Page 141 of The Enslaved Duet

Just being inside those four walls made all of it—the pain, the separation, the scars both physical and unseen—so fucking worth it.

“Mia bella figlia,” Mama called out operatically as she pushed through the sliding doors from the kitchen to see me. “Come give your mama some love.”

Obedient as any Italian to their mother, I hustled over to be embraced in her sweet basil and semolina scented arms, crushed against her bosom with both cheeks bussed in the traditional Italian greeting.

Satisfied, she pulled back but kept her arms around me and studied me with a fierce frown on her handsome face. “You look dead on your feet,piccola. Sit and let Mama feed you.”

I followed her to our family table at the back of the room and allowed her to fuss over me, holding out my chair and taking my purse.

“You let me fix you something,si? You need more meat on your skinny bones, Cosima. It’s not so good to be skinny like this. No men like a woman with so little to hold,capisce?”

“Si, Mama,” I allowed even though I had enough meat at my tits and ass to warrant being featured onSport’s Illustrateddespite my slim limbs.

Mama and Giselle had the same lush, deeply curved bodies that most men drooled over, whereas Elena and I got the long, lean forms of our fathers.

I’d once thought we both inherited it from Seamus, and it had taken me a long time to realize I much preferred being genetically tied to Salvatore.

“Why did you marry Seamus?” I blurted out, freezing Mama like a bug in amber.

Her wide, light brown eyes blinked at me as her mouth opened, then closed.

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms, deciding to follow through with my spontaneous interrogation. In the three years I’d been reunited with her, I’d yet to ask any of the hard questions. Honestly, I even avoided talking about it too much with Salvatore because every mention of Mama just made him deflate like an old balloon.

“I deserve these answers,” I reminded her, not unkindly.

With a heavy sigh, she sank into the chair beside me. “I knew this day was coming, but to have it here now, it is still difficult. Seamus was exotic,si? So fresh and different. I liked this. My father was a fisherman when this was still big industry in Napoli. He was very popular and always had big parties. During one party, Seamus was there with locals he met at the university. My father was so traditional, and I wanted different for myself. Seamus was fromAmerica. It was so glamourous for us Neapolitans who had never been beyond Roma. He spoke with an accent, and he had this fire hair, yet he knew so much about Italy that I did not feel stupid when we spoke. He found me almost right away and stayed with me the whole night even though I was just sixteen and not the most beautiful woman at the party.”

She stared down at her soft, worn hands, gently fingering the slight indentation that still remained from decades of wearing a wedding ring.

“We married quickly in those days. My father, he did not mind Seamus in the end, but he died just after I was pregnant with Elena. He might have helped when Seamus started to gamble and drink…” She shrugged. “My mother, she was long gone to a sickness. There was no one left. When Seamus started to become…the man you remember him to be, it was too late to turn to anyone. There was no one left, you see?”

My heart constricted with empathy. Wasn’t that exactly how I had felt when Seamus first told me he was selling me through the mafia to the highest bidder to repay his debts? As if the only person with the power to do anything was myself?

“I had Elena and then Giselle. I was just a girl really and I had few skills, but good hands in the kitchen. In Napoli, you know this is not so special. It is the men who own the restaurants, and we had no money to open one anyway. Seamus did not like me to work. A traditional Italian family, this was his dream.” She laughed bitterly, her eyes glazed as she stared over my shoulder at her past. “He got one more typical for Napoli than he could have dreamed of,si?”

I nodded tightly, trying to swallow the burn of my mama’s tragic story.

“I was walking by the docks to buy the fish for dinner one day when I saw this man,” she said, her voice dipping into low, velvet tones as she began the part of the story where my real father came in. “He was very tall and very big across his chest like a man who works with his hands for a living. I liked this. He seemed…esperto?”

“Capable,” I offered.

“Si, so capable. It was very different from my husband with his books and his words. This other man, he looked at me, Cosima, for such a long time that I stopped to watch him look at me. I had Elena on one hand and my baby on the other hip. He looked, and then he just walked to me like this.” She used her arms, swinging them firmly, her brow lowered in mock concentration. “He walked to me, and he said his name,Salvatore, and did I want to get coffee right now with him.”

I could imagine that. My strong, determined father seeing my beautiful mother across a stinking fish market and deciding then and there to have her.

His sense of conviction was something I admired and aspired to.

I thought of my plan to dispatch of Ashcroft, and my resolve hardened.

“I went. Then the next day, I went once more. This was again and again until I was soinnamoratowith him, I couldn’t see beyond his golden eyes.” She smiled softly at me then. “The eyes he gave my twin babies.”

She had been enamoured with him.

There was something about her word choice and the way she spoke about Salvatore that panged in my heart like a gong. This was the way I’d felt about Alexander.

Both men had entered our lives like a storm, and where there should have been only devastation in their wake, there was beauty too in what remained.

“Why didn’t you just leave with him?” I asked the million-dollar question, and it tasted metallic on my tongue.