sun goes down, it’s still hot as a dog’s mouth. Putting down the vocabulary book he’s gotten me, I decide to wait in the pool, just as I hear the beep of the front door when he’s home.

  The water is a few degrees cooler than a bath, so I slip in without hesitation, putting my head under and coming up face-first so my hair slicks back from my forehead. When I open my eyes, he’s already at the other side of the pool, toes curling against the edge.

  Without a word, he dives in. I swim to the side and drape my arms over the ledge behind me, watching him take two laps, moving through the water with the swift efficiency of a shark. He pops up at the end, wipes the water off his face, and looks at me with my back to the wall, and I’m pinned in place. He’s injected me with some sort of paralytic, like a spider immobilizing his prey before diving under, and popping up right in front of me.

  “You came into the water with me tonight,” he says after clearing the water from his lips.

  “It’s hot out.” I shrug, missing the point entirely.

  He comes closer, leveraging his hands on the ledge on either side of me. I’m trapped, but not afraid.

  “It was hot last night too.”

  I can’t disagree. But last night I hadn’t thought of getting into the pool with him because I still had it in my head that sharing a swim was sharing too much. I couldn’t say why that has changed, except that the change is subtle and tricky.

  “I wanted to cool off tonight.”

  He moves closer. “Not because you wanted me to kiss you.”

  “No.” Now he’s said the words and every ounce of resolve turns to salt that melts in the pool water.

  “But you want me to kiss you.”

  I barely get the words out as a whisper. “I do.”

  He almost moves in slow motion until our lips finally touch and the entire world erupts around me. My chest feels heavy then weightless on the turn of a dime. His mouth is both merciful and domineering, gentle in its ownership, as if it can listen and speak at the same time.

  If I wasn’t in the water, my knees would have collapsed.

  Santino pulls back and places a kiss on my neck. It is now I understand why they say orgasms are little deaths, and I haven’t even come.

  “I want to worship you with my body, my Violetta. I will never take what you don’t offer. But you will offer it. You will spread your legs and offer me your whole body. Your tits, your cunt, your ass. All mine. My name will be written all over you.”

  I can barely breathe at the thought of it. I want him to mark me so badly I make a hundred excuses in my mind why I should. It’s expected anyway. I can hold my heart fast while surrendering my body. I can use sex to get him to release me. I can let him fuck me until he’s bored and lets me go.

  We’re nose to nose, and I’m about to say yes to everything, when he kisses me once, tenderly and says—

  “But not tonight.”

  He gets out of the pool.

  I’m left there, feeling like a woman breaking all her promises to herself.

  25

  VIOLETTA

  Father’s Day.

  Every year, I say a prayer for my dad over breakfast. I’ve never missed one, even after all these years. Zio encouraged me. He never wanted to take the day away from my actual father. The one who never hurt anyone or did anything and was murdered in the streets anyway.

  The one who sold me into slavery for a truckload of oranges or the rent on his store. Maybe I was worth a few things in the deli, or ten billion lire. Whatever debts he incurred, he pinned to me for the rest of my life.

  Today, I hate the holiday. Today, I want to burn it all down.

  At dinner that night, I try to put on a happy face and act as if this isn’t bothering me immensely, that it hasn’t kicked up old worries and fears, that I’m not drowning in a life I didn’t ask for—no matter the perks. That I’m totally fine with being ripped away from my goals and dreams to be married to this cold, attractive devil who confuses me more as each day passes.

  “Something is wrong,” Santino says in a way that it isn’t a question, it’s dinnertime commentary.

  Spinning my fork in the center of my spoon to spool fettuccine, I don’t like that he knows me well enough to make such statements, or that I have a compulsion to tell him the truth.

  “It’s nothing.” I helped Celia roll out the pasta and season it with herbs, butter, and a dusting of Romano—just the way I like it—but it tastes like lead.

  “Lies do not become DiLustros.”

  I’m a Moretti. Always.

  “I don’t remember signing any paperwork to legally change my name.” I’m feeling like a grumpy asshole and I don’t care. “And Liar seems to be your middle name.”

  “I have never lied to you,” he says seriously, taking no offense, which makes him even harder to deal with. “I have always told the truth.”

  “Whatever.” I drink wine as if I’m an old, miserable wife, not an underage girl.

  “Omitted, maybe.” He shoves a coil in his mouth and speaks around it. “But never lied.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway.” I idly spin my fettuccine in my spoon and feel so sorry for myself it’s pathetic.

  “Sputa il rospo.”

  Spit the toad. An Italian expression my friends wouldn’t understand.

  “It’s silly.”

  Santino rests his hand on mine and says, “Try me.”

  My jaw stops working, but I manage to keep my mouth closed so dinner doesn’t drop out of it—because he’s being not just sincere, not just kind, but accommodating. He’s not demanding answers. He’s opening himself to suggestion and it’s like he’s a different guy.

  I don’t trust it. I don’t trust him and I don’t trust myself, so I pull my hand away as I swallow the glue my dinner’s become.

  “I don’t know who I am or what I want.” The words topple out, his behavior leaving me totally disarmed. I can’t stop them and I don’t really want to either. “I was supposed to spend the summer traveling the world, hanging out with my friends, living up the college life.” My fork and spoon are stuck at an obtuse angle over my plate as if Medusa froze them in place. “Instead, I was sold into marriage and I’m trapped in this house, fearing for my life and my family’s, then I find out my father…my own father was the one who gave me to you, and I hate him so much I can’t even think. I’m supposed to be having fun with my friends. They’ll forget I even exist at this point. I’m stuck here hating you and my parents and my own self. I want to have fun.” I shout the last word as if making it echo will draw it to me. “I don’t want to…do this.”

  The silverware with half-rolled fettuccine clatters to the plate. My heart feels as if it’s about to crack open and all I can do to not burst into tears in front of him is bite my lip until it hurts, and all I can expect from the guy at the head of the table is a big fat tough shit.

  “I know,” I say, unable to look at him. “Che sfortuna.”

  Bad luck, kid.

  As if its idleness offends me, I pick up my fork and jab my dinner.

  Santino snaps his napkin off his lap and places it next to his plate before pushing his chair away from the table. “Go pack.”

  “What?”

  “Go pack, little violet. Find all your favorite things.” He stands. “Go.”

  Little violet’s going somewhere.

  Not Forzetta, which is fine. I can be the little violet as long as he sends me somewhere just a little farther than Staycation Villa.

  “I need to know where I’m going.” I skip the duh that sits on the tip of my tongue. “Skiing or swimming…different clothes.”

  “It will be hot”—in in the second before the next half of his sentence, I imagine beaches and tall Caribbean waves—“where we’re going.”

  We.

  Where we’re going.

  He’s out the door, barking orders in Italian too fast for me to understand.

  Well, this is going to be a late honeymoon more than a summer break carouse.

  I throw all my new clothes into a suitcase that’s magically appeared on my bed. His staff is remarkably fast, but they must have been too nervous or respectful to pack underwear, so I uncover the red lingerie Santino got for me the day I tried to escape. When I showed him the red dress, he said it fit me like a paintbrush.

  Ti sta a pennello.

  If he’s nice, it wouldn’t kill me to be nice back.

  I close the lingerie drawer. After a quick race through the bathroom for toiletries, I’m ready to go.

  But the top drawer tugs at me, saying open open open me and get the thing!

  With a resigned sigh, I slap it open. The red underpants are spread into a smile. I pluck out the sexy underthings and stuff them in my bag. When I close the drawer, I finally feel finished.

  By the time I clatter down the stairs with my suitcase smacking behind, Santino is coming down the opposite staircase.

  “Where are we going?” I’m like a kid who’s finally getting a pony for her birthday.

  “You’re going to ruin the surprise.” He puts his phone in his pocket. “Come.”

  He seems so satisfied with my change in behavior, my delight, that I will play along to get to do something even slightly fun. So I don’t ruin the surprise. I let Armando take my suitcase and follow Santino to his limo, so excited I’ll come, sit, heel, and beg like he tells me to.

  Traveling with a mafia boss, I quickly learn, is a different set of travel. Forget pushing through the crowds at an airport, being patted down by TSA, cramming into a seat away from the window. We pull up to a gate at a tiny, private terminal, show ID, and drive right onto the tarmac, next to a private jet with lights already blinking against the dark night.

  Seriously.

  I’m in such a state of awe when I see it, when I climb the stairs, and especially when I get inside, that I can barely speak. Soft leather seats. Warm lighting. Wood paneling. Crystal and brass. It’s less a plane and more a tube-shaped luxury hotel room.

  A flight attendant with curly hair that’s half gray, half black shows us our seats. Her name’s Mellie and I love her already. Santino lets me have the window as if he knows that’s my preference.

  Once we’re off the ground and steady, Santino asks Mellie for something to eat. She brings cheese on a silver tray and prosecco in sleek crystal flutes.

  From across the table, Santino holds up his glass. “To leaving worry behind us.”

  I hold mine up, but snap it back before the clink. “Where are we going?”

  He leans back and tips his glass to his lips, telling me that’s the only thing he’s opening them for without even a word.

  Mirroring, I lean back and pour the entire glass down my throat, then put it down.

  He laughs, the charming fucker.