One of these days this family would pay restitution for the innocent life they’d taken.
I walked out of his office to watch Adriana shuffle Ryan out the front door.
I crossed my arms when I saw her swimsuit top tied awkwardly to the side, her bottoms on inside out. While I was saving her ass, she was having sex? What a little . . . ugh.
When he was gone, she leaned against the door, looking pale and relieved.
I pursed my lips in disappointment, turned around and chimed, “Lemon,” as I headed up the staircase.
“Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.”
—Marilyn Monroe
I STOPPED SHORT IN ADRIANA’S doorway and closed my eyes in disbelief.
“Papà is going to kill you,” I told her.
“Good,” she muttered, adding a long arc with her paintbrush to the canvas that leaned against the wall. The painting would be a rainbow if it wasn’t all black.
My sister had been brooding since Ryan came over. She went to her classes, but otherwise stayed in her room. The week crawled by with her casting a black cloud over the house with her emo paintings and sappy music. I was beginning to feel guilty again, but there wasn’t a part of me that wanted to put myself in her place. I’d rather have a husband who wasn’t so rude, wasn’t such a womanizer as I’d heard, and truthfully less handsome. Maybe that sounded odd, but to me it made perfect sense.
Laughter filtered up the stairs, and I closed my eyes once more. Adriana’s engagement party had started five minutes ago, and she currently sat cross-legged on her floor in overalls, covered in paint.
I could see Papà’s temper not far in the distance, and I would feel its heat just because I was such an easy target. Adriana never reacted when our papà raged at her, and it annoyed him, so he turned it on me.
“What on earth could you be thinking right now?” I headed toward her closet, not looking forward to digging through costumes to find the rare dress she could wear.
“That I hate my fiancé. He’s rude, and you’ve seen him, right? Can you even imagine us having sex, Elena?”
I paused, gave my head a shake, and continued pushing clothes on hangers aside. “Um, no. I’m not going to try to imagine that.”
She sighed. “A couple of hours ago I realized I would have to have sex with him.”
I made a noise of acknowledgment, not surprised it had taken her this long to come to that assumption. The obvious was like the hidden secrets of the world in Adriana’s eccentric mind. Surprising, as she’d always aced her schoolwork and had more friends than I could ever hope for.
“And I kept thinking, maybe there’s a reason he manspreads so much? His is big. Then I began to worry, so I started looking up pictures—well, videos—of men his size, naked, and that only made me worry more.”
“You were watching porn,” I said, deadpan, standing in the closet doorway and watching her paint Mr. Rabbit beneath the black rainbow.
She tilted her head to eye her masterpiece. “Yeah, I guess that’s what it’s called.”
“Adriana!”
My sister groaned, and I looked toward the door. Mamma wore a red cocktail dress and an angry expression. A slew of Italian flew past her lips as she snatched the dress from my hand and then smacked Adriana on the back of the head. “Shower, now!”
Adriana grumbled and got to her feet.
“And porn!” More Italian. “What were you thinking?”
A laugh escaped me.
Mamma shot me a glare, and I turned it into a cough. She had always shown up at the most inopportune times. We couldn’t get away with anything.
“Elena, go pacify the Russo. Lord forbid he starts shooting the guests again.”
“Me? What am I supposed to do?”
All I received were a few sentences of berating Italian that didn’t even address the current topic at hand. When my mamma went off, she’d talk about everything but what she was currently mad about. This time, it was how she broke a favorite porcelain dish earlier, Nonna complained about her lunch again, and the gardener hadn’t shown up today. Which was definitely for the best . . .
Guests trickled in the front door as I made my way down the staircase. I wore a pink choker maxi dress, heels with a bow that tied around my ankles, and my hair down, pinned to one side. Even though I didn’t approve of this marriage, it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to take the opportunity to dress up. Frankly, it was the highlight of my week.
“Elena!” my cousin Sophia squealed as she came through the front door. “Squealed” was the best way to explain it. She was nineteen with a constant mischievous expression.