Chapter 7

• Sofia’s POV
• Luca had asked me to sleep which my over analyzing mind had broken down into multiple meanings even though it only had one actual meaning. I had hoped he wouldn’t find me attractive, so he wouldn’t have to take me against my will because there was no way I’d ever consent to…
• Was the word ‘consent’ even available in the vocabularies of the men in the mafia?
• There was no way my mind could even be relaxed enough to the point of me falling asleep, that fact was sparkling clear in my head. I puffed out a slow breath, not wanting to make unnecessary sound since I was supposed to be sleeping like an obedient wife like I was asked to.
• The lights suddenly got turned off and i sucked in a harsh, audible breath before widening my eyes and slapping my hand over my mouth in the next second. The feeling of the bed dipping made my heart pound even harder and faster against my chest and I inched towards the edge of the bed until I was lying on the very tip, any further and I’d find myself on the floor.
• I stared into the darkness and waited, and waited.
• Nothing happened, not a sound was heard in the room and had I not felt the bed dip beside me and the sound of a head pressing into a pillow, I might have been able to convince myself that I was the only one alone in the room. But that wasn’t the case, Luca was most definitely lying on the other side of the bed and if he was already asleep or laying awake and planning to pounce on me was totally up to me.
• Time went by, but I was still awake. The air conditioner started to make me shiver and I carefully pulled my robe against my neck and curled into myself even more, wishing for nothing more than to slip beneath a warm blanket.
• My mouth twisted to the side as the thoughts of my parent house, my former home, slowly started to fill my head, I miss home.
• I’d have been fast asleep by this time if I wasn’t buried in my blankets reading one of my books. Speaking of which, I wonder how I was going to survive life without that bit of my life that was one of the things that kept me sane till date. My mind drifted off to my brother, Angelo. The angry expression he wore when I got announced as Luca’s wife was still printed boldly in my head, I could remember the last few words we exchanged today.
• I was called to dance with my brother and we barely spoke until when the dance was almost over. He just loosely held me in his arms and moved me along with him until I whispered his name and my voice cracked along the line due to the tears threatening to spill over my cheeks.
• “Who’s going to protect you from him, Sofia?” He had then asked on a whisper which dropped with so much pain and sadness, the angry expression that had been on his face since the start of the day was gone and it in was a dejected, saddening expression which I had a feeling would be perfectly mirroring mine had I not had make up on.
• “I am going to be fine, Angelo.” I said to him with as much reassurance I could muster and inject into those words, but jokes on me because my voice had cracked again oh those words. He didn’t buy my words for a moment and instead squeezed my wrist and I squeezed his in return immediately.
• “Sofia,” He paused and glanced over my head towards where Luca and I were standing before I had been called to the dance floor, then he continued in a voice and a tune I had never heard him use until that very moment. “I promise to kill him if he hurts you, I swear it to you.”
• I blinked fast to stop the tears that were threatening to slip out as his words laced with so much pain and bitterness hacked at my weakened heart. Angelo was only fifteen for heaven’s sake, but he was suddenly acting all grown up in the twinkle of an eye, the little brother I was used to looking out for and covering up, nowhere to be found.
• “Angelo, please… Please, take care of yourself for me. Promise me” I whispered fiercely as I stared up at him, we were barely moving in a circle anymore and were only moving our feet at this point.
• “I’ll take care of myself, but I can’t promise what I cannot keep. Which was why I promised what I was sure of, like I said, I’ll kill him if he hurts you.”
• I shook my head immediately, “No, Angelo. Don’t think like that, I won’t get hurt. And even if I do get hurt, it won’t be something I cannot handle.”
• “Promise me then.” He challenged and I ducked my head and quickly sniffed back the teardrops threatening to fall out.
• “I… I can’t.”
• “See? I can’t promise to take care of myself either, I don’t even know how to take care of myself without you in the picture.” He continued, his voice getting fiercer and lower as he poured out his heart, with mine weeping dejectedly in reply.
• “I love you, Angelo.” I whispered when the song suddenly stopped.
• “I love you, Sofia,” He replied in a heartbeat, squeezing my fingers tightly and I returned the squeeze with my whole heart in it. We couldn’t hug because it wasn’t reasonable for men in the mafia to show unnecessary, stupid emotions like women does. So we settled for squeezing each other’s fingers one last time before we finally left the dance floor for separate directions.
• My right side was starting to hurt and slowly go numb from laying in a particular spot for hours but I was too scared to turn around on the bed. This side of the bed was the part I detest the most, I preferred lying on my left hand side, but since I was on the left side of the bed, I’d have to face the inside of the bed if I want to sleep on my right hand side– and risk brushing my body with Luca’s, or just facing his direction in particular.
• I pressed my head into the pillow and breathed out a long sigh, my bladder was starting to fill up and I’d be pressed to empty it any moment from now, which means I was going to have to get up from the bed…
• Ugh, my life is so shitty.
• I curled into myself even more and tried to imagine how my life was going to look now that I was officially a wife. Would I have to start acting all mature like how a wife was supposed to? Was Luca going to want to put a baby in me immediately? Or was he going to wait?
• I stretched out my cramped legs and puffed out a slow sigh before tugging my robe around me even more, to shield my arms and shoulders from the cold air blowing around in the room.
• Different thoughts continued to flood into my mind and my mind kept drifting from one thing to the other until the whole thoughts became jumbled at a point. I blinked my eyes a couple to blink the sleep off the moment I realized that I was dozing off.
• The bed suddenly dipped beside me and I jolted fearfully and gripped the sheets beneath my pillow as different dreadful thoughts started to flood my head. I felt Luca get off the bed and after a few seconds, the bathroom door got pulled open, letting a flood of light into the dark room for a fleeting second before it got quietly closed.
• My breath finally whooshed out loudly and without any hitch for the first time since I got on the bed beside him last night. I was still too scared and frozen with fright to think about turning my head around and glancing into his side of the bed.
• I prayed my fast beating heartbeat which was echoing loudly in my head wasn’t sounding loudly around the whole room because I was supposed to be asleep and not still awake with so many thoughts floating around in my head.
• I squeezed the sheets and curled into myself even more as the bathroom door got pulled open once again, spilling a ray of bright light into the room which only lasted for a few seconds before the whole room got plunged into darkness. The other side of the bed dipped and I instinctively shifted towards the very edge of the bed again, my whole body pulled tight and my heart racing fast.
• I waited and waited, expecting the worst.
• Once nothing happened again, I was able to start breathing more fully after a while, unlike how I was only taking in tiny breaths while waiting for Luca to pounce.
• I started thinking about different things again, and again. Slightly moving my legs forward to take out the numbness that was starting to spread out. My thoughts started to jumble up and blend into each other confusingly at a point, I tried to sort the thoughts out and figure out which one was which, but they kept mixing up and blending into each other until I finally fell asleep, my fingers still clutching the sheets beneath my pillow tightly.
• ******
• When I slowly came back to consciousness, I refused to peel my eyes open until after waiting a few minutes for some unknown reason. My heart was pounding against the walls of my chest as I slowly blinked my eyes open.
• The first thing I did was to slowly turn my head around on the pillow to check the other side of the bed. The empty spot I was greeted made a harsh, relived breath whoosh out of my mouth. I fell back against my pillow and dragged in a long breath as everything started to register in my head.
• I cannot believe I have been able to fall asleep.
• I slowly sat up and the loud ringing in my head made me lay my head back against the pillow for a few more minutes before finally lifting into a sitting position, more slowly.
• I pulled open my robe to check if everything was still in place and breathed out a tiny sigh on noticing no difference on how it was now, compared to how it was last night.
• So he ended up not doing a thing to me.
• That’s… new.
• I pushed myself off the bed and quickly headed to the bathroom to offload my bladder which I had been holding onto since the middle of the night. I paused outside the door and held my breath as a thought suddenly popped into my head.
• What if he was currently using the bathroom?
• I waited behind the door for a few slow seconds before lifting my hand and quietly knocking against the door. I repeated the motion a few more times until I was sure the bathroom was empty before making my way into it and carefully shutting it behind me.
• Once I was done offloading my bladder, I stood before the huge mirror in the bathroom and twisted my lips from side to side. Compared to the smaller, rectangular mirror in the bathrooms back at home, the one I was currently staring into was almost floor length, starting from the high roof, and coming down to the ends of my knees.
• I lifted my hands and watched myself in the mirror as I slowly braided my hair into a single piece before tying it up in the middle of my head to keep it from getting soaked in the shower I planned on taking in a few minutes.