He waits for my reaction, but I don’t have one, except that he’s a psychopath.
“Great story.”
“Ain’t it? So, in that context, I wanted to ask you something. Your opinion or whatever.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out two untied satin bow ties. “You were a pretty stylin’ guy on the outside and it’s like…” He checks his watch. “Yeah, wow, ticktock… I gotta get dressed and I can’t decide… do I go classic black, which always works, or like, since it’ll be the ass crack of dawn, do the white? I know it’s white with a tux before noon, but it’s after Labor Day. And I figure if I wear the black, who’s gonna notice and say, ‘Oh that should be white,’ ‘cos you know these people aren’t the most sophisticated bunch of fucking wackos you ever met, am I right?”
He didn’t come down here for this trash conversation. I need to derail him.
“You should go home to your family, Sergio. Just accept what they give you. Be a soldier or consigliore. Don’t fight so hard to be in charge. Being in charge sucks.”
He laughs politely, looking down at his fashion choices.
“Thanks for the advice. Appreciate it. But see, for all of what I just said about black being the king of defaults or whatever… you have to give the challenger proper consideration.” He holds up the other tie. “The white tie will match her dress.”
A white dress.
Ripped satin. Loose. Streaked in mud. Forced onto her shaking body again. Bloody from the gashes on her fingers.
“You all right, bud?”
A white dress on a bride who belonged to him first.
But mine.
He means some other woman.
He does not.
He’s not talking about a wedding.
He fucking is.
She is mine.
“How?” The rest of the words lie flaccid on my tongue. Arms strong enough to strangle him hang at my sides like dead slabs of meat.
“You put it under the collar and you tie it. I’m not wearing a clip-on to my own wedding, my man. Or did you mean the annulment? That was Massimo’s John Hancock that did it.”
Worse than impotent, I am dickless. Castrated and cauterized. Nothing between my legs but a spark of the flesh that connected her to me.
The white one, obviously.
A man needs to match his woman.
“Fuck it. I’ll just wear the black.”
The last spark left is the first. It put hair on my chest. It dropped my balls. Made me taller. Stronger. That first bit of masculinity, which is dying now, sent me into the world to take it, to own it, to fuck it like a cunt, and it has one last flash it bypasses my brain to use.
I throw the tray with the bowl of lentils at him, but it just hits the glass and makes a mess. He doesn’t even flinch, so I fling myself at the glass, convinced no material thing can stand up to the physics of my thrust. My fists are hard enough to punch through it. I will drop into the hall in a sparkling rain of broken glass and rip Sergio’s throat open like an animal. I will pull his tongue out and knot it, because this last wedding tie will be blood red.
But pain flashes on my fists and my face as I bounce off the glass and fall to the floor with a thup sound and a head full of stars.
When Sergio laughs, I absorb the insult, staring at the ceiling, unable to move. Invalid.
Then he’s gone, and it’s just me with my headache, taking up space—a waste of life.
I can see under the bed where the razor is hidden—pressed between the frame and the mattress. I slide it out. What can I cut with it? With my hand under the bed and away from the camera, I flip it between scarred fingers.
I can wait to find out they’ve cut her life from mine, or I can end this all right now, on my own terms.
Then she’ll be alone, with only my worthless ass to protect her. The choice is unbearable.
CHAPTER 23
SARAH
It’s my wedding day, and I can’t breathe.
With one hand on either side of the window frame, I look down at the post where I taped the note to choof off. There are a few new flyers getting soaked in the rain. No sign of Connor or Remo. This is what it feels like to be cut off from the world.
The sun is rising behind the thick clouds. The city is still dark enough to reflect the hope draining from my face as Denise comes in with a plastic-covered white dress on a hanger.
“Look what I brought!” she chirps. “I think it’ll fit you. I was a little bigger on my wedding day.”
She was pregnant, but not that much. Probably enough to make the dress fit my frame.
Lightning flashes, drowning out the reflections in favor of a color-drained street.
“Thanks.” I push away from the window.
My hair falls out of the towel that held it up. I clutch closed the towel that’s wrapped under my arms. If that comes off too, I’m one step closer to putting on the dress.
“Yours was nicer but…” She doesn’t finish. Thunder cracks like a slap, then rumbles like a snore. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“You get used to it.” She twists the hanger hook and places it on top of the closet molding. “Then you do the wife things and it’s fine.”
Denise has always been resigned to the way things are. It never bothered me before, but I’ve changed. I’m not as pure as the white of the dress she brought, and though it might be close enough to the size of my body, it won’t fit me.
“You know what I’m going to get used to?”
I stop myself from answering my own question.
Dario being free.
She doesn’t need to hear that. She won’t understand that I have to do this for Dario.
“What?” She lifts the plastic from the gown. I remember it well. I helped her make it.
“Having you around.”
She makes an aww sound that matches her expression and holds her arms out for a hug. Her sleeves ride up, revealing a fading bruise on her forearm.
Marco must have woken with a headache.
I hug her and think maybe—from in here—I can help her get rid of that man.
“It’s going to be okay.” She rocks me back and forth. “You’re finally going to have the wedding you were supposed to have.”
I’ll marry Sergio while still sore from Dario. Still wanting him. The insult is delicious, but the taste of my love is already fading on my tongue, and the memory of his touch will disappear with it.
It doesn’t matter as long as he’s locked up, waiting to die. Nothing matters but setting him free.
Denise lets me go. “I’m not supposed to tell you this.” She looks down, taking my hands. “But I want you to make good choices. The only choice I ever had was in my head. I could decide to make the best of it or just die.”
She stops, keeping her head down, and squeezes my hands.
“Denise, just say it.” I assume she’s going to give me some advice about being married to a man who’s not fully right in the head.
She presses her lips together, snorts back her allergies, and shakes her head.
“You’ve lived outside.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “And… Marco says…” A deep breath for courage. “Last night, he said Sergio thinks you’re going to try to run.”