Page 20 of Runaway in the Mafia
But when the door creaked shut behind me, a sourness coiled in the pit of my stomach. The kitchen was full of family. Sara was getting married, but it felt like it was Lia’s wedding because everyone, I meaneveryone,was here preparing for it. The chaos, the cluster of female voices, laughter, and the odd dirty joke when the aunts turned their backs brought back memories. Of another house in Delhi. Ahennafunction with aunts and cousins, all happy except for one person.Me. Their happiness alone couldn’t carry me through my marriage.
My shoulders slumped. I was exhausted. Physically and mentally. I could have easily gone to bed and snoozed under my covers for a week. But any thought of sneaking away to my bedroom disappeared when a cousin of Lia’s caught sight of me. “Hey, Ahanavero? Come join the fun.” Seven pairs of young eyes came my way from the table. One of them, Lia’s, lit up like a bonfire when she saw me.
“I’ll just take a minute to change and—”
Lia was on the table, seated with her legs crossed and disappointment marked across her face. “But we are working on the centre pieces. You have a good eye for that.”
I sighed because saying no was as futile as walking away from family. “I’ll help out for just a bit. Then I’ll go and change.”
All seven girls cheered so hard I feared they thought I was the leader of the gang. Or they were lazy, and they wanted me to do all the work. Turned out it was the former. The table was littered with flowers, vases, and spilt water. Someone had been clumsy. I didn’t need to see Lia’s wet dress to know it was her. Her impatience knew no end.
“Are these fresh?” I touched a flower. A pretty powder pink rose with velvet petals.
“Yeah, but we are just doing a test with a few vases. So we know how to do it when we are closer to the wedding,” a pretty girl, another cousin, said with a sweet smile on her lips.
“So why are all the vases out?”
She gave a pointed look at Lia, who was grouping the vases in a category only she could fathom. I laughed softly.
“I love your name,” she said.
“Thanks.” I smiled. “You are Chiara, right?”
She giggled. “No, I’m Carina. The youngest.” She was in her late teens or early twenties.
“The youngest in your family?”
“Yes. But also the youngest out of the cousins. Makes sense, you know,” she said with a serious expression on her face. “Papa is the youngest as well.”
“Oh, okay.” So she must be the daughter of Marco, who I had met before. The family was big, but nothing compared to mine. Lia only had three uncles on her father’s side. I had seven. None of whom had thought to ask the bride-to-be if she wanted the wedding. But why would they if my own mother shut me down? My stomach twisted. Betrayal, thick and dark, poisoned my edges.
“Is Orietta coming?” the actual Chiara, whom I had confused with her sister, asked Lia.
“That’s Lia’s eldest sister,” Corina said next to me. The tone in her voice told me there was a story behind it. But I didn’t ask nor care because exhaustion was pulling at me.
I busied myself with the flowers, grouping them and tying them together. The chatter faded into the background. The tension on my shoulders made them slump.
I was happy with my job. They were an international company, so me not speaking Italian hadn’t been a problem. The couple running it trusted me with the graphics and let me take charge of their marketing. It was thrilling to test new things out and have them work out. I should have been elated.
But worry weighed down on me like a crushing weight. Each time I called Papa and lied through my teeth, sourness bit at my soul. Four months ago, it had only edged my heart. Now it had taken over like acid spilling in, and the naivety that I once had leaked out of me like a hole in an air mattress.
And I had been naïve. My naivety had known no end. In my protected world, I had thought I was strong like steel. It only took one blow to my face, a crack to my soul, for me to bend like melted iron. It was all an illusion. I’d never faced reality before.
I ached to be that girl. The Ahana I was before I had been sent away from home. Before they married me to the son of a trusted friend of Papa. The trusted friend who’d hidden truths that Papa to this day didn’t know. Decades of friendship used as a cover to hide vile secrets. It only proved one thing I had learned locked up behind a brick wall in London. No one really knew what happened behind closed doors.
Somewhere between boasting about his son’s million-dollar business and high IQ, he’d forgotten to mention his anger issues. Or about his impotency and the frustration that built up with it. He’d forgotten to tell my father that his son would traumatise me. I’d thought his son was being kind when he didn’t touch me the first night, and when he’d let me be for the six nightsthat followed until we flew to the UK. I’d thought he was being considerate. Turned out he wasn’t. One day, I’d been with him in his home. Alone. Just one single day alone with him, and he violated me. He found me and stuck it in. No preparation. Not even a kiss. I didn’t think I’d ever forget the searing pain or the look in his lucid eyes. Sometimes I still dreamed of, the blood dripping onto the floor.Drip. Drip.Later, when I realised he was impotent, I didn’t want to think what he had done to get his penis erect enough to penetrate me. He’d only done it once, and I’d thought it was my fault. I’d tried to help him, I’d tried to—
“Ahana?”
“Sorry.” My answer was automatic. I frowned at the crushed flowers in my hands.
Mia, Lia’s second uncle’s daughter, giggled. I didn’t remember his name, but he had wandering eyes that I knew. “And Lia said you’d be good at it.”
I sighed. “I must be more tired than I—” my phone pinged, and a message from Amara came in. I didn’t even know if I finished my sentence before I grabbed my phone and sank into the bench.
He called Papa.
Shit. No.Panic crowded my chest as my fingers fumbled to type the words out.
