I should find the worst granny panties in the world to wear on our wedding night. Maybe he won’t be able to get it up and instead seek out one of the many girls he keeps on his roster. That will set the precedence early that I won’t welcome him in my bed.
Could I even set that boundary?
Or would Marco take by force what I deny him? He seems like a man who would take it and enjoy stripping me of my dignity. I throw back the rest of the drink in a couple gulps and set the tumbler on the fireplace mantle. The alcohol burns all the way down my throat and settles deep in my gut, radiating warmth and taking a smidge of the coldness in my bones away.
I return to the bed and wiggle my bra out from under the champagne silk of my slip. No use putting on my nightgown when I can sleep in this. With the whiskey finally working its way through my system, a warmth swirls in my belly and radiates out toward my limbs. It’s like being wrapped in a heated blanket.
Thoughts dip in and out of my brain hazily. I lie back on the bedspread and let the liquor gently lead me into oblivion. Maybe this is why my mother drinks? To numb her of the absurdity called her life.
I can’t imagine after twenty years with Marco what I’ll look like by the end. Spirit broken, and of no more use than to plan parties and entertain his guests. Most of the men in the five families want a trophy wife. There aren’t many daughters in the pedigreed lines that make up our own little world here in Chicago. The sons of these families can take one of the daughters as a wife and have a hundred mistresses on the side. No one cares. The second one of the wives takes a lover, well… I’d seen the grave of one of their wives with my own eyes.
Are their mistresses held to the same standard of conduct? I need to get my brain to shut off. The questions are compounding, and I don’t have any answers. I’m wasting my time thinking about things that don’t matter.
I close my eyes and picture my sister’s face in my mind. Her beautiful silky black hair I always envied. The gentle curve to her brown doe eyes. I can feel her ghost nudging me along, giving me the strength when all I want to do is rip my hair out and scream until someone listens to me. Until someone hears me.
Undoubtedly, no one cares. I’m alone in this. In two days, I will become Mrs. Celeste Gardello. All the dreams I have as a person will be gone. Stripped away to unearth new desires, all of which must center on my husband and his needs. It’s the way things are done, my mother told me after we signed the contracts.
“If you be kind to him, show him that sweet heart of yours, how can he not fall in love with you?” she’d said with her liquor-laced breath and tears swimming in her eyes.
They weren’t tears of joy. She was weeping for me, for my loss.
My mother loves me. But not enough to save me.
No one can save me now, not even myself.
2
Nic
The problem with the five families today… every one of them has gone soft. They consider holding their territory and keeping it tucked tight in their fat fucking fists beneath them. Which is why, when I’m done, I’ll take it all. Every fucking thing will be mine. Every man and woman will bow to me or face death. I don’t make idle threats, and I’m anything but soft. I’ve clawed my way out of hell and back. I’ll make them all pay for their sins.
As for holding my territory… I revel in it. I delight in showing every dickhead who steps into my lane exactly who’s boss. Starting with the three idiots kneeling on the pavement of my parking garage before me.
I sit in front of them on a stool, my trusty Desert Eagle 50AE clutched in my hand, resting on my thigh. With thick cloth bags over their heads, they can’t see the gun. It wasn’t necessary when they had nearly pissed themselves the moment I put them on their knees.
“Do you know why you’re here?” I ask them.
The question is rhetorical because they know why they’re here. Plus, they are all shaking so badly, I doubt any of them are going to volunteer an answer.
They fucked with me. Now they’ll pay the price.
I keep my voice level and calm. An easy trick considering these assholes will be dead in five minutes or less. “Will any of you tell me where the gun cache you hid in my territory is?”