Tainted Faith

Forty : Quarantatre [re-written 08/12/21]

[RE-WRITTEN]

Liliana's knees shook, and it took all her effort not to drop straight to the concrete floor. She wanted to weep; she wanted to scream and shout and curse. Fists clenched at her sides, a sharp glare warped her expression as she set such a hateful expression on the man who now stood in the doorway. 

"You're working with him?" Marcello spat from behind her. She needn't turn to know he was sneering. She could hear Angelo and Giovanni fighting against their confines, cursed on their lips. 

"Nonno..." Liliana rasped, losing her voice all so sudden. Her feet shuffled backwards, bringing her closer to the D'Onofrio's and further from the door, until the back of her legs knocked against Mercello's knees and she realised there was nowhere else to go. Her mouth suddenly felt far too dry, and bile rose to the back of her throat.

Her grandfather, the man who had cared for her so diligently the past couple of years in Italy, met her shock with a smirk and not a single ounce of remorse in his expression. There was a gun in his hands, and splatter of red stained across his grey shirt. 

Valentino Fiorenza, as far as she knew, was supposed to be in Italy. Instead, here he was in America, standing in her home, amongst her family, as if it were expected. 

She watched him openly inspect her, his eyes skimming from her head to her toes; his upper lip curled. Liliana knew she looked positively feral. Like the last time she had endured an intruder in the D'Onofrio manor, she was covered in blood; blood from the attackers was splattered against her clothes, and her own blood coated her chin and neck from where she had been struck in the nose. She could feel her face throbbing and she could feel the skin tighten as her features swelled. Her hair was a ratty mess, loose strands tickling her cheeks ad neck, and her body felt clammy, covered in a cool sweat. 

"Why are you out of your room?" Valentino asked, like she was a small child that had simply wandered out of her bedroom past her bedtime. "I didn't want to involve you in this nipotina."

A disbelieving laugh cut across the basement as Liliana's glare hardened. The shrill sound was hollow against her ears; foreign, as if it had come from someone else, as if such a noise didn't belong on her lips. "You're holding my husband up at gun point and you didn't think it involved me?"

Her grandfather had the gall to huff and roll his eyes. "I never expected you to become as close as you are. I thought I had raised you better than that."

He hadn't expected her to become as close as they had?  No, instead he had expected her to keep her distance and fight against Marcello at every opportunity; he expected her to live condemned to a miserable marriage for the rest of her life. Just like her aunt, she was just another woman for him to manipulate and be used for the good of the Fiorenza men. 

Liliana wanted to spit in his face, a sour taste staining her tongue as she felt the growing disappointment pool in her stomach. There was no coming back from this. Valentino Fiorenza was a bastardo, a force to be reckoned with, a man Liliana wanted no ties to.

Whatever was about to occur in this basement, Liliana knew one thing was certain - only one of them could survive. She didn't want to live in a world where a man like this could exist. 

"And that warranted my death?" She hissed, aware that her mouth quivered with every word. "I barely survived the break in!"

Liliana knew it was better and safer to stay calm, to not encourage any fury from Valentino, but couldn't hold back her fury. She was so sick and tired of being used, of being shoved around by men who cared more for themselves at her expense. Her entire childhood, she'd been loved by both her father and grandfather, two men whom she had once held in high regard. They had cared for her as family should, until it seems, she was of no use to her anymore; they had only loved her, if it meant her compliance. And now that she was revolting against Valentino's command, siding with the D'Onofrio's, she had become nothing more than another issue for him to deal with.