Page 29 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream (Dark Hearts #3)

“My self-esteem is just fine,” I mutter, fixing my gaze back on the passing landscape.

Viola doesn’t reply, leaving my interpretation of her response—“I beg to differ”—to hover about my shoulders.

“Your sisters have been invited to visit one month from now, and every two weeks thereafter, if schedules permit.”

A thread of gratitude warms my heart, then I remember that having my sisters visit would help advance Andreas’ agenda anyway—they will no doubt accompany Cristiano and Benito, Andreas’ colleagues in this alliance.

“Here we are.”

Viola’s sudden announcement sends my gaze shooting ahead to the enormous white gates opening smoothly for our arrival.

The short drive leads to a large, white colonial style house with a grey slate roof and sage green shutters.

The sash windows remind me of those in the Hamptons and the sight tugs at my heart.

It isn’t a mansion-come-compound like the Di Santo residence.

It’s smaller, less ostentatious, more tasteful.

Viola opens the front door and the entrance hall cuts my breath. Hardwood floors stretch right through the house and a grand staircase sits at the very heart. A gorgeous antique table, oval-shaped with an enormous vase full of tumbling roses, is positioned at the foot of the staircase.

I follow the housekeeper on a brief tour, taking in a basement gymnasium and cinema room, a dining room with oak table and chairs, a vast kitchen with spotless cabinetry. Tudor-style balustrades flank the staircase and landing, and a real fireplace forms a centerpiece of the family room.

We bypass a locked door behind which I’m informed is Andreas’ office. Then we go upstairs to the guest bedrooms and bathrooms. They are each tastefully decorated with clean white woodwork, and luxury sheets atop oak sleigh beds.

Just when I think the tour is over, Viola prepares me for the primary wing.

The what ?

She leads me off the landing to a south-facing part of the house and immediately I suck in a gasp.

The walls are glass, looking out over a decent acreage of lawns and woodland.

A swing set is positioned beneath an old oak tree.

I agree that this would be the perfect family home, if only a perfect family lived here.

A carved wood four poster forms the focal point, and I catch a glimpse of my favorite astrology book sat atop one of the bedside tables.

An intricate crystal chandelier hooked to the high ceiling presides over the entire room.

Butterflies flicker about my stomach, only picking up speed when Viola says, “Welcome to your new home.”

I gulp loudly then try to mask it with a cough. It is stunning. But my heart begins to sink. This ‘home’ will never be mine .

I take a deep breath and turn to her. “Is Andreas here?”

She blinks a little too rapidly and straightens. “No, signora.”

I swallow and try again. “Do you know when he will be home?” I realize I don’t even have a cell number for my new husband, or an email address. I have no way of contacting him. I could reach him through Cristiano somehow, but that’s not the point.

“No, signora.”

Impatience snaps at my heels. “Do you know where he is?”

Her shoulders drop and she gives me a resigned look that tells me this conversation is about to end here. “No, signora, I do not know where he is. I never know where he is and I do not wish to.”

I elongate my spine and turn to look out of the window. “Thank you for showing me around.”

“You’re welcome, signora. I will leave you to rest. Chef Alessandro will prepare dinner for six p.m. so please make your way to the dining room then.”

I close my eyes, not caring that she can’t see them.

I’ve never felt so many conflicting feelings in such a short space of time before. Finding a prominent one to hook myself onto is a challenge.

I’ve felt lust and need and the high that comes with an earth-shattering orgasm.

I’ve felt shock, despair and shame. Guilt, embarrassment, helplessness.

Then awe and hope and optimism, which, with the realization I do not know where my husband is or how to reach him, have come crashing down like a brick house in a hurricane.

When Viola has closed the door to the master suite, it hits me again just how alone I am. And now that I am alone, my body begins to tingle.

My go-to release is front and center of my mind. I need to distract myself, and fast. My gaze darts around the room until it lands on the purse I must have left by the door. I reach inside and pull out my cards.

Dropping to the floor, I shuffle them quickly. I try to breathe some calm into my bones. Energy plays such a strong hand in the spreads but it’s hard to keep my energy now from feeling erratic and scattered.

I go for a three card spread then turn them over, one by one, my gaze flitting across each.

And my heart sinks. They don’t make any sense.

There’s no linkage between them, no theme, nothing in the cards that points to what I’m going through.

I know my energy isn’t the best right now, but how can the cards go from depicting total abandonment, which has materialized pretty accurately, to disconnected images that don’t point to anything clear?

I slump backward as though the last drop of hope has seeped from my skin. Tarot has been my life-line for so long, but it’s failed me when I’ve needed it the most. I slowly pack the cards away. I’ll try again later when my energy isn’t so fractious.

Standing once more, the tingling has intensified, and this time, I don’t fight it.

I walk to the bathroom, half-hoping I might find a razor in one of the cabinets. Andreas’ shock and disgust at the sight of my scars echo in my rearview, but the louder sound is coming from inside my own head. I need to release the intense feelings contained within my skin.

I search the cabinets and find very little. It even looks as though no one lives here—not even Andreas. I chew my lip and try to think. There’s always the kitchen. Knives are a staple and if Alessandro is to work his magic in there, he’ll be in need of some sharp knives.

I open the door and quietly make my way down the stairs.

I don’t know where Viola is, but for all she knows, I could be searching for a glass of water.

I walk into the kitchen, my eyes scouring the cabinetry for drawers where the knives are most likely to be kept.

There are three along the wall. The first drawer holds plastic food containers.

The second appears to be a cutlery drawer but the only items in it are spoons and wide, round-edged forks.

I go to open the third drawer, and when it doesn’t pull out like the other two I look more closely.

Shame and embarrassment makes all the blood plummet from my head into my toes.

There’s a shiny new padlock holding the drawer closed.

Andreas has had all the sharp utensils locked away so that I can’t use them to cut myself.

I should be grateful to him for putting my safety first, but my initial and strongest reaction is hate.

Yet again, he’s removed the small amount of autonomy I have over my body.

He’s taken the only tool I have to keep the shadows and the nightmares at bay.

Panic rises up my spine. What if I can’t control my emotions?

What if they overtake me and I crumble completely?

What if I have a panic attack and no one is here to talk me down?

I coped in the Hamptons because although I left my kit locked in a desk at home, I always had access to the kitchen knives if I really needed to. But there, I was free, I was living my dream. I didn’t have constant daily reminders of Mama or the dark world my family has become embedded in.

I could be someone else—the kind of person who enjoyed sitting in peace reading her book; the kind of person who could throw herself into astrology for hours on end; and the kind of person who at least believed she could enrapture a man as beautiful and charismatic as Andrew Stone.

I didn’t feel the familiar drowning despair that used to drive me to a blade.

But here, I’m trapped. I’m so far from free I could laugh out loud. My dream was crushed on the floor of a red wedding. And every second of every hour of every day, I am reminded of the dark world I now live in—the world that killed my mama.

And so it is that my thighs are burning with tightness and I have no way to release it.

Feeling slightly panicked, I wrench open cupboards. Heavy stoneware, steel pans… No porcelain plates, no glassware. More padlocks. What the hell ?

I look over at the glass-fronted cabinets lining the walls, containing special occasion crystalware.

Padlocks.

How did I not notice the padlocks when Viola showed me around?

I walk briskly out of the kitchen into the family room.

There are no sharp-edged picture frames on the walls or surfaces, no breakable plant pots or ornaments.

I whip open more cabinets and cupboards and find nothing I can put to use.

The house has been cleared from basement to bedroom.

Anything sharp has been stowed away behind padlocks.

I slump to the floor in the family room, despair pulling me down onto the opulent Indian rug.

I didn’t think I could cry anymore, but the tears fall freely.

Every last ounce of freedom has been taken from me.

There may as well be a padlock on every door to the house.

In fact, there probably is, but a large part of me doesn’t want to prove myself right by investigating that.

“Signor’s orders.”

Viola’s soft voice from the doorway makes me jump, but her words only add another layer of bricks to the wall I’m building around myself.

“This isn’t my home,” I whisper through tear-sodden lips. “I don’t want to be here.”

She pads quietly across the room and comes to sit beside me on the rug.

“I know this is hard,” she says quietly. “I don’t know much about you. All I know is what I was instructed to do. I can only use my imagination to figure out why.” She takes a long inhale. “And please know, none of this is worth taking your own life for.”

I blink up at her in surprise. “I wasn’t going to take my own life,” I frown.

Her eyes narrow, then her lips part and she nods, understanding. “Oh. You need the blades for something else.”

I want to beg her to give me a key. Just this once. Just to get me through this transition to a new life, and to get me past the terror of my new husband discovering my destructive habit. But pride stops me. At least I have some left.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying this but you must have had some life before you met Andreas to be so upset about coming here.”

I unleash a bitter laugh. “No, I had a life. Here, I’ll have none.”

“But you’ll have Andreas…” she starts, but then she sees the bitter look on my face. “I was of the understanding this was a love match—not purely an arrangement.”

My eyes round. “If that’s what he told you and you believed him, you are more gullible than you think.”

Her brow creases. “He didn’t tell me that exactly. But he is a different man since he made that first trip to the Hamptons. I’m sorry, I… I had assumed his feelings were reciprocated.”

I push my surprise at those words to the back of my mind .

“You just thought I was about to kill myself,” I remind her.

She shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders. “I thought perhaps your sister’s wedding had brought back painful memories and you were hurting all over again.”

There’s something about her that is warm and maternal. I feel like I can trust her but in a weird way, I don’t want to betray Andreas by telling Viola about his fake identity—the one he reeled me into like a fish on a wire. Maybe she knows, maybe she doesn’t. Does it even matter?

“I liked him,” I admit, honestly. “But… he abused my trust.”

She reaches out and takes my hands delicately. “Don’t tell me anymore. He will ask me what you’ve said and I will not lie to Signor Corioni.”

“I just thought you deserved an explanation. You’re the one who’s having to deal with my reactions to these changes.”

She smiles kindly but doesn’t say anything more.

“This won’t be news to him. He knows what he did. And he under-estimated me. I don’t take kindly to being used and I won’t forgive that easily. If at all.”

She squeezes my hand then releases it and gets to her feet. “I understand.”

I watch her walk back to the door, then she turns around and sighs.

“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m pleased that you’re here.

I’ve been looking forward to having some female company.

Give it time, signora. I’ve known Signor Corioni for many years.

I expect he’s not the easiest man to love, but I see you, and I see him.

And I know that when you do fall, you will fall hard . ”

She lets those words sink in, then she turns around and exits, leaving me wiping my eyes and wondering if I can ever forgive my husband, let alone fall for him.