Twisted Fairytale

Prologue: Twisted Fairytale

-A U R O R A-

Marriage. The definition of which being a legal union between two people, and in most cases the ulterior motive being love.

Not in my case though, within the first few moments of my betrothal to Vincenzo Salvatore I had thought it was a godsend. The moment I had been waiting for since before I could even talk; my perfect fairytale ending.

Every girl in my circle grew up fantasising about their wedding day. Stopping to look in the bridal shop window while out with their mothers, picking out colour schemes, making playlists and scrolling through pictures on the internet endlessly. Of course the fact that they had been promised since conception made it a whole lot easier for them.

For me—it wasn't the same. I was special, and not in the self-righteous way. My Father had to wait for the right man to come along, a man of importance and in my mothers own words 'a man who was worthy of my beauty and virtue.' Meaning that this man could only be the best of the best. The boss of the bosses.

Capo dei capi.

I had pretty much known from the beginning that the only thing my future would hold was being wife of the Capo and for the first fourteen years of my life every waking moment had been centralised on it too.

I did anything and everything imaginable, dedicating every spare second I had trying to perfect myself into the best wife I could be for my Prince Charming.

The unattainable princess of the Società.

What I didn't expect was that my own sponsalia would be my downfall, that those eyes of grey would be the root of my suffering and the bane of my existence.

***
Before

I listened to the beautiful melody being carried through the drawing room as I stared up at the renaissance themed ceiling, trying to lose myself to a rhapsody.

Stella was a musical prodigy and I doubted there was any instrument known to man that she didn't know how to play. As her sister I had to be the responsible, dutiful one who always got it right the first time. It left her room for mistakes. It was fitting that my talents were academic and her's artistic.

Usually the tunes that Maristela produced could transfer me to a calm state of mind, and as I liked to think of it; an alternate reality altogether. But today a thick set of unease lingered in the air and not even Debussy's Claire De Lune could take me to La La Land.

I had a premonition that something bad was lingering around the corner and I couldn't quite place a finger on what exactly it was. Nothing happened that should cause me distress and I wasn't one to create problems out of thin air. That wasn't me, I didn't base my actions off emotion. I based them off rationality because as a woman of my status it was one of the only ways to survive in this world.

The second Stella's fingers left her Steinway the clicking of marble heels against the cold floor could be heard, approaching from the hallway. It could only be Mamma, but still, I chose to ignore it— which I never do.

"What's next?" She asks, leaning over the keys and reaching for a la Madeleine au truffe that was resting on the flat of the piano.

"Chopin," I replied, keeping my eyes glued on the remake of Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus etched onto the wall. "Nocturne op nine, number two." The clicking of heels stopped and Mamma's larger-than-life persona filled the room.