Page 219 of The Enslaved Duet

My eldest sister was a difficult woman, but I had found that it was the most difficult women who were the greatest to know. She was strong and fierce in the face of adversity, a mother bear with her cub, and smart enough to outmaneuver even the craftiest of foes. She was beautiful, as cultivated and classy as a polished diamond, and just as cold. Elena had taught me so many things over the years, like how to be a strong woman, but also, how not to be. She had allowed her past traumas to calcify her heart, and as a result, she had no room in her soul for someone new or different.

It was tragic, and I hoped one day, she would find a way to soften, but I knew looking into her condemnatory eyes that day would not be today.

“There is a lot you don’t know, and I won’t tell you, Lena,” I tried to explain gently even though my head pounded so fiercely it was a struggle to think at all. “The only thing you really need to know is that Alexander is my husband, and…well, I love him.”

It was the first time I had said it out loud, and it felt good to feel the words perfume the air.

“Dante told me some things,” she said forebodingly. “He told me that yourhusbandbought out Dad’s debt, so essentially, he boughtyou.”

A bitter little laugh escaped my lips before I could help it. “Alexander helped me pay for your education, Lena, for Giselle’s schooling, and Sebastian’s plane ticket to London. How is that a bad thing?”

“He made you into a whore,” she exclaimed, her low-lidded eyes flashing like lightning through storm clouds. “I never would have thought you’d stoop so low to get us out of Naples.”

A snarl built in my chest and escaped with my next words. “Careful, you don’t know what you’re talking about, and I love you, I do, but there are some things that cannot be forgiven. You’ve already ostracized Giselle and Sinclair. Do not do the same to me.”

My stern words deflated some of her indignation, her shoulders slumping slightly as she planted her forearms in the bed to lean over me.

“I just worry about you, my Cosi,” she said in a soft, sad voice that rubbed against my skin like wet velvet. “I don’t understand your life, and it worries me. You showed up at Thanksgiving dinner withweltson your wrists from this man, and now you’ve been shotthree timesbecause of some mess he’s embroiled you in.”

“You judge me because you don’t understand,” I told her calmly.

She scoffed. “It’s not a difficult situation to grasp, Cosima. The man bought you, beat you, brutalized you, and embroiled you in an international mess that got you shot in the fucking head.”

I turned my head, my gaze searching for anything that wasn’t her and wasn’t white, latching onto a sliver of cerulean blue sky barely visible between skyscrapers. The cheap pillowcase was rough against my cheek and smelled like antiseptic.

Unbidden, I thought of the silk sheets on my bed at Pearl Hall, the pearlescent wallpaper that glowed in the filtered British light like the inside of an oyster shell, and the rich gold antique furniture. It was opulent and rich, a vivid setting for the riotous love I’d found within those walls.

I blinked and the memory dissipated, leaving in its place that stark room and the pinched face of my horrified sister.

I sighed gustily. “If you aren’t going to try to empathise or understand, I won’t bother explaining myself to you, Elena.”

“How can I understand something like this? The man only caused you pain, Cosima. What could there possibly be to love about that?”

“Maybe I like the pain. Maybe I’m the type of woman who responds to calculated cruelty and animal savagery more than pretty romance and sweet platitudes. Maybe I like the kind of man most people think is a villain, and maybe I’m the kind of woman who is more dark than light.” I glared at her as I spoke, my words more Italian than English, spiced with the heat of my homeland and my lifelong heartache.

I was tired of clarifying my kinks and predilections to myself. There was no way I was going to sit idly by while my sister, who knew next to nothing about the circumstances of my life, cast judgment against me.

Elena’s face was twisted tight at the lips, a bulging cap on the emotions clogging her pores.

“Am I the only one in this family not screwed up with perversion?” she asked, her words pointed, but her delivery soft as if she couldn’t find the conviction to truly condemn us anymore.

My rage allayed into tender pity. I snaked my hand across the abrasive white sheets and opened my palm for her. Tentatively, biting her lip as if she was about to surrender to her mortal enemy, Elena wrapped her fingers in mine.

She had soft hands, perfectly manicured and painted in the deep, almost purple red of Italian chianti. There were two rings, one on each hand, the first a simple gold and amethyst band Sinclair had given her for their first anniversary and the second, an onyx and pearl combination I’d given her last year at her birthday.

I thumbed the gold band and looked up at her, my face suffused with a love so great it made my eyes tear. “Lena,cara, I know you’ve been through so much in the past few months. I know how heartbroken you are over Sinclair and Giselle’s relationship. I know because I’ve been heartbroken for four years while I lived apart from Alexander. I know because in some ways, even though we’re back together, the scars of that heartbreak will never fade. But please,cara mia, do not let this hurt consume your life. Let in the light. Discover someone new to love. You deserve happiness, but you need tofindit because goodness rarely just falls in someone’s lap.”

“Oh, shut up, Cosima, you have no idea what this is like! How…how humiliated I feel. Every person in New York knows that Daniel left me for my little sister. She orchestrated the total and utter devastation of my life as I knew it!” Her face was expressionless in its grief and rage. “Little Miss Beautiful, no one would ever leave you, would they? Oh, wait…” Her smile was razor thin and cut deep into the tender flesh of my heart. “Someone has.”

I suddenly felt explosive with rage. It screamed through my molten blood and clawed at my throat to escape, but the look in my sister’s eyes smothered the flames and turned them into smoky sorrow.

“Grow up, big sister. Being hurt does not give you free license to be cruel. It doesn’t matter that it left your heart in tatters; it happens to the best of us. You have a choice to make, and you better do it quickly because if you keep on keeping on the way you have since Sin left you, you won’t have anyone left to bitch to.” I disentangled my hand from hers and turned my head. “Now, could you please leave? I’m exhausted.”

She hesitated for a long moment before standing up, planting a kiss on my forehead, and leaving. One week later, during my last night in the city, she had shown up at Giselle and Sinclair’s housewarming party to throw a tantrum about their surprise pregnancy.

I supposed, unhappily, that she had made a choice about what kind of victim she wanted to be.

One who remained a victim forever.