WARNING! This chapter is, well...intense. Some language and violence involved
My eyes are dry when Nino finally comes home.
I have cried all the tears I will ever cry over this man.
I know that now.
He is smiling when he comes into our bedroom and I wonder what I ever saw in him. Maybe it was the danger that attracted me, but it's the weakness I see in him that disgusts me now.
"Hey, honey, you still up?" he says cheerfully as he places a smacking kiss on my forehead then moves past me, loosening his tie.
I don't even answer him, rage rendering me mute.
"Sorry I'm a little late," he continues as he hangs his tie up in the closet. "These things can run over and you know how Lomatti never shuts his mouth and-"
"I saw you," I interupt and the sound of my voice surprises me. It's low, raw, grating even.
Nino freezes and shuts his eyes briefly. He doesn't even bother to deny anything.
"How?"
I keep my eyes off of him. They stare somewhere above his head. "Vince called. He said you weren't meeting him tonight, so I got worried." I look at him then, scathingly. "yes, Nino, I was actually worried about you, you bastard. Then I went to the Santos house and I saw you with...with her."
Nino begins nonchalantly unbuttoning his shirt. "Michelle, this thing with Pilar has been going on since long before you came in the picture, ok?"
I stare at him in utter disbelief. "Is that supposed to make it alright?" I ask, my voice quivering with fury. "You've been fucking Pilar Santos for years, so I shoud just look past it?!" My voice raises in a shout.
"Don't talk back to me, Michelle," Nino snaps, suddenly very serious. He takes a moment, controls himself, and then says mockingly, "Besides, I think you're a poor one to lecture me on fucking a Santos."
A roar starts in my head and a dull throb starts behind my eyes. "W-what do you mean?"
Nino crosses the room in one blindingly fast motion, grabbing my arm and yanking me up off the bed. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Do you7 think I don't know what yoo've been doing with Danny Santos behind my back?"
I'm scared now, truly scared.There is no trace of the man I married in the cold eyes that bore into me now.
"I haven't done anything-" I begin weakly. Nino cuts me off, squeezing my arm so tight I cry out.
"I saw your face when you came out of that wine cellar. And I saw that bastard's smirk. Now you look me in the eye and tell me you haven't slept with him."
I feel unsteady now that the tables have turned, but at least I am able to look at him and tell the truth.
"I haven't slept with him," I say quietly.
Nino releases my arm and I sag against the bed, feeling weak in my very soul.
"But you want to." Nino says flatly.
I look up at my husband and remember the first day I met him. The way his eyes caused something dark and bright all at once to spark within me. How he made me laugh. How he cherished me. How I dreamed of our life together, he a legitimate businessman, me a doctor.
And now I see that the Nino I married wasn't real. He was a carefully constructed fantasy, designed to make me fall in love with him so that I could be his perfect wife and give the Rivera name some Bauer respect.
"Yes," I say, utterly defeated, but looking him straight in the yes. "I want to."
I am prepared for cold fury. I am prepaed for shouted damnations.
What I am not prepared for is the hand, the beautiful hand I once loved so much, that snaps out and strikes me squarely across the cheek.
My head whips back and I taste blood, but I'm too stunned to cry.
"Bitch," Nino seethes. "You made a fool out of me with my worst enemy!"
"Whose sister you're sleeping with!" I shriek in reply, unable to help myself.
I get another slap, this one sharper, but not as strong, for my trouble.
"You don't know anything about me!" Nino rages.
That, I think as I scoot back against the headboard, is an understatement.
"What are you going to do now, Nino?" I ask, my whole being shaking.
"Divorce me?"
Nino gives a dark laugh. "No, Michelle, if Danny Santos wants you, I plan on keeping you."
"I don't want to be kept, you son of a bitch,".
Too late, I see that Nino's belt is now hanging from his hand. "We'll see about that," he says softly, a strange light in his eyes.
I only have time for a low whimper before the first blow makes contact.
***
He's gone now.
I lay, battered, bruised, on the bed that we once shared so happily.
Nothing is broken, thank God, but I can already see dark blue stripes, dotted with bright red blood appearing on my body as I'm reflected in the mirror across from the bed. Other than the bruise on my cheekbone from that first slap, my face is untouched. He wanted it that way.
My body though....
I can barely move, so I just stay curled in a fetal postion, gazing in numb horror at what the man I once thought I loved has done to me.
But it's not the beating that causes silent tears to trickle down my pale, pale face.
It's what came afterwards.
It's what happened after Nino tossed aside the belt and ripped open the nightgown he'd given me.
I close my eyes and begin to shake as I remember that horrible, violent act, a gross and perverse parody of the lovemaking we had once known as blissful newlyweds.
I hate him.
With everything that's in my core, I hate him. But I won't let him know he's broken me. I can't let him know.
I slowly uncurl, just enough to gather up the blanket at the foot of the bed and wrap it around me.
But I still can't stop shaking.