by Frankie Love
I give him a defiant look, but he merely laughs. “You may choose not to repent. I’m sure you’re going to hell anyway, cousin dearest.”
A few people in the crowd look away, obviously feeling uncomfortable. And it makes me feel good. They should regret what they’re doing to an innocent girl. My only crime was finding love in a place they deemed wasn’t right.
Fuck them.
Matteo… Rescue me, please.
No sign of him.
“Bring out the whip,” Romeo says dismissively, motioning for his brother to join him as they walk away. “Let’s not dirty our hands with this further, brother.”
I know exactly what he’s doing. He can’t stand watching me get roughed up and bloodied, and he’s not even trying to hide it. I wish I could spit in his face this time and call him a goddamn coward.
I close my eyes tightly, preparing for the worst. The crowd that has gathered to watch my punishment is eerily quiet, and the only sound I hear is footsteps approaching. They’re slow, heavy and they make me tremble. Slowly, I open my eyes.
A masked man is standing in front of me. His face is covered by an animal mask so I can’t see his face.
But I don’t need to. I know who it is. Antonio. The man who kidnapped me. I would recognize that mask anywhere.
I open my mouth to scream, but he is too fast for me. He stuff a rag in my mouth and before I can get away, he’s got me tied to the whipping post. I’m screaming, but the sounds are coming out muffled. Desperate eyes searching for a friendly face in the crowd. No one will meet my eye.
I will die. If he lays a hand on me, he won’t be able to stop. Doesn’t matter how he got here, doesn’t matter whether my cousins know who’s carrying out the punishment. Today, I will die at the hands of the madman who tried to hurt me once before. And Matteo won’t even know what happened.
My wrists ache as he secures them to the post. Without so much as a warning, he rips away my robe, revealing my skin to the biting cold air. I inhale, my breath whizzing and barely there. I think I’m having a panic attack, and nothing has even happened yet. I’m almost falling unconscious, but I can’t quite let the darkness take me, and that is the worst part. If only I could pass out now and not remember this.
Antonio leans down next to me and I scream louder. No one cares.
“Time to play, birdie,” he whispers in my ear. A tear rolls down my cheeks, and his boot kicks me in the ass, sending me to my knees.
I start to pray, one name forever in my thoughts. “Dio salvami,” I keep repeating in my head. “Dio salvami. Dio salvami.”
And then the whip cracks down.
20
Matteo
I am killing myself to get there in time. The man in the car with me is calm and collected, but I am his complete opposite. Knowing Bianca’s about to be punished because of me is sending me to the edge of madness. I need to be next to her. I need to stop this from happening. I need to save her.
“Almost there,” the guard tells me.
“Fucking step on it,” I hiss at him. “Faster. Fucking faster. Go faster, you son of a bitch!”
I’m screaming at that point, but I don’t even give a damn. I need to be with her.
The man in the car with me places his hand on mine. “Calma,” he tells me. “Calma.”
“Fuck you,” I spit at him. “This is all your fault. Your fucking fault!”
He doesn’t respond. His gaze floats to faraway places and I wonder what kind of shit he’s been through. I doubt I’ll ever find out the true story about what happened.
The car finally comes to a stop in front of a large building, and I jump out of it with the wheels still moving. “Hurry the fuck up,” I hiss at the men accompanying me. “Faster, run if you have to, goddamnit.”
They all fall into step behind me and we rush into the building. It’s some sort of warehouse, stacked with crates I’d rather not know the contents of. A large crowd is watching something happening in the middle of the empty space. A man is dealing out lashings on a tiny, crumpled figure on the floor.
I don’t scream.
I fucking roar.
I push them all out of the way and rush towards her. No one tries to stop me. I fall to my knees in front of her and the whip hits me instead of her, tearing a trail across my back. I don’t even feel the sear of the pain. All I see, all there is, is the woman on the floor, her back a torn and bloodied mess.
“Bianca,” I say. “Bianca. Bianca. Look at me, princess. Look at me.”
Her body is limp in my arms and I howl at the top of my lungs. She can’t be gone. She can’t be taken away from me just like that. I lift her up in my arms and cradle her lifeless body to my chest.
“I will kill you,” I scream at the silent crowd. “I will kill every single fucking one of you.”
Romeo steps forward, his face ashen. “We couldn’t stop him,” he barely manages to get out. “We couldn’t stop him once he started going.”
“Stop who?” I demand, rage building up inside me.
“The man… t-the man we hired to whip her,” Leo finishes for his brother.
“You fucking cowards.” I spit at them. “You fucking scum. Where is he?”
They point into the direction of a back room and I fall to my knees with Bianca in my hands. “Come back,” I beg her lifeless body. “I need you, princess. It’s you and me. You and me, princess, forever. I’m nothing without you. I’m nothing.”
I don’t fucking care that my meltdown is happening in front of the opposing famiglia. All I care about is my girl. My girl, who is so pale and silent in my arms. I scream again. I can’t stop myself. I need to let all this rage out somehow.
I hear someone calling an ambulance on the phone. And then I see the man I brought with me approaching slowly, and I hear everyone in the room take a sharp breath of air.
“This is your goddamn fault,” I tell the man. “Her blood is on your hands, Lorenzo.”
Bianca’s brother stares at his sister’s torn back, and murmurs a prayer. “Kill the man,” he tells me in Italian. “Kill the man who did this to Bianca.”
“And what about her?” I demand to know. “You need to bring her back. You owe it to me. You faked your own death, you bastard. I killed you. I saw you fucking die.”
Lorenzo stares at me. “I will take care of it,” he tells me.
My legs almost give out when he takes Bianca’s body out of my arms. I kiss her cheek tenderly. She’s still breathing. I felt her chest moving when she was in my arms, but the damage to her back is so extensive I don’t know how to fix it. And I need to do just that. Fix her. Make her better. Make her okay.
Lorenzo is immediately surrounded by his family, questions being fired at him. He ignores them all and carries his sister out in his arms. I’m still shocked I found him. Still shocked he didn’t die of my own hand.
When I got the tip that Lorenzo was still alive, I made a plan in my head. I could bring him back, I could save Bianca that way. I would stop the whipping from happening by proving I was worthy of her love. I’d bring her brother back from the dead.
I found Lorenzo in a sleazy motel. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on. Pointed a gun at me until I told him daddy Da Costa passed away. After that, everything changed. He came with me willingly, eager to save his sister. I might never know the full story there. All I know is he faked his death to escape something… and he even had his killer fooled.
I risk one last look at Bianca, letting the image of her torn up skin fuel me with rage. With an animalistic growl, I head for the back room, two steps at a time.
I walk into the room like a fucking hurricane. Heart pounding, fists ready to split the skull of the man who did this. He’s sitting in front of a large mirror. The only two things in the room beside him are a big, cracked silver mirror, and the chair he’s sitting on.
“Welcome,” the man tells me. His voice is almost comical, like he’s welcoming me to an attraction in the circus. “Welcome, Matteo. Wel
come to the final game!”
I stare at his reflection in the mirror. He’s wearing the fucking mask I got him. The fucking mask that was supposed to hide his identity from Bianca.
Antonio.
“You fucking bastard,” I spit at him.
“Yes,” he laughs, pulling the mask off. His one remaining eye stares at me with intense hatred. I never told Bianca I took his right eyeball. I gouged it out when we saved her. I’m pleased to see him without it.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” I hiss at him.
“Miracles happen.” He grins at me. This is a fucking game of cat and mouse. He knows he’s going to die. He’s fucking getting off on this. And I don’t fucking care how he got here. How he ended up being the one hurting Bianca. All I care about is chopping him to pieces.
I lunge for him, grabbing him by his hair and slamming his face into the mirror. The glass shatters into a thousand little pieces, but Antonio merely laughs.
“You were a friend,” I tell him as I bash his head in. “You were my friend.”
He’s laughing, spitting out blood. He’s insane. So fucking insane. He dodges several of my punches and before I can stop him, he’s out of the room. I follow him out of the room and into the main area of the warehouse. I’m fucking screaming, needing his blood.
I hunt him like a fucking wolf. The crowd separates for us as I come after Antonio. They all start screaming, shouting Bianca’s name and asking for revenge. I realize they didn’t plan on this. I realize they tried to stop Antonio once he started whipping her, but they couldn’t. Now it’s my duty to avenge her.
I come on hard, hitting him repeatedly. But Antonio was trained by the best, just like me. He matches my kicks, he dodges my punches. He’s too much for me. And all I have are my fucking bare hands. But there’s also something deep inside me, the need to draw his blood and avenge my woman.
“Catch me if you can,” Antonio tells me with a crazed grin, and I stare him down like a bloodhound. So fucking close. So fucking close to killing him.
Behind him, the safety of a gun clicks into place. My pupils dilate as I stare at Bianca. She looks like a fucking vision, naked and covered in blood. She’s okay. She’s standing on wobbly legs and she looks pale as fuck, but she’s standing. And she’s aiming a gun at Antonio’s head.
“Time to pay,” she tells him with a shaky voice.
“NO!” I scream, and she startles, looking at me. It’s enough for Antonio to break free and come at me again. But now I’ve seen that my girl is okay, and I need this even more. I will fucking kill this bastard. I don’t care if we were raised together. I don’t give a damn about the code of my famiglia. He will die for what he did to my princess.
I come at him hard.
“Not,” I scream for Bianca. “Worth.” I slam my fist into his nose. “The.” I punch his empty eye socket. “Bullet.”
I ram his head into the wall and Antonio suddenly goes limp.
Bianca falls over, but someone catches her. Her cousin, Leo. He starts saying prayers as my girl’s eyes roll back into her head.
And I spit at the dead body of the man who tried to take her away from me.
21
Bianca
Recovery happens slowly.
The first few days, all I am is pain. Deep, searing, horrible pain in my back and ringing through my entire body. And then, slowly, it ebbs away. It shows me the pleasure of Matteo’s fingers trailing along my healing skin. It shows me the beauty of Cristiano’s laughter. It gives me the miracle of my brother Lorenzo coming back from the dead, even though he won’t speak about it.
Matteo and Cristiano are the ones by my side. Every day, my baby brother brings me drawings. He spends hours talking to me in his broken English, and reading from my childhood books for practice. He’s always there, and we form a bond.
But Matteo is the one that nurses me back to health. He’s the one who spoon feeds me chicken noodle soup, holds me at night when the nightmares come. He’s the one I call when I wake up in a cold sweat. He’s my one and only.
One day, I feel strong enough to get up. I trail over to the sun porch, sitting down in a cloud of pillows Matteo has set up for me. He sits down next to me and takes my hand in his. I briefly wonder how horrible I must look after all I’ve been through, and try to find the answer in Matteo’s eyes. But all I see there is love. A deeper, stronger love than I did before.
This man is my past, present and future.
I tell him as much.
He laughs and shakes his head before his expression grows more solemn. “Bianca...” he says heavily, and I look away, not wanting to meet his eye. I’ve been on the mend for a while now, and I know I have things to attend to. I still refuse to see my brother.
Lorenzo was not the man who Matteo killed. With that knowledge, a huge weight has fallen off my shoulders. But I don’t understand why he placed a double in his place. I don’t understand how he could let an innocent man die in his stead. And I don’t understand what happened with him.
“Let me be,” I whisper. Matteo gently takes my chin in his hands and makes me look at him.
“You need to speak to him.”
“No.”
“Cristiano is asking to see him,” Matteo tells me. My eyes water. I can’t deny a thing to my baby brother. But after all I’ve been through… The madness with Antonio, the punishment with my cousins, my whole family gathering for my humiliating punishment…. I don’t want a part of it, not a single one.
I don’t want to listen to apologies. All I want is to be left alone.
“I will never forgive him,” I tell Matteo. “My brother is dead to me.”
“More dead than when I was supposed to be underground?”
A deep voice interrupts me and I look up to find Lorenzo standing by the door. I get up to leave immediately, but my legs give out. Matteo scoops me up in his arms and places me in his lap. I curl up into his body, needing to get away. But he’s sitting down firmly, and Lorenzo joins him on the loungers.
“Bianca,” my brother says heavily. I refuse to look at him. I don’t give a damn if it makes me seem childish.
“I will speak now,” he says. “I will not tell you the whole truth, and for that, you will resent me. I understand, Bianca. It is my own fault, and I will never forgive myself for all this.”
“Daddy died,” I whisper.
I can hear Lorenzo’s sigh even as I look up at Matteo instead. I can’t face my brother just yet.
“I know,” he says with a heavy voice. “I know he died.”
“You didn’t say goodbye.” I’m trying to hurt him now. I know how close he was with daddy.
“I know.”
“You have a brother,” I tell him. “He wants to meet you. His name is Cristiano.”
“I know.” There’s genuine interest in his voice now. “I should like to meet the boy.”
A long silence follows. Finally, I turn over in Matteo’s lap and glare at my brother. “You left me,” I accuse him. “You left me to fend for myself.”
“I know,” he says. He sounds broken.
“What happened?”
“I can’t tell you,” he says, and I’m about to object, when he raises a finger in the air to stop me. “Yet. I can’t tell you yet. When I can, you will be the first to know.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” I tell him petulantly. “You need to leave.”
“I know,” Lorenzo admits. “I’ll take the boy and go.”
That brings me to my feet in a second, and Matteo rushes after me, keeping my shaky body steady. “What the fuck do you mean?” I want to know.
Lorenzo looks confused. “The boy. Cristiano. I’m taking him to father’s house. He should be raised there, as a memory to our father. As one of the heirs of the Da Costas.”
“No fucking way,” I snap. “He’s my brother, too.”
“Bianca, you’re being fucking unreasonable.” That spark of darkness I’ve come to know over the years appears in Lore
nzo’s eyes again. “I’m taking the boy, and there’s no question about it.”
Matteo holds me steady with a strong arm and steps in front of me. Lorenzo is taller, but Matteo is stronger. He could take him in any fight. “If she says the boy is staying,” he growls at my brother in a low, threatening voice, “he’s staying.”
“Let’s bring out the boy and ask him,” Lorenzo says triumphantly. The prick is so fucking sure of himself, but he has no idea about the bond Cristiano and I have formed over the past few weeks. Matteo grins at him and nods.
“Let’s do that.”
Carole is sent to fetch Cristiano, and we all wait in tense silence until the boy arrives. He looks nervous as he walks out into the garden, and his eyes plead with me to not make him do this. He doesn’t like strangers.
“Hi, Cristiano,” I say with a friendly smile. “Come sit with me.”
He sits down next to me on the lounger, with Lorenzo and Matteo standing next to us. When they’re so close to each other, the family resemblance between my two brothers is uncanny.
I realize I know nothing about Cristiano’s mother and her past with my father… And now I’m curious.
I look at my older brother and find he has tears in his eyes. He’s getting emotional over this. It shocks me – I’ve only ever known Lorenzo to be ruthless.
“This is Lorenzo,” I say gently, pointing towards my older brother. “He’s your big brother.”
“Hello.” Cristiano smile shyly. He’s growing up to be a very polite little boy.
“Hi.” Lorenzo smiles. He kneels down next to Cristiano and looks at him for a long time. “Are you happy here, kid?”
Cristiano ponders for a moment and by heart pounds in anticipation. Finally, he nods. “Yes,” he says in his heavily accented English. “I am happy with Bianca and Matteo.”
Lorenzo nods. “I’d like you to spend some time with me as well,” he tells the child. “Maybe the summer holidays.”
I’m about to object, but Matteo places a firm hand on my shoulder and it shuts me up. It really is the least we can do for my brother. He deserves to be a part of Cristiano’s life as well.
