Page 34 of A Beautiful Crime

And yet he did.

The first tear to fall burned when it hit against my cheek. And then it became a blazing raining inferno.

Perhaps god was punishing me, and my tears burned for my sin of breaking my sacred promise.

I haven’t come to loathe myself as much as I did before the time of my rebirth.

But as I woke in a puddle of my own blood and bile, with tears burned to my face, I loathed myself to the point where I felt as if I was shredding my entire existence. Tearing myself apart atom from atom until all that was left of myself was an empty shell.

Giuseppe followed my command as he waited the exact amount of time before coming down without raising suspicion to assist me.

The only sense I was heightened of at that point was touch, feeling. So when he whispered in a heartbreaking whisper, ‘Dio mio, la mia forte bellezza. Come ha potuto farti questo?’ It had touched my tainted soul. And I knew he had walked upon a gruesome nightmarish sight.

And a part of my heart that still found a way to beat inside the hollow of my chest wanted to shield his eyes from the sight.

But in this world, my world, it is naive to hope for light in the darkness.

Giuseppe was a fool, a kind hearted naive fool to believe that he would’ve seen anything different.

And I was a fool to hope for light after the darkness had fallen.

Giuseppe, may his god bless his kind soul, tended to my wounds to the best of his capabilities.

He tended my back with care.

And although each touch of the cloth used to soak up my blood and the water after to help clean the wound felt like my nerve endings were exploding inside me, it was his gentleness that caused tears to well in my eyes.

But I had already cried enough so I swallowed the sobs that wanted to burst from my throat and pressed back the burning tears.

I don’t know how long it has been since Giuseppe left.

When you experience excruciating pain you are floating between feeling too much and beginning to feel nothing at all.

Reality slips as you descend to the abyss.

The brain, that beautiful organ, can only handle so much before it gives up.

And it feels as if my own is balancing on a trapeze, losing its footing every few steps to only regain its balance.

I wish I could move on my own but the pain is too great. It’s debilitating. Even the slightest shift causes me to almost black out.

But I have to try.

I have to prove to myself that Luca did not break me. That his punishment, his brutal medieval beating of a punishment did not weaken me.

Shifting on the bed I bit down hard on my lower lip until the taste of metallic fills my mouth. My eyes want to pop out of my head with how wide they are. A scream so powerful wants to rip out of my throat. Yet somehow, some way I remain silent. Pushing through the pain, biting down on my lip and swallowing the cries that want to break free I shift myself to the edge of the bed.

And it feels as if I have run a marathon. My body is almost completely depleted of its energy.

But I have the will, the strength inside my mind that forces me to continue when my body physically can’t.

That’s something Luca and papa can never take away from me.

With that strength, with that sheer will I must have inherited from my mamma I lift myself off the bed and plant my feet on the plush rug.

Fire blazes across the expanse of my back as pins and needles shoot their way up and down my spine.

I want to cry out. I want to release a blood curdling scream that will wake all of New York. But I bite down on my tongue until the sensation has gone numb.

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