Two

I quickly scanned the room, searching everyone’s expressions. Firstly Sal, then his mother. Both their expressions were as stoic as ever. My eyes trailed to his brother who bent his head down and fixed his eyes to the ground.

The rest of the men in the room either avoided my gaze or stared at the blanket covering my body. They didn’t need to imagine what lay underneath the blanket, they had seen everything on the large screen.

My gaze sharply returned to Sal and I didn’t know whether to yell at him or hit him. Considering who he was and the fact that every single person in the room at that point was a cold blooded murderer, I chose the safer option.

“Salvatore!”

He yawned and rolled his eyes before shifting them towards my direction. “What?”

“How could you? Why did you—what is wrong with you!?” The tears now rolled freely down my face.

“What is wrong with me?” Sal replied as though my question made absolutely no sense to him.

“Exactly, what is wrong with you!? Because you must be sick in your head to have—”

“Quiet!” Sal’s mother—Allegra Rossi—who was also La Donna of the Sicilian mafia spoke, her voice ringing out and chilling me enough to stop my rant.

She turned to Sal, a frown marring her beautiful face. “I blame your father for bringing this insolent girl into this house. I told him not to but he never listens to me. He just couldn’t shut up about how loyal her father had been to him, like it was such a big deal. Even dogs can be loyal.”

Her words made my eyes sting more. My father had literally sacrificed his life to save her husband and now she was comparing him to a dog.

What made my heart ache the most was Sal’s silence. The Sal I knew before I left for university couldn’t bear to see tears in my eyes and now he was the cause of those tears.

“Can we continue with our meeting?” Sal asked, glancing at his Rolex watch. “I have something urgent to attend to in an hour.”

And just like that, they returned to their conversation like I wasn’t even in the room. I stood there until my legs hurt before I broke out of my disbelief and stumbled away.

I collapsed on the bed the moment I made it to Sal’s room. It was like a dam broke and tears flooded down my cheeks. I cried until my eyes hurt.

I couldn’t place my hand on what exactly went wrong. After all these years, I thought I would be happy again when it was time to come back and get married to Sal like it had been planned for years.

I never expected things to have gone so sour between us that he would be the cause of my tears two days into our marriage. I did notice his behavior was a bit odd when I returned.

I had expected him to be waiting at the door, like he used to when we were younger, and immediately pull me into an embrace when he saw me. What I hadn’t expected was that he wouldn’t even be in the house.

I waved it off then, thinking he wasn’t aware of my return. But it should have been evident when I didn’t see him at all until the engagement day. Even on that day, I noticed his replies were mostly single words whenever I tried to start up a conversation or he just blanked me entirely but I still came up with excuses for his behavior.

Perhaps he was just overwhelmed by the wedding preparations. But I was wrong.

I remained on the bed for a long time, ruminating over what happened. I only got up eventually because I needed to shower.

I scrubbed my body like it would wash away the filth I felt and I cried like it would take away the pain in my chest. After showering, I returned to the room not knowing what to do. I decided to speak to Sal about it when he was back.

So I stayed and waited for him, watching the time go by. He didn’t come back that day.