Darkest Seduction

Aria

TW - SA, DV

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"You look a little pale," Helen remarks as we walk down the hill. 

She came over for us to go on our weekly walks, they're the only things keeping me sane now. I think I'm slowly beginning to lose my mind. 

I hum in response to her statement, I'm not sure what she wants me to say. 

It was winter but we both knew that wasn't why I looked sick. 

Helen starts to cry then, she always seems to cry at some point on these walks. I can never seem to cry. I've cried too much already. 

Cried when I got to the house, cried because I missed Ares, cried when Alejandro pretended to rape me, cried when his friends screamed at me for smashing a glass, cried when he hit me for yelling back at him, cried again when he shot our butler for coughing during our dinner. 

Cry. Cry. Cry. 

I had nothing left now.

"Aria we could run away, we have so much saved up. I'll run away with you." Helen told me, as she looked at me. Her hand reached out to touch my cheek, I winced a little as she skimmed her thumb over the purple bruise. 

"There is not a place on this earth we could hide from our parents Helen, and when Papa finds us he'll kill us," I tell her as she cries harder. 

"It's not fair, you're a shell of the woman you were. So many bruises on your body, Aria..." Helen tells me and I smile sadly. 

There are worse fates to suffer, I suppose. 

"If we tell Ares..." 

"Helen," I say sharply.

"You know he'll help you! Aria he thinks you're happy, he thinks Alejandro doesn't hurt you. If you told him you know he'd save you," Helen tells me, desperately clinging to a way out. 

I know better. 

"I love him, Helen. And if he ruins this marriage he'll have war with two families. I'd be handing him a death sentence, and look at me! He wouldn't want this." I say softly. 

There's nothing Helen could say that I haven't already thought of. I'm getting married in four days. I've been in that house for almost a month. 

Thinking, scheming. I don't see a way out that leaves the people I love alive. So I'll take it. I'll sit in my bedroom and read or clean, go to classes and bake. I'll go to every party and business deal. 

I'll let Alejandro's friends smile and wink and smack my ass, I'll accept the alcohol offered to me. I'll sit through dinners with Alejandro with blood sprayed on my cheek. And I'll take every beating. 

I will suffer to keep everyone safe, that is what a good sister does. And I will not tell Ares a single thing because I could never be the reason he's no longer on this earth. 

For most women getting married in the mafia doesn't end well for them, and I suppose I was one of those girls. I'd already made my peace with that. I hoped Helen would make peace with it one day too. 

"Ares loved you when you were a drug addict, he loved you when you tried to kill him. You honestly think he'd not love you now?" Helen asks me and I shake my head. 

I can't hear about Ares loving me. I never knew if he did or if he was as hopelessly in love with me as I was with him. But it didn't matter because I'd never know now. 

And I'm glad for it. Knowing Ares loved me would surely be the final thing to send me over the edge. 

Me and Helen continued our walk, we talked about stupid things. How our friends were, what TV shows we'd watched. Our favourite books and anything else I could think of.