Page 6 of Devil's Vows
They won’t hesitate to kill Chiara to get to me. She can’t know anything, and the last thing I can do is leave with her. It’s not safe for people to know me or be around me, and I’ve known this for a long time.
My heart is slowly breaking because I’ll never see her again and I can’t even say goodbye properly.
“I can’t come with you, Chiara. Not tonight, at least,” I whisper, my throat tight. “I— I need to sit it out here, see what happens.”
She stares at me and bites her lip, then chews it, harder and harder as we both contain our tears. She puts my book back on the desk with a sniff. “Fuck it. I knew it. All the same, I had to give it a shot.”
“And I will always be grateful for you…that you came for me.” She has no idea the risk she took coming here tonight, totally selfless.
“I’m not surprised, though, so I came prepared.” She winks at me, emotions back under control as she reaches under her wimple and pulls out a stack of crumpled pages. “I brought you some hot men to help with selfcare while you sit it out.”
I crack a giggle between my choked sobs. “You know I don’t do that.”
But my eyes glue to the images of sweaty, bare-chested men she’s spreading over the bed. I bet they’re from the same sports magazine she passed me pages from for inspiration for my six princes.
“Whatever. At least one of us is getting a life. I will pray every day that you get the hell out of here and get to fuck some boys to see for yourself what it’s like.”
Such wishful thinking,but I say nothing.
With a wicked, unrepentant grin, she nods toward the roof as she pulls out a packet of cigarettes. “Can we lift the roof tiles just enough to manage a smoke with a view? I must try to get you to take a drag for old time’s sake.”
4
GABI
Mother Lucia fetched me at four this morning. In the quiet before daybreak, we snuck down the stairs to her office and then to her chambers.
I clutch my golden cross necklace that I never take off. Before the other sisters were up for personal prayer, Mother Lucia had led me to a room adjacent to her office, then through a hidden door in a cupboard and into a narrow, claustrophobic passage. I hate it here. Something about it reminds me of waiting in a dark and dank place. Pig stench and squealing.
But I’m here for a reason today. Onwards and upwards. I’m leaving the past behind. Hopefully.
Mostly, I’m digesting what happened in the past twenty-four hours and ruminating about this next phase of my life. There’s only one chance for first impressions. Dominic Scalera is the first blood relation I get to meet in my twenty-two years. I’m a clean slate to these people. My brothers don’t need to know about my scars and scratches, or how many times I’ve tried to erase them. I need to go in looking innocent and pure, but with eyes wide open, hiding myself from them. My brothers can never know—what they don’t know can’t hurt them.
Rule number two for surviving in my world: never step out of character.
I don’t need to slip a mask on; I’ve been wearing one for years. I don’t need to play a role; I’ve been acting forever, molding to my environment, being what I need to be to survive: an innocent convent girl who knows nothing of the real world. Serving only in God’s name, in whichever way He deems fit.
An innocent convent girl is what they want and expect, and this is what they will get until I find a way to freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from this convent loopmy anointed groomknows I’m trapped in, like an electric toy train, always running the same circuit—it’s only a matter of time before he finds me parked at some station where he will catch up with me and derail me forever.
I try to eavesdrop as Mother Lucia goes about her day as if I’m not there at all, meeting with other sisters, signing documents, but the time for Dominic Scalera’s appointment draws near. Glancing through the peephole in this painting of Christ on the Cross in her office, I watch how she quiets down, prays, her fingers running the rosary, her lips muttering.
When the old telephone on her desk rings, I jump.
“Yes, yes,” she answers. “See them in.” As she puts the phone down, she shoots me a barely perceptible glance and nods.
A long stretch of quiet follows. I inhale and exhale slowly, but nothing unspools the coil in my stomach. I focus on the dust motes dancing in the colored sunbeams falling through the stained-glass window behind her desk and breathe in the familiar scent of ancient parchment, wood oil, and beeswax woven together in a mix I callConvent Cologne. I bet I’ll miss this scent.
Don’t take root here, cara, Chiara’s voice echoes in my head,this old-church smell will start clinging to you, too.
I smile and just doing so seems to calm me a bit. Chiara wasthe perfect stabilizer for my shredded nerves last night and a stark reminder that, irrespective of Randazzo and his legacy, irrespective of my new-found family, I wanted to get out of here before I became part of the furniture. I’m gutted her plans for us came to nothing, but I don’t want her to become just another casualty in my quest to get away from Randazzo’s vows.
I’ll miss her. She won’t have any means of finding me after today, and I could never endanger her by seeking her out. I swallow, treasuring the weird dry scratch in my throat from taking two measly drags from her offered cigarette.
A knock on the door, and my heart shoots more adrenaline through my veins. I fist my hands to stop fidgeting as I squint again through the peephole.
A sister opens the door, and a tall, broad-shouldered man, handsome as sin and dressed in a suit with no tie, walks in. There’s a woman behind him, her hand wrapped in his. She’s beautiful with thick blond hair and light eyes that would be the envy of every dark-eyed, dark-haired woman. He is scanning the office already, on high alert, keeping the woman behind his back, protective. His stance saysnothingis going to hurt her, and my heart seems to sink with relief to go pound in my stomach.
There’s no doubt in my mind he is my brother. Dominic Scalera looks just like my biological father from the wedding photo depicting the threesome of this mess: Giuliano Scalera, Bianca Randazzo, and her ‘father,’ Emilio Randazzo, who became ‘my father.’
