16

Gabriella

I took my time drinking the wine my mother has offered me. She looks agitated seating on the other couch while I was busy looking around. This is the first time I have stepped foot inside of Santoro’s mansion after I was sold to Giovanni.

My mother made sure I was properly dispatched after they get what they want. With Giovanni’s power and influence, they can live in peace. But people with sins don’t live in peace. They like to pretend that everything is going well. Live each day plastering fake tranquility. Walking each street with a pretentious glare of denial of what they had done. No one is truly pure in nature. Everyone is hiding. From the world. Sometimes, from themselves.

“ Does your husband know you are spending the night here?” My mother, Felicia, asked me.

Maybe it was the cold that made her voice tremble but it didn’t make sense to me. She was never a loving mother who would ask me anything. I lived a life where I was given everything. Except the attention of my