“You, also, take it away whenever you want to,” I reply, indirectly meaning my mother again. “Lately, I’m starting to think Bruno had the better idea, Salvatore. So, in answer to your question, I’d rather live a mundane life.”
He mocks me with a heart burst of laughter. “You don’t mean that. You would be nothing without everything I give you. You lack any qualifications, any career aspirations and real-life experiences-”
“I lack real-life experiences?” I ask him back, scoffing as I do so. “I have more real-life experiences than most twenty-four-year-olds, Papà, so don’t ever tell me that. Most girls my age are in a career they love, have their own place, and are madly in love. However, I’m here, living under your control, killing people for you and waiting for my chance at some sort of true love when you so clearly aren’t going to grant it.”
“You had your true love once, and he ruined it,” my father states, fire bursting into his words, aiming to scorch me, but I barely flinch. “Now, he’s back. And you’re only foolish enough to believe he will love you forever. You don’t have forever with him, Bambina. I made sure of that, so stop being a foolish girl, Amelia. Be an Abbiati. I taught you differently. Stop trusting your heart and use what you have learnt by being a part of this family.”
I feel like the fallen angel from Grace. I always believed there was one in every family. There will always be that one child who stumbled one too many times from the right path and ended up as the disappointment of a lifetime. I am the Abbiati edition of the faller. I am the epitome of defamation cloaked in layers of disguises. People have assumptions of who I am, but publicly I am the embodiment of power, sensuality, murderess. Privately, I am a much weaker soul.
“Maybe that’s just it,” I begin and look him straight in the eyes, garnering all of my inner strength. “Maybe I’m just not an Abbiati.” My statement makes his hand around my arm tighten, and it only fuels me. “You got rid of her because she was a weaker person than you. So, maybe, you realize it, too. I’m a Romano more than I am an Abbiati.” I brandish my mother’s maiden name at him like some deadly weapon. He always claimed she was never strong enough to be married to a man of his authority, and in the end, he was right – she wasn’t. “You say I look like her, but, apparently, I am her.”
“You will never be like her,” my father argues back, admonishing all of my claims in one. “I won’t ever allow you to be. I will do whatever it takes to make sure I never see that happen. Mark my words.”
“Like what?” I dare him. “What will you do to make sure I never turn out like her?”
Before my father greets me with any verbal response, he tightens his grip further on my arm and yanks me forward so I am staring right into his eyes, trapped in a whirlwind of intent. I can hear his breathing beginning to deepen. Each inhale is now sharp and quickly followed by its exhalation. His jaw begins to clench as he attempts to control his brewing irritation.
“Get the hell off her,” Bruno says, his anger magnifying by the second. In quick succession, my father is yanked away from me, and when I regain my footing, I look around and realize that Bruno has actually thrown our father across the room. “I’ve got nothing to lose where you’re concerned, Salvatore, but I will not tolerate you bullying your own blood. Do what you want to your minions but think before you so much as touch your own flesh and blood.”
Our father laughs, mocking an already volatile man. “My own flesh and blood is mine, and family is a business. I will do whatever it takes to keep it under my control. You knew that before you left, Bruno. You could have had that fine life with that wife of yours and those three grandchildren of mine all whilst being an Abbiati.”
“And risked it on a daily basis?” Bruno snaps back. “I wasn’t going to put her through constant threats that my family, that you, could kill all the chances of a happy future.”
“Yet you left your younger siblings here to suffer it,” our father goads him. “Greedy really, isn’t it, Bruno?” My father is enjoying every second of it. If it didn’t ooze so violently from his tone, his small, yet menacing smirk on his lips says it all. “What happened after you left came as a result of you leaving.”
I watch Bruno’s anger pique and boil over, and I step in. My brothers know no way to calm Bruno down, but I do. I’m the only, other than his wife, who he will listen to. “Bruno,” I mutter, pulling him back, hoping to deflect his anger. I don’t want him to do something to risk his life with Allana. “Walk it off.”
He walks off, shaking the tension out of fists. I watch him leave the room, hands coursing over his head in a bid to calm himself fully.
“That boy needs to learn some respect,” my father speaks, straightening his collar out.