Earn It.

I am drowning in my own tears. I have created a lake of salty droplets fallen from my eyes and I drown in it. My bones drag me to the bottom under their weight and nobody comes to save me. I am alone. So deeply alone. My husband stares at me, without concern, without love. He is just a warm body sitting at the same table, watching me drown. He eats a biscuit slowly as he stares, like he is enjoying the entertainment of a lifetime. 

I do not understand his disdain for me. Four months have passed since we were joined, and each day passes slower than the last. Our nights are filled with luxurious dinners and small talk with everyone but each other and then we return to this apartment and go our separate ways. His brothers appear for business during the week, but I have not seen Lilliana since that night. I find myself yearning for her company. At least she spoke to me. 

“We are going to a dinner party tonight.” He says suddenly, ripping me from my thoughts and I nod. We eat with the Governor tonight. We will eat at seven. More than likely something simple, then we will go around the room three times for introductions. Then I will disappear with the women and make myself scarce. It is a routine to which I am accustomed. “Wear the red dress. It looks good on you.” The compliment takes me by surprise and I smile. The movement is foreign and I wonder for a second just how many days had gone by since I smiled. Truly smiled. 

“Thank you,” I reply with sincerity and take a bite of my food. I do not tell him how it ignites something deep within me, lights the spark on a candle I had long since snuffed out. I do not tell him how my hatred wanes a bit. 

“I need you to do something for me.” He does not ask. He is going to be the Don one day, and I know that I have no other option than to do as he says. 

“What is it?” 

He places his hands on the table and reaches for mine. It is the first time since we were married that we touch and I savor the feeling of another humans skin. It is rough as it always was, but when he touches me this time it is not out of duty, but comfort. 

“When we go tonight I need you to keep your ears open. A lot of product is missing. I need a name.” 

“How much is missing?” I ask, my curiosity peaked. The hardness to his eyes returns and he stares.

“A lot.” I want to groan and beg him to drop his defenses. I’m dying for human interaction, for human kindness. I am dying to feel alive. 

“I will help you,” I tell him and he grunts. He knows that I know my choices in life are restricted. “For a price.” 

His interest snaps back and I think I see his lip raise in anger. I have poked the bear. I have crossed a line none would dare. Yet, I was here, staring him down across the table, trying to formulate a backbone with broken dreams. 

“You forget yourself.” His voice is low and dangerous and I shrink down farther than I ever have in my life. “You may be my wife, but we are not equals.” My resolve shatters and I feel a tear begin to fall. I do not bother to wipe it from my cheek. I refuse to allow him the curtesy of watching me self-destruct. 

“This is my family too,” I say and he rolls his eyes once more. He drives me crazy. Absolutely insane. I have never hated in the way I hate him. “I will not allow someone to steal from my family. I will listen, Nico, but only if you allow me to help.” I try my best to give my voice a soothing element. The fire in his eyes does not dull. It only roars larger. How tragic he must feel life is to have paired him not only with a woman so quiet- but the enemy. We share a table, a home, a common area, but we do not share our hearts. And we do not share our families. 

He does not seem to understand the weight of the ring on my finger. He does not understand I am ruled by two dons now. He may have allegiance to one, but I have two and each one bites down on my shoulders and blisters my skin. I battle it out within my mind at night, who is my family and who is my boss. If the power in a name is worth this much pain, and I think sometimes, it is not. I have loved my name, and the power it brought. I have loved the ability to get everything I have ever wanted, and the lavish gifts from men who knew they would never marry me. They were beneath me.

Now I am the lowest of the lows. I am a bride bartered off. I am a daughter forgotten by a father. I am a bird who does not know where to fly. 

He does not understand.

He does not care. 

“Wear the red one,” He says to me once more and stands up. He grabs his fedora from the coat rack and dips out of the door. It is as though he was never here at all. I am left only with the phantom of a husband. He is the ghost of my puppeteer, and I wait for him to come back so that he may pull my strings. 

Days are long and I busy myself with housework. We do not have much furniture or decor. It is tucked away somewhere waiting for the new house, whenever it may come. I want to ask Domenico what it looks like. But I do not let the questions pass my lips. Curiosity has not gotten me far with him. Only stoic obedience has worked, and even that is iffy. I long for a different life. I long for a life full of neighbors and parties and deep friendships. I want my husband to tell me hushed secrets in the nighttime and to have him curl his hands around my own. Sometimes I stare at the window and I wonder what would happen if I was on the other side of it. Would they ever find me? 

Of course they would. I could cross oceans and speak other languages and they would still find me. Once you are family you are in for life. My great grandfather paid with his, as did his son. My father has paid his dues with my life. 

I dream of meadows filled with wildflowers. Domenico is at my side, a smile on his face and his hands wrapped around my shoulders. A child runs around us. She has my dark hair, but her fathers eyes. She is beautiful. She is free. She has seen pyramids and icebergs, tigers and elephants. She has seen the world as a challenge and she will conquer. God, how I want it. 

A glass falls to the floor behind me and snaps me from my fantasy. Domenico is back. 

“Are you okay?” I ask as I bend to pick up the pieces of fractured glass, careful not to cut myself on the jagged edges. He nods but makes no moves to help clean up the mess that he has made. It is only when I slice my finger and a drop of blood makes its way onto the floor does he move. An exhausted sigh leaves him as he takes my hand and pushes it away from the pile. He picks the glass up with no regard to whether it will slice him or not. I am certain he has been cut many times before. Blood is a familiar friend to him. 

“The place looks nice,” He says and the unfamiliar glee builds up in me once more. I could wrap myself in his compliments. 

“Thank you. I was thinking about moving some things around.” I say and he is already dumping the shards into a nearby trash bin and looking around the cramped area. Truthfully, there is nowhere I can move things that they have not already been many times before. There is not enough space for anything truly new. He humors me anyway. 

“What were you thinking?” I cautiously move closer to him and within seconds I am nearly touching his skin. He does not seem to notice. But I do. I notice the warmth of his body, the definition of the muscles in his arms. I note the stubble on his face, neat and dark. I want to build on the hate within me. I want to water it and watch it grow. I want it to grow so large nothing will break it down. But I can’t. 

“I was thinking we could move the sofa closer to the fireplace and the bookshelf closer to the window. That way the books do not smell stale. What do you think?” 

“I think the books will still smell.” He says and I deflate. The moment is gone. 

He lights himself a cigarette with the flame from the fireplace and sits near the window. I know what he is doing. He is thinking of his business, and how it will work for him when his father is no longer the boss. His fingers are itching for control, his mind electrified by the thought of pure power in his grasp. He is not thinking of a field of wildflowers. A whiskey sits in front of him, untouched in its glass. He is deep in thought. I do not clear my throat although the dust itches. I silently move things around him, careful not to interrupt his mind. We all deserve to travel beyond the now. 

“Your father sends his regards,” He says to me suddenly and I am washed over with a wave of anger. I have not spoken to nor seen my father since my wedding. I am the forgotten, and so is he. “As does Lilliana. She will be there tonight.” I nearly clap my hands in excitement. I will not be alone. 

“How is my father?” I ask although I do not care. He has locked me away in a tower. His health is not my concern. 

“Well enough I s’pose.” 

“And his wife?” 

He inhales, exhales, making ribbons out of smoke and drops his eyelids. “She says she’s pregnant.” I nearly choke when he says it. 

“She is trying to take it all.” I nearly scream. With a son comes the kingdoms keys. Domenico will not take over my family. A new boss will come. The peace will dissolve. All of this will have been for nothing. I will have been thrown into the river to drown under the weight of this responsibility. For nothing. 

He is not bothered. 

“Do you not want my family?” I ask him and he shrugs. “Of course not. You did not even want me.” He does not acknowledge my remark. Bitterness swirls through me, it takes over my veins and pumps through my heart. It is in the air I bring into my lungs to feed my brain. I am consumed. I pull the cigarette from his lips and I ignore the look of hatred he gives me. I take one slow, long, drag in and I ignore the burning in my lungs. I have not smoked in so long. The tobacco lines my lungs and calms me. It whispers to me that we have nothing to fear. It is the comfort blanket I need to cry under. 

My eyes close with a new inhale. I dredge myself out of terror. I am fighting this war inside my mind, and I have called a cease fire. My lungs bring in smoke. Hold it, one, two, three, four, exhale. Repeat. I feel the tension roll out of my shoulders, the purse of my lips rolls back into neutrality. I am the color gray once again. The explosions of color I was moments before have gone. And I am just gray.

I ignore the feeling of his eyes upon me and the feeling of his fingertips digging into my hips as he draws me near. I open my eyes to stare at him. He looks at me with a new emotion. One I have not seen before. I would be a fool to think it is respect, but there is an ember there that begins to light and I wonder if maybe the hatred within him wanes a little as well.

“I told you we are not equals.” He says, his voice is husky. The air of anger from this morning is not there. I wonder what it is, but I do not have time to think on it as his hands release me. The imprints on my hips still burn and I nearly beg for him to place them back. I want to feel his fingers upon my flesh. 

He removes the cigarette from my hand and snuffs it out on the table.

“Sit,” He commands.

The chair is lumpy and it hurts my back but I do not show discomfort as we maintain eye contact. I am in a new land with him and I am fearful that any movement may shut it off to me. Several minutes pass and we do not speak. We merely look at one another with new eyes. He makes no reach for me, nor I him. But it is there between us. The rope tethering two souls. Ring to ring, heart to heart. It is there, and I have never seen it before. It is not gray and melancholy. It is green and red and blue, the sky and earth all wrapped up into one. I do not bury my hatred. Nor do I invite in love. But for the first time I see we are more than strangers,

“Name it,” He finally breaths and I look at him, confused. “You said you would listen for a price. Name it.” I am taken aback. 

He is a business man. He knows nothing is free. And I know that payments are not always made. I stand and slink my way over to him. In a move of either bravery or sheer recklessness I drape my legs over him until I am sitting on his lap, our eyes never leaving one another. I can see the hunger within him. I can see distaste, and frustration, loathing, and lust. He is a man of many layers. 

I draw him to me, until his beard touches my skin, his lips barely gracing my neck. His fingers once again go to my hips as though they had never left and he yanks, crashing his hips into mine in a force no man has ever done before. My breathing picks up. 

I draw my lips to his ears and wrap my hands in his hair and pull it. He snarls at me and I grind my hips against him once more. 

“My price, dear husband is equality.” 

In an instant he shoves me and I nearly topple to the floor. My bravado is gone. I am once more a cowering animal, begging not to be prey. But he does not make a move to hurt me. Instead he drinks the neglected whiskey and returns to staring out the window. 

“You will get equality, dear wife, when you earn it.”