Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
_______
A few moments later, the door to my hospital room slid open and Mama poked her head inside.
“Can I come in?”
I nodded, watching as she sashayed in, tossing the door shut with the back of her designer heel as she balanced a silver tray full of cannoli. She wasn’t wearing one of her prim dresses, and her hair wasn’t done for once.
She looked…worn out. Humbled. And twenty years older.
She slid the tray on the stand next to my hospital bed and took a seat next to me. Ran her palms up and down her thighs to get rid of the sweat.
She didn’t make eye contact with me when her lips moved.
“Tiernan told me that you and the baby are okay.”
“Yes.” I wasn’t going to make it easy for her.
“I’m so glad, bambina mia.”
I simply stared.
“Thank you for agreeing to give me the time of day. God knows I don’t deserve it.”
I didn’t have it in me to be compassionate to her. I shrugged.
“I’ve been a horrible mother to you, haven’t I? Not just through the length of your pregnancy. Since you were born.”
I licked my lips. I had nothing to say to that, since I wholeheartedly agreed. In retrospect, she robbed me of so much. And these past few months…
“You’re not Vello’s,” she blurted out.
I slammed my brows together, staring at her. A sense of déjà vu washed over me. I couldn’t say I was surprised, exactly. I had to be a perfect idiot not to see how different I looked from the rest of my family. But growing up, my mother always insisted nothing was amiss. That I took after a mysterious French great-grandmother who was very fair.
“I never wanted to marry your father.” She shook her head. “Actually, that’s putting it mildly. Back in Secondigliano, my mother was married to the don. They had no boys, just me, so it was up to me to marry someone to take over the business. My father made me break up with my boyfriend to marry Vello. His right-hand man.”
She tore her gaze from me, staring at the floor.
“And your mama said nothing about it?” I asked.
My mother laughed humorlessly, eyes sparkling with tears. “It was hard for her to fight him, seeing as she was dead.” There was a pause. “My mother killed herself. Slashed her own wrists in her bed after years of my father’s abuse. He hit her a lot. And when he didn’t hit her, he cheated on her. She was still stupid enough to love him, anyway. He broke her heart every single day. I was the one who found her.”
I could see where this was going. My mother had never seen a Mafia marriage maturing into something other than a complete disaster, so she didn’t think the option existed.
“I’ll get to who your father is in a second.” She plucked a tissue from her purse, dabbing her sunken eyes. “Anyway, my father made me marry Vello. I did not like him at all. Wasn’t attracted to him, either. He was twelve years older and very rude. Neither he nor my papa cared one bit about what I wanted. On the night we got married, Luca was conceived.” Her mouth pressed into a grim line. “He raped me, and when I tried to fight him, he slapped me. The first four years of his life, every single time I looked at Luca, all I saw was that night I wished to forget.”
Something cracked inside my chest and a flood of sympathy rushed forth. I grabbed her hand, squeezing it. That didn’t take away all the mistakes she made with me, but I was starting to see that in her warped, twisted logic, living a life of social deprivation was better than marrying a man like Papa.
“Achilles’s conception was the same story. There was pain and there was blood. Vello had spared me for a while after Luca. He didn’t like my body after the pregnancy, anyway. So he took a mistress.”
“He raped you every time you had a child?”
Bile slithered up my throat. Even at our worst times—and God knew we started on the wrong foot—Tiernan never took me against my will. I couldn’t fathom the thought of sharing a roof, a table, a bedroom with the beast that raped me the night of Luca’s wedding.
“No, not all of them. Enzo was…a spontaneous event. We were both drunk and merry for a change, one summer in Ischia. And believe it or not, but sometimes I think this is why Enzo ended up the way he is—so warm and loving. Nothing like his brothers, who are rough around the edges.”
“Vello cheated on you throughout your marriage?” I didn’t know at what point in the conversation I stopped thinking of him as Papa and started thinking of him as Vello, but I knew once I crossed that mental barrier, there was no going back.