Page 2 of The Mafia's Bride
Under me, my vision clears just enough to see splatters of blood. Of a torn white shirt and ripped blue pajama bottoms. My chest is charcoal black, my hands nothing more than dripping flesh, bits of bone and singed, flappingskin.
The sight doesn’t register into my muddled, pain-filled brain.
Nico grabs my face gently, running soothing thumbs over my furrowed brows, keeping my eyes up. Away from the gore.
I cough again, body failing, fight draining as his strong arms grab me. “Zio, I need to see them. Mama and Annalise? They’re out here. I know?—”
“Hush, piccolo,” Nico calms, gently, lowering my upper body to the ground. His touch is feather light now, a drifting of fingers and chaste taps on my cheek.
Worried eyes peer down at me, but no words escape my flapping mouth. I don’t know what he sees when he looks, but it’s not good. He’s haunted, in shock, sickened. Because of howIlook.
Nico keeps talking, his voice a low murmur of comfort I can’t quite make out. Everything’s starting to blur, slipping out of focus. I try to turn my head, to look to the left, to find my mother and sister. But my head doesn’t move, my body slowly sinking deeper into the soft grass. Even the pain is starting to drift away.
I try to say something, anything, to ask again where my family is, but Nico shakes his head, hushing me. “Rest, my boy. Rest. Everything will be better in the morning.”
I still want to look, to fight, to move. I want my mother’s soft touch; the smell of roses and jasmine, and I want to hear Annalise’s darling laugh. I need to make sure they’re okay, that they survived.
My body doesn’t agree. Soon, my eyes give into the pull of sleep and I drift away to the sounds of sirens in the distance.
1
SLOANE
Idon’t have many memories from when I was little.
My mother died when I was only five and the only things I knew about her were that I inherited her red hair and her fashion sense. I heard the stories growing up of her garden parties in the middle of the summer, how people would show up in their best outfits just to be praised by her. Her word could make or break someone in their catty circle.
I don’t remember her voice or the feel of her hug. Those little things children cling to when the world turns dark, I never had them. There were times at night, right before sleep took me, that I would imagine someone coming in to tuck me into my large bed, press lips to my forehead and I would drift to sleep, silently imagining it was my mother giving me the strength to fight off the nightmares.
As I got older, those fantasies disappeared. Just like she did.
Because if my mother had been there, if she had lived, maybe she would have prevented so much from happening. Happening to me.
Staring down at the hole in the ground, the wet Boston weather turning the sky grey and heavy, I feel the weight of the atmosphere on my shoulders. Sadness and anticipation, maybe even a few coils of anger all lash into my gut. My dark umbrella fights off the peltingrain, the priest in front of me saying somber prayers of life and death and salvation, begging whoever is above to listen, but I don’t hear it. I can’t take my eyes off the casket, hovering over the ground.
My father, Ferguson O’Brien, lies before me and I can’t cry.
Shifting, I shake out my feet, the Grosgrain black heels sinking into the mud. I keep my eyes down, adjust the classic black pillbox hat and matching veil and fight off a shudder as a frigid burst of air tries to take my umbrella away.
Ferguson O’Brien. He was a giant among men, with a classic Irish temper, muddy brown eyes and dark locks that had turned grey in his age. His accent, still tinged with his homeland, always came through harsher when he was angry.
Which was the only time I talked to him.
My father and I had a complicated relationship. I wasn’t his favorite—that role belonged to my older sister, Collins. I wasn’t the eldest, and therefore his heir, like my oldest sister, Maeve. And I wasn’t his only boy, like my younger brother, Briar.
I was the middle child, the one with a temper to rival his own, who couldn’t do anything right and who he reminded constantly of that fact. I couldn’t finish college like he wanted, I couldn’t drive my car without crashing it, I couldn’t do anything in public without screwing up and getting the tabloids’ attention.
I also couldn’t just like men, like he wanted. Like a good Irish man, my father hated knowing his daughter— the one he proudly boasted had inherited his late wife’s hair—was bisexual. He hated that part of me and as the years went on, he hated mebecauseof it.
Unfortunately, no one would see that part of our relationship. Only Maeve knew my father would scream and yell at me for screwing up—for being different in his eyes. For being such a sinful disaster. The verbal berating, the disgusted looks. But only I knew how those mallet sized hands would feel as his anger would boil over, resulting in various slaps and hits shown behind closed doors.
I shudder, thinking of all the times he would hit me, slap me for my sass or my incompetence. One time, for a very compromising picture that was leaked to the press. I couldn’t leave the house for aweek, my black eyes too telling that if I went out into public, everyone would know what happened.
I never questioned why the hits stopped. Just one day they did. And I was grateful for it.
Although, I have to admit, the abuse was better than the silence. Ferguson gave me the silent treatment most of my life, only yelling if I did something really stupid, keeping me in the dark about our life—or maybe I reminded him too much of my mother that he couldn’t bear to look at me—and if anything, that was worse than the hits.
When I learned he died, I thought I’d be able to shed a few tears. He was my father, he provided a home over my head, an education, the best clothing and jewelry. But my eyes have stayed dry.
