Out Of Silence: Reclaiming My Life

rents' lives. My fiancé, Alessandro, the Mafia Underboss the

d. But the first thing I heard wasn't his loving voice-it was

ce door as the man who promised

sickness to me. You are the on

f I was okay. Yet, right in front of my face, he recorded explicit

sily manipulate. He paraded his betrayal right before my eyes, confide

ear every sin

ne, booked a one-way flight to London on the morning of our wed

pte

na

rs, and its sudden retreat was a violent, unwelcome thing. The fever broke, and with it, the city's ambient hum pressed in-

through the receiver, I heard not his voice, b

acutely sensitive to this damp, percussive intimacy, sent a tremor through the muscles of

e headquarters of the Vitale

e was a currency of fear in New York's dark passages

in the fire set by a rival cartel, thei

pact severed all my connections to the world of sound. My perception was fore

sandro had knelt and sworn a blo

o be my ears, my

e heavy mahogany of hi

new to be Sophia Rossi's,

me the

im groan

said this forced Family duty was a sickness to him,

e vibrated

Alessandro's burner

sudden sweat, slid acro

d my number. A d

ssed the record function on the screen, my finger

ed every

glass of the lobby entrance. The thud of it was a low

nside the of

his lethal instincts wer

isgusting sounds of their

he building, a strange vacan

d bottle upon the pavement

ith each step, I left a tacky, dark-red semicircle upon the Ita

l pressure buil

upon t

the city confirmed this ni

some hours later, an

arks on the

e the sofa and took my bleedi

d the slivers of g

rked, he mu

like me should not be wan

dreaded being sha

icted until I co

fought rival soldiers to pr

p at me and switche

his features arranged int

at his ly

own telephone and

s dripping with promise

ndro s

in low, guttural detail how he

me while he s

as handling some ur

y feet fro

to my bedchamber,

raph of my deceased pare

covers and clutched

ed cadence of his voice as he paced, the sound of his sha