Page 36 of The Sicilian Bastard
I had my eyes on the entire drama unfolding. Agosto approached Rosalina and for a split second, I thought he was going to hit her too.
"I'm sick of that piece of shit disrespecting you in our home. You chose him, but if you don't figure your shit out, I will break the marriage and our alliance." He stalked away.
"Stay here with Rose," Luciano murmured in my ear before he followed behind his brother.
The silence between us was palpable.
"He sounded like a real Don then," Rosalina broke the silence first.
"Who?" I was humoring her at best.
"Agosto, of course."
She shot me a look like I was an idiot.
I knew exactly who she was talking about. I didn't give a shit.
"Why were you and your husband fighting for everyone to see?"
Rosalina let out a sigh and motioned for us to move to another room. I followed behind her and took the chair across the couch she lay on. For a second, I felt like a therapist.
"I'm not sure. We have been through a lot, but our connection is gone. Like it had never been there before. I don't want to be anywhere near him," she confessed.
"Are you blaming him for something?" I mused aloud.
I didn't know anything about them, but I did know people. That level of animosity didn't spring up out of nowhere. It was deep and it came from something.
"Yes and no. On one level, I know it's not his fault, but on another, I can't help but blame him."
"For what?" This situation might not affect me, but it did affect Luciano.
"Losing our baby," she whispered.
If I hadn't been leaning forward, I would've missed what she said entirely. It was like a dirty secret she put out into the universe. She stared at the ceiling. I didn't blame her. I also didn't blame Nicolo. Then again, I wasn't sure what the circumstances were for her losing her baby.
"What about the other women?" She could find catharsis in opening up to someone; that's what I was doing. I would do the same for anyone. I looked at her like she was Ruby and it made it even easier to talk to her.
"I don't even know if there are any. I knew he wasn't getting it from me so he had to be getting it from somewhere."
I frowned at her. "That's not the way it works. You need to open communication with him. Otherwise, you both will be done. Ask yourself something. Do you still love him?"
"Yes," her pain-filled whisper struck me hard in the chest.
"Then fight back. Not with vases, but with words. If words don't work, go back to vases," I joked.
Rosalina shot me a watery laugh. That was what I was going for. I hoped that she and her husband worked it out. We sat in companionable silence waiting for the men to come back down. We both had things on our minds. I wondered when Luciano and I became serious. It was like one minute, I hated him and the next, I didn't want to be without him. I thought I was suffering from something called Stockholm Syndrome. Except when I thought of Luciano, I remember the moments when he could be sweet. The fact that I was no longer stuck in that room alone. The freedom he gave me. I also remembered I had no one else. That hit hard. Was I with Luciano because I wanted to be or because I had no one else to lean on? I wasn't sure of the answer. The fact that I didn't know right away filled me with dread.
