21. STAR-CROSSED
SILVINA
“What do you think, pretty Silvina?” John’s voice is buttery, the way it’s been since I chose the right shoes. He’s removed my blindfold, and I blink, looking around. We’re in a large, circular room with a domed ceiling that feels a mile high.
The space is bathed in a blue darkness lit up by overhead stars. Behind us, three rows of theater-style auditorium seats create a half circle. At the front, a long, rectangular control desk projects outer space onto the ceiling.
Gentle, John’s hand remains on my lower back while he shows me the room with the other. His eyes gleam with pride. Two silhouettes approach. I look away when I realize they’re his leeches.
The exit is just a black hole at the bottom of the stairs we just climbed, too far away and not for me. My chest surges with the need to get my hands on a phone. I want to call la famiglia so badly, tell them what they’ve done to me. Gioele, Dad, Isaias, Il Lince—any Nascimbeni would cut the bastards’ testicles off and let them bleed to death without ceremony. Just you wait, assholes. I’ll watch it happen. Hell, I’ll do it myself. Gioele and Isaias can hold them down, and I can snip their balls clean off!
“Silvina!” I jump at the sound of my captor. He’s lost his buttery tone and added a razor’s edge to it. “I said, ‘What do you think?’”
“Amazing.” I look around me. “A planetarium?”
He gives me a tightlipped smile. “Yes. My father had it made for me when I was five. You seemed pretty jaded, there. You been to a lot of planetariums? You think I’d let you dress up like that if you weren’t going somewhere special?”
“No, of course not. And I’ve never been to one.”
“Not even the one in Los Angeles?” He hides his eagerness with a lazy twist to his pitch.
“Right, this is my first planetarium. It’s impressive,” I say.
“Good.” He slams his hands together. “Look right above you.”
I crane my neck; above us, a plethora of twinkling stars spreads across the ceiling.
“See the brightest star to your immediate left, the one with the blue-white color?”
“I do.” It’s hard to miss. Relieved that he doesn’t have my hands tied, I clench them, rubbing them anxiously while I wait for more.
“That’s Vega from the Summer Triangle. Altair is the next brightest star above it, slightly to the right. Can you see it?”
“Yes.”
“Vega and Altair are star-crossed lovers from the skylore. They’re separated by the Milky Way and only allowed to meet on the seventh night of the seventh moon, when a bridge is formed between their two constellations.” He lets out a reverent huff. “Sometimes the bridge isn’t strong enough to hold them. When that happens, Vega cries tears that fall as rain over Earth, and she doesn’t get to see her lover until a year later—if the bridge is strong enough then.”
John floats his eyes to me without blinking. This hobby of his, astrology, could have added depth to someone good. Coming from him, it makes him eerier.
I start to bob my head. I’m not sure what he wants me to say, though, so I go with, “That’s a good story.”
“Good? That’s all? You don’t find it poetic and fascinating how they think about each other all year even though they’re kept apart?” He tilts his head at me. “It’s almost like… hmm.” He taps his chin. “Oh, wow, it’s like you and your cousin, isn’t it? I’m keeping you apart.”
My heart launches into a sprint while he circles me. Once he stops in front of me, he lowers his head and holds my gaze with his. “I wonder how long it takes for a woman to forget her star-crossed lover. I mean, you’ve got to admit: you fit the bill. You’re fucking cousins.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw you outside the club. He didn’t exactly hug you like a relative, and you didn’t exactly hug him back like one. All that suppressed passion.”
“What club?” It’s a stupid question he doesn’t even acknowledge. Instead, he starts on a chuckle and lets it grow. All I can do is fold my arms around myself and wait for him to stop. When he does, it’s to set his eyes on me.
“A-a-nyways. I’ve got a little something for you that might keep you entertained until you see him. Which you will soon. It’ll be almost like you’re in the seventh day of the seventh month, and you’re so close to crossing that bridge to hang out together. Only you can’t, you know?”
He takes my hand, brings it to his mouth, and kisses the back of it. Then, he bows a little and brings me forward until I’m seated at the middle of the front row.
He thumps down next to me. Rocking the row with his body until he’s comfortable, he slings an arm over my backrest. “I’m about to show you a little something, and I don’t want you to get upset with me over it, okay? Keep in mind that it happened on your cousin’s own initiative a few weeks ago—we hadn’t even taken over Harmony Femme yet. He came, asking for work, and I guess he wasn’t thinking about you in that moment.”
Tipping a fake pout at me, he juts a small, silver remote at the wall in front of us. It slides open to reveal a theater screen. “You’re dying to see the crown prince of the Nascimbeni, correct? Here he is, pretty Silvina, doing his thing.”
The screen reveals a bed with simple sheets and a beautiful woman standing in a robe next to it. She’s staring toward a door, and when the focus shifts, my Gioele walks toward her. His intensity is singular. I remember him like this. I miss that look. I miss it on me.
I let out a sob as he crowds her without hesitation. John is right. Gioele isn’t thinking about me. All he thinks about is the girl whose robe he slides off delicate shoulders, the one he kisses, the one he whispers words to I can’t hear but know anyway.
He says she’s special.
He says she’s beautiful.
He says he’s missed her, loves her, will never let her go again. He devours her slowly, caressing her, loving her with everything in him—
Is this how he is with everyone? Is this how he loves when I’m not there? Can he love with every fiber in him—am I not special to him? I know I am. I am!
My tears burst free. It’s impossible to take your eyes off the love of your life. Did I drive him to this? Did I?
“When?” I choke out.
“Hmm?” John turns toward me while playfully keeping his eyes on the woman and my love on that bed a second longer.
“When did this happen?”
“I’d say he auditioned about two weeks ago.”
“Friday?”
He rolls his eyes. “What does it matter? Think the file says Thursday.”
My mind wants to appease my heart. It searches, searches, and finds. Gioele visited me on Wednesday. It was the day of the cold water in the kitchen sink. The day of Tracy’s interruptions. The day he said he wouldn’t pressure me anymore, when he said I knew where to find him.
“Aww, come here, pretty Silvina.” John puts his arms around me and hugs me close. I can’t look at him. I hate this man so much.
In front of us, Gioele’s buttocks jerk the way they do when he lets go with me. He’s giving her everything mine, all his attention, every cell of him is for this woman who’s not me.
John’s hand caresses the upper part of my arm like we’re at the theater watching a romantic movie. For each hour we spend together, I know him better. In his mind, we’re on a date he controls, and right now he’s loving my devastation.
I swallow. Swallow. Swallow. Know I should suppress as much of my ruin as I can. The less he gets of it, the less he inflates.
“I’d never do that to you. My father owns Harmony Femme, and I’m the new general manager. All I have to do is snap my fingers, and shit happens. See?”
He does it. He snaps his fingers, and there he is—Gioele—he’s sitting in some office with a man I’ve never seen before. I suck in a sharp breath, unable to hold it back, because Gioele looks awful. His eyes are too dark when they glide from John to me and still.
“Ina mia! Can you hear me?”
“Yes! Baby! Oh, God.” I can’t help it—I say it against myself. “Where are you?”
John sniggers, deep and horse-like. The sound is simply despicable.
“I’m at Harmony Femme’s headquarters, in Keegan Cuevas’ office. I’m here to get you. Where are you?”
“I don’t know! I’m in a planetarium. He took me here blindfolded, so I have no idea where—”
“No-no-no. This isn’t how this is going down,” John says. In one quick move, he removes the armrest between us and pulls me deep under his arm. “Let’s all follow my rules, shall we?”
Gioele is so close. He opens his mouth, and I know he’s about to explode. He’s about to curse, shout, destroy the screen he’s watching, attack the man at his side, but it won’t help! Ah, it’s what John wants. He wants to watch us suffer.
Wordless, I plead, Don’t.
Gioele doesn’t ravage that office. He lets out a shaky breath, his stare searing into me, imploring, needing to know that I’m okay.
John leans in and nuzzles my cheek. I see how he’s pressing our buttons, toying with us, enjoying it. He wants more from us. Who knows how far he’s willing to go? Will he undress me, let his two leeches fondle me however they want, make Gioele watch firsthand what he puts me through?
He’s too close. My mind goes amok, until all there is, is panic. I feel dirty. He’s tainting me! I can’t have him touch me anymore, not under the eye of the truest, only love.
“Stop!” I shout.
Why did I ever deny us? Such a petty, tiny problem. I’ve been so stupid. Who cares about right and wrong when there’s only right?
Oh, fuck, John’s hands on me. It’s over, never again. I’d rather die. I press my hands against his side, ridding me of him. I try!
The slap he sears across my face numbs me, and my eyes rush out tears. I yelp. Cry. Sob. I do everything wrong, and I know it like crazy when Gioele explodes.
“You asshole!” he shouts. “Let my girl go right the fuck now!”
“Your girl?” With a hand clutched around my neck, John lets out an eerily bright laughter. “You mean, ‘your cousin.’ After your little fit at the club the other night, I did some research. Turns out you’ve had the hots for pretty Silvina for a lo-o-ong time, and your family doesn’t approve. Strange that. Then again, you don’t get any closer to siblings than two sisters marrying two brothers and having children who then sleep with each other. That’s you, isn’t it? Talk about incestuous.”
My cousin shoots toward us, his frame widening with fisted hands. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, you son of a bitch. Let her go!” He punches the wall, roaring, his stare blistering with hate, love, pain.
My heart constricts. Such everything he is. Everything I could dream of, adore, work like crazy to avoid… and never, ever forget.
“Yeah? Or else?” John’s voice is smooth as balm.
“I’m going to rip you apart limb by limb and feed you to the fucking dogs!”
I suck my lips in between my teeth to rein in my emotions. Gioele doesn’t know that he’s feeding the beast with his frustration. My face doesn’t respond to my nerve endings, and suddenly my own feelings give way to Gioele’s.
The man next to Gioele must be in cahoots with John to be on the other end of this video call, but he’s patting my cousin’s shoulder, and compassion colors his features.
“All righty. Good talk, good talk.” John sits up in his seat and claps his hands together. “Keegan, we gotta split, man. Same time tomorrow?”
“All right.”
“What the fuck?” Gioele shouts.
“Bye, Cuz.” Calmly, John points his silver remote at the screen and makes Gioele disappear.