Between The Flames ⚜️Il Paradosso Book Two⚜️

Chapter fifteen

I was the daughter of a prostitute. A mafia's whore.

How ironic of me to say that about her when I had been precisely that during the ten months I had taken up residence in the mansion, if you can call it that.

My mother offered her body around, careless of selling my soul in the process.

Locking in my future even before I was brought into this godforsaken world.

Giving me the life that I hadn't asked for.

And how unfortunate of me to believe that I would become his wife when I was a nobody.

A nothing. A no one.

The only conversation I'd had with Antonio in the last four days was him questioning how I was the day after the incident and me not giving him a proper answer.

I was so ashamed.

He hadn't bothered to check on me after that and I wasn't complaining, for his presence would have only made my predicament the more unbearable.

"It's really beautiful, Emma."

I smiled at my friend's overly excited expression as she swung the phone around, showing her gorgeous wedding gown on the camera while trying to adjust it into the frame.

"Isn't it? I can't believe I'm getting married in three days! It's really happening, Adriana!"

My heart sunk to the floor as she brought the camera back to her face, her eyes glimmering with a dazzle that only one about to marry the man of her dreams could attain.
But was she aware of the lifestyle she was marrying into? Was she really happy? Was she afraid? I had never taken the opportunity to ask her that.

"When are you guys getting here, I really miss you."

Glancing around the empty bedroom, I let out a sigh, turning my attention back to my best friend who was having a conversation with another person off camera.

"We're heading out tomorrow so I'm guessing we'll be there one whole day before the ceremony."

A shuffling noise nearly broke the connection and an indistinctive chattering resounded from Emma's side.

"Is that Luca?" I asked and I heard her giggle as he appeared behind her, his face burying into her hair.

"Yes, it's my soon to be-" another giggle as I heard a muffled laugh.

"Say hi to Adriana."

"Hi, Adriana," he mimicked, raising his face from her neck and I couldn't help but grin at the two love birds that were acting like adolescents.
A sudden sadness swept over me after we ended our call and the utter silence returned in the bedroom.

A nobody.

He's not your father.

She'd lied to me. What mother does that to her own daughter? How could she allow her child to go through so many years of horrific abuse and not at least try to put a stop to it? She'd destroyed me before I'd even seen the light.

I told myself that if I kept repeating that enough times out loud, the guilt trip was going to be easier but so far it hadn't succeeded.

Nothing could take away the feeling of ridicule and humiliation.

***

Emma and Luca's wedding was nothing short of a fairy-tale.
Raising my eyes up to look at the fourteenth-century Duomo that gave me the creeps with its gothic like sharp gables and crowding of spire pinnacles into the sky, I felt slightly dizzy before stepping into the enormous cathedral.