Page 43 of Ti Amo

“Franco?”

Slipping on his leather ankle boots while sitting on the edge of the bed he looked up at her smiling “Yes?”

“You’re going toheraren’t you?”

Franco secured his boot, never taking his eyes off Catalina. Slowly he rose. Catalina gathered her courage to have the conversation she’d been avoiding for over a year. “Who is she? I know she exists so don’t deny it.”

Franco sucked in a breath grimacing with impatience. A snide smirk curled his lips. “You don’t know anything,” he said in a soft sympathetic tone. Catalina stood her ground. She folded her arms across her breasts and tossed her chin upward. He would not get away with treating her this way. After all he knew who her brother was.

“Oh, I know plenty.”

“So do I,” Franco chuckled.

“Mi scusi?” Catalina asked.

“You walk around here like some chaste little mafia princess when you’re nothing but a lying conniving slut!” he said. He might as well have struck her because his words left her recoiling back from him. Franco may be cheating on her, but in the two years they’ve been together he never disrespected her. She’d never seen him angry, and even now he behaved like it was all a game. That sly smile to his face, his dark olive black eyes dancing with amusement, he was taking pleasure in taunting her. “What did you call me?” she asked.

Franco sneered. “A whore just like your mother. You think I didn’t know on our wedding night? You think I still don’t know you’re fucking him!”

“You slimy bastard. How dare you say that to me?”

Franco threw his hands up in exasperation. “This is such bullshit. I don’t have time to argue. I’m late.”

“Wait!” she grabbed his arm. He shrugged her off and she slipped. Catalina fell to her backside hard. Never had Franco been so cruel. He’d been cold, indifferent, and absent since their honeymoon, but not cruel. “It’s not true Franco. I’m not sleeping with Domi,” she slipped and gave a name to the accusation. Franco let go a bitter laugh.

“Your mother prostituted herself to become your father’s queen slut and now you do the same while married to me. It is true.Puttana!” He spat on her.

Hurt beyond words, she held to her tears and didn’t let a single one fall. Shaking her head, she refused to cry. “What do you want? If I repulse you so much why stay married to me and pretend? Why not just go?” she shouted at him.

Franco stopped laughing. He glared instead. “Am I not a good husband to you? Don’t I play the role and make you happy? Do I ever question you coming back to my bed stinking of him? Have I ever made any demands on you sexually?”

“I don’t want a marriage like this.”

“Have I not been a good fucking husband?” he shouted at her.

She stared confused and Franco ran his hands through his hair smoothing it back in place. “Your brother gives me whatever I want. My family is pretty well taken care of because of Battaglia and I get to…. well let’s say I’m not missing out on anything. You mess it up and I will expose you. Who do you think Giovanni will side with? The jilted wounded husband whose wife came to his bed as a whore? Or the cunt soiled from the touch of a man he considers a brother?”

Catalina scrambled on her hands and knees and got to her feet. She attacked Franco, hitting and kicking him with everything she had. He threw her off him and then back handed her. The force of his blow knocked her hard into the dresser. Slumping to the ground and holding her face she was unable to catch a breath.

“You hit? I hit back. Bitch. Now clean yourself up. Send the Don my regrets about dinner.”

Catalina closed her eyes and waited for the pain to subside. The agony in her heart would never fade away. She dropped her head, her long ringlets of hair covering her face, she cried.

Mira stared at the phone for several long minutes before she reached for it. Eve could be seen in the other room. Her daughter played on the floor with blocks arranging them in a pattern. Mira kept one eye on her while she dialed. She called his office, his penthouse in Manhattan and then his home in the Bronx before he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Kei?”

“Mira, sweetheart, is that you?”

“Hi.”

The line went silent. Mira inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. I should have called sooner.”

“Are you okay? Is Eve okay?”

“Yes, yes, we’re fine.”

---