"Elena, the power went out at my place, and Dario didn't like the idea of me sleeping there alone, so he told me to stay here a while. He changed the door code to my birthday so I wouldn't forget it. You don't mind, do you?"
My eyes dropped to the strap sliding off Carmela's shoulder, to the marks on her chest, to the fact that she wore nothing underneath the silk.
"Elena's always so understanding. How could she possibly mind?"
Dario sat on the couch, his trousers creased, his shirt buttoned inside out. A wet stain was soaking into the cushion beside him. On the side table, a glass of his father's grappa sat untouched, the amber catching the lamplight.
He rose and pulled me against him, the way a man pulls something he means to keep where the world can see it.
"You went out this late without a word? You're still carrying our baby. What would I do if something happened to you?"
I looked at all that tender devotion arranged across his face, and a cold weight settled in me.
All this fussing over me in plain sight, while he kept his precious girl openly under my own roof, changing the code so I couldn't walk back in on what they did. In the life, they call that respect. There was no other word ugly enough for it.
I didn't waste my breath on him. I went straight upstairs.
Dario, who never touched milk at night, suddenly poured me a glass.
"You're in your third trimester now. You need to be careful about getting enough protein and calcium. Be good and drink it."
I stared at the glass he held out, and my expression went flat.
"I don't want it."
His face tightened at the refusal, but he kept his patience and coaxed me, the way he coaxed men into deals they'd later die regretting.
"I'm only doing this for you and the baby. Be good. Listen to me."
Then he tipped the glass to my mouth and made me swallow it, no room to argue.
The milk went down sweet and faintly sour, and within moments I was sinking toward sleep. Through the haze, I thought I saw two shapes beside me, tangled together.
When I woke the next morning, my whole body ached so badly I could barely sit up.
After Dario left to attend to Family business, I opened the video on my phone.
Last night, the moment after he forced the milk down me, I'd started recording and hidden the phone in a flowerpot. A wife who married into this life learns young that proof is the only thing that keeps her breathing.
The instant the footage began to play, shame seized my heart and twisted it.
After I'd fallen asleep, Dario and Carmela had come in from the doorway already kissing, then tumbled down right next to me.
"Dario, you have no idea how much it kills me, watching you with this woman every single day."
He spat in my face. Then he kicked my body aside, the way men in this world kicked things they no longer counted as people.
"How could this fat cow ever compare to you? I'm only with her for the kid in her belly. If I didn't want to spare you the suffering, do you think I'd ever have bound myself to her? Next to you, she isn't worth a single hair on your head."
Carmela watched me with open amusement. Her smile sat too perfect at the corners.
"Are you sure you gave her enough to keep her under?"
She started peeling the clothes off me as she spoke.
"What if she finds out the truth after she's had the baby? We're better off keeping something on her, just in case. Insurance. Every family needs it."
Dario seemed to agree completely. He helped her strip me until I lay there with nothing on.
Then the two of them dragged me onto a chair and propped me facing the bed, my legs forced wide apart.
Dario snapped photo after photo while Carmela kept moving my body into different poses.
Once they had enough, they set on my unconscious body without a shred of restraint.
I watched it all play out on the screen, tears streaming down my face, my heart shredding with every frame.
I shut off the phone, picked up the pills the doctor had given me, and swallowed them without a second's hesitation.
"What are you taking?"
Dario's anxious voice came from the doorway. I met his concerned eyes and turned my wedding ring a slow half-circle around my finger.
"Just calcium tablets."
