"You don't even know, do you? He comes to the safehouse every day. Every day. Have you ever seen the way he looks when he loses control in bed?"
"He's always telling me that women in the city are so dull. That I'm the only one who stirs something real in him. Every time, he pushes me so far I have to beg him to stop before he'll let me go..."
As she spoke, she loosened her clothes right in front of me, baring her body without shame.
Skin pale as silk, covered in bruises. Dark ones and faint ones, layered over each other. My throat tightened, and I looked away.
"Look, these are all the marks he left on me. He's always like this. Once he gets excited, he loses all control and leaves me so sore I can't get out of bed the next morning..."
"Ermanno told me that as long as you couldn't bear him a child, sooner or later the guilt would eat at you until you offered to let him take a second wife on your own. All I had to do was wait..."
She said so much in one breath, more than I could absorb. By the end, I realized there was nothing left inside me to feel.
Don Ermanno Santoro. What a brilliant strategist.