Page 109 of In Ruins
I walk out of the ballroom with purpose in my stride, heading right for my father’s office. I open and then shut the door with a deliberate click, behind me.
“I don’t recall the two of you being invited to this party,” I say in a calm and controlled voice, walking over to and taking a seatbehind my father’s desk, the two of them already sitting on the chairs in front of it.
I look straight at Salvatore and Bernardo with nothing but a cold and indifferent expression on my face. Something flickers in both their eyes—a look of irritation or hate, even, because I’m pretty sure these two fuckers hate me and wish they could kill me.
The silence stretches between us, thick and heavy as I wait for them to say what they came here to say. I just keep sitting here, looking bored and uninterested, which has both of them looking like they’re about to blow a gasket.
“You married my daughter!” Bernardo finally seethes.
“Yes. What does that have to do with you?” I ask, like I don’t have a care in the world.
“You piece of shit! Do you have any idea how this makes me look?” he yells, his face red from anger. I hope he doesn’t have a heart attack or something with the way he’s looking right now. Actually, I do hope he suffers from one.
“I do,” I reply, matter-of-factly.
“And yet you did it anyway!” he snarls.
“Yes,” I say, watching as his jaw tightens at my honesty.
“How dare you marry her when she was promised to me! She was my fiancée!” Salvatore whines, angrily.
“You’re so fucking arrogant that you thought you could take my daughter without facing any consequences?” Bernardo spits.
“I had my reasons,” I tell him. Just then, the office door opens, and my father strolls into the room.
“Am I interrupting something?” he questions.
“No,” I say, just as the two of them answer, “Yes.”
“Well then, I guess I’ll just stay,” my father says as he comes to stand beside me. No matter what, he always has my back.
“What was your reason?” Salvatore asks, getting back to the conversation we were having before my father walked in.
“You better let me know because right now all I can see is a stupid man who thought he could take something that belongs to me and walk away with it,” Bernardo snaps.
“Bernardo threw her away and left her in a convent. I mean, the rules always say finders’ keepers…” My words hang there for a few seconds before Bernardo opens his mouth again.
“That’s not how shit in our world works!” Salvatore snaps. “She was fucking promised to me, and you stole her!”
“So, you, the great Enzo Andretti…” Bernardo sneers. “Is perfectly fine raising her bastard child?”
“Did she tell you who the father is?” I ask, conversationally, like it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I just want to make sure that he still doesn’t know the truth.
“No. The bitch doesn’t know who it is. Said it was a hookup with a random piece of shit. So, your wife is a whore who spreads her legs for anyone!”
“I don’t care. And yes, I’ll raise her child,” I say, shrugging because I’m not going to be the one to tell him it’s my child she’s carrying. He can continue to live the rest of his miserable life not knowing.
“Divorce her!” Bernardo demands.
“No. She’s legally my wife. And as you know, the only way out of a marriage in our world is death,” I remind him.
“Then I’m going to kill her!” he bellows, and that snaps the remaining civility I have left in me.
“Get the fuck out and don’t ever come back here,” I say, my voice low and deadly.
“You’re going to regret this!” Salvatore snaps, as both of them get up and walk out of the office.
“You okay, son?” my father asks when it’s just the two of us left in the room.
