Page 101 of Souls and Sorrows

I wait a couple of seconds with my arms crossed, my patience thinning the longer she makes me stand there without an answer. Just keeps sucking on her cigarette, blowing smoke up into the air like tiny storm clouds.

The same clouds I remember from when I was a kid. When she’d fray the ribbons on my pointe shoes or light up after sex. The grays always looked the same—dark and impenetrable and thick with a sadness that always seemed ready to spill.

They still look like that, I realize, but now, they’re ready to burst.

I stalk around the sofa, sliding a finger along one of the bookshelves framing the fireplace. It catches on a little glass butterfly, and I flick my wrist, watching it glide from the shelf and shatter on the floor.

Mamma’s startled shout rings through the air. “Oh, good going, Ariana. You and your goddamn butter fingers never could—”

Another figurine, this one a crystal ballerina, mimics the butterfly’s descent, crashing and exploding on impact.

“I will break everything you own,” I tell her, adding another little glass piece to the pile and then a set of votive candles. Glass litters the floor, and I step right on top of it, reveling in the crunch and the way it makes her wince. “Unless you tell me what you did.”

She white-knuckles the armrests of her chair, and I can tell she wishes she had the strength to get up and throw me across the room.

Not so fun when you’re the weak one, is it?

Picking up a fire iron from the stand on the mantel, I grip it with both hands and swing it over my head, pitching forward in a perfect arc, sending the coffee table flying into a million little pieces. Mamma screams, and it’s like music to my fucking ears.

“God, what happened to you?” she spits out, evil bleeding through her dark eyes. “You weren’t like this when you were a girl. That husband of yours has fucked you up.”

“The only thing he’s done is care about me. If that’s all it took to change me, how fucked must I have been before?”

She snorts. “Please, you think he cares for you? He’s aman, carina. What have I always told you? They will do nothing but disappoint.”

I just shake my head. It’s not like she knows him.

“Oh, I’m sure the things he says sound nice. That he loves you and he’ll take care of you and never let anyone hurt you.” She points a finger at me. “News flash: they all say that, so they can be the ones who destroy you. They’remonsters, Ariana. Greedy, selfish monsters who will chew you up and spit you out and not give a shit when you’re a broken mess, lying on the floor, begging someone to end your suffering.”

My heart aches as I listen to her. I feel that familiar yearning that I thought died with Papà, something erasing my memories of all the horrible things she did to me and accepting on a more basic level that, no matter what, she’s still my mom.

And you’re supposed to trust your parents, right? After all, they’ve done this before.

She was me once upon a time. An idealistic kid trying to weather a woman’s grief.

The difference though is, she grew up and mimicked her demons.

I became a different monster entirely.

“Tell me, Ariana, when he fucks you at night, does he tell you he loves you after?” Mamma smiles, sadistic and wretched. “I know how much you enjoyed it when I did.”

This time, when I swing, I purposely miss another piece of furniture, instead going low and taking out one of her ankles. Her ensuing squeal of agony zips through me like a bolt of lightning, and I wind up for another.

“Fun fact:Kaltaught me how to break bone with minimal effort.”

I cock my head to the side, seeing if she takes the lie. Kal hasn’t taught me shit, but still. It gets under her skin, knowing he’s still out there, living his life, while she’s cooped up in this tiny apartment, wasting away.

It kills her, knowing she didn’t ruin us like she’d wanted.

Even now, she’ll rot in her jealousy.

Tears pour down her sallow face, and I stand there, waiting for remorse to wash through me. Waiting for the age-old guilt to push through and make me apologize for things that aren’t my fault.

But it doesn’t. I watch her sob, cradling her rapidly discoloring ankle in one hand, and feel absolutely nothing.

“Ididn’t do anything,” she finally manages to choke out, hunched over in the chair. “Your father had certain protocols in place that would erase Ricci Inc. from the global map and market, if the time ever arose.”

“You signed it over to Cash though. So, wouldn’t any of Papà’s orders have been nullified?”

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