Kia
Today, the season's first cold rain had come with an unexpected intensity. The strength was such that it seemed that the gods knew that something awful was about to be done and that the culprits had to be purged of their sin beforehand. It poured heavily and incessantly; I could even recognize small pieces of ice on the window sills; an indicator that winter would actually come soon.
My five-year-old Genesis likes weather like this. On rainy, blustery days like today, she would persuade a nanny into bundling her up in coats of many layers and dragging me out into the garden to wallow in the gale and splash in mud puddles; giggles carried on damp air. I had come to treasure these moments of happiness with her, away from her father's frosty glances. But today, there are no sounds of laughter.
There are darker plans for the evening on Richard's part.
We have both been preparing for weeks, carefully coordinating with no room for mistakes. Richard has analyzed and taken charge of planning each detail, each course of the meal, each chair at the table, and each movement that would be taken. He insisted on ensuring that all was not left to chance, not when the future of our family, of his empire, hung in the balance of this one evening. This is but a simple dinner.
Today's dinner guests were not mere callers to the house. Holland Graves and his wife, Daisy, had come over from the opposite side of the ocean, having spent the past year here in the USA surveying the most powerful mafia families to find the perfect partnership to cement their family's grip on the Western world. They were already respected in Europe; famously known for being ruthless, analytical, and exacting, putting up with nothing short of perfection. A courteous statement; in my opinion, for having said that they were murderers.
I don't know why they went to the trouble of visiting the other families, we were obviously their best bet, not that I was exactly ecstatic about the coming alliance with them. It was just the facts that a Moretti-Graves coalition would be invincible. Together with our names on each other's, the power created would make us untouchable and I didn't relish what that would do to Genesis.
"It has to be flawless." Richard had ranted and raved for weeks, his temper blazing at the whisper of anything short of perfection. He had been ruthless since the day he discovered they were finally coming, barking orders, double-checking and redoing every little detail, never leaving anything to chance. He had even provided me with a list—a never-ending, soul-draining, exhaustive list—of menus, table settings, and rules of etiquette that needed to be executed perfectly for the evening to be a hit. Every course had to be perfect, every wine pairing carefully deliberated. No mistakes. No flaws. No second tries.
Due to my own fatigue and short temper and in order to preserve my reputation as the good and submissive wife I knew I was so far from being, I had been working all day in the kitchen with the kitchen staff, tasting, measuring and adjusting ingredients and recipes and watching every big and little thing so that nothing would bring Richard's wrath. The scent of roasting meat and fish, fruits and herbs, fresh bread and others had filled the big house, but rather than comfort or even excitement, it had churning only me with anxiety, and the sense of drowning had settled in my stomach.
I had left Genesis to her nannies since the early morning, and I took some comfort in the fact that my loved one was shielded from the mayhem of preparations. It actually exasperated me that I had to be absent from her today merely because I had to deal with Richard and his unshakeable tendency to want to dominate everything. And for what? Dinner with a man who made his fortune out of crime and terror? Why would I be thrilled with having perhaps the most efficient killer on the whole continent in my home? Thrilled about an arrangement that would most likely decide the fate of my child's life? I breathed slowly, playing nervously with the pearl claps at my wrist. The evening hadn't yet begun, and already I was exhausted. And rightly so. …
I sat in the formal dining room once the visitors were in and welcomed. I was sitting on a padded chair, maintaining a smiling face and calm mien as I tried to ensure nothing would disturb the illusory tranquility that the room had embraced. My hands are tightly clasped in my lap, my acrylic nails pressing into the soft flesh of my palms.
The numerous lit cigars cast a shadow across the walls, heating the air within the room. The air was not warm to me, however. It was oppressive, heavy with the insidious smell of smoke from the two cigars the men were smoking, drifting unrestrained throughout the room and blending with the bitter bite of aged whiskey.
Holland and Richard sat next to me, their backs turned toward each other.
"It's certain. We've always known our families were going to be combined; it was only a matter of when," Richard answered, stirring the amber liquid in his glass with an effortless, ease that could have been careless. The ice clinked gently against crystal glass, a sound rather too elegant for the seriousness of the words he'd uttered. His tone was firm as if he were in the middle of sealing a lucrative deal and not handing over his child's life to an administration that had the potential to kill him. "Both the Graves and Moretti names will be forged," he continued, curling his lip upward into a small, satisfied smile. "Nobody ever will ever have the guts to stand in our way, especially with the individual power we already possess here and in Europe."
My gut twisted queasily, the weight of his words within me like cold metal. I had known this to come and heard Richard talk of it in abstraction for months, but to hear it now and so at last unsettled me. My fists were knotted beneath the table, out of view of the people around, nails digging into the soft flesh of my palm.
Across the table, Holland Graves inclined his head, his dark eyes brimming with some hunger. "Caspian and Genesis will be betrothed as quickly as possible; that will have to do for now," he stated, his voice coarse, gravelly, but unbreakable. "They will be part of our families by marriage ultimately, just as we've agreed."
His words hung with me.
I looked at my husband, but he would not meet my eyes.
He was staring at his glass, already planning the next move, the next strategy, the next step on the game board. That was all that we were to him; pawns on a game board. Genesis had never actually been just a child to him. He never saw her as a person with her own hopes, her future. She was merchandise to be traded. A defeated sigh slipped from my lips, barely more than a whisper. I looked at Daisy Graves, who sat across the room from me. Daisy's face was tight, but I knew her well enough to see the subtle signs of distress—how her hands curled tighter against the fabric of her dress, how her mouth set almost too tightly. She was no more prisoner than I was. The threatened truth had troubled us for decades, a furious phantom that tormented the living. Richard and Holland had worked for decades to make a living, and there was no question of whether our children would be members of their businesses, but only when. I hadn't expected it so early.
My heart seemed to pound against my ribcage, an indignant yet relentless drumming in my chest as I walked away.
I imagined the years ahead of us, the pictures my mind created; all were more wretched than the last.
Caspian was eight. He wasn't a crime prince, not yet. But if it were up to Richard and Holland, both Genesis and Caspian would be formed, shaped, toughened until there would be no innocence left to shield. I could not and would not sit idly by and allow it to occur. My gaze went up again, involuntarily searching the room, and I caught Daisy already looking at me. When we caught each other's eye, something changed between us. A silent knowing. A shared fear. We didn't need to speak. We didn't need to. The air between us pulsed with the same desperately aware thought, the same resolve. We had to get out.