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The Don Broke My Hands. I Broke His World
Novelix
Completed
"When I saw my ex-fiancé again, I was gutting fish on the Boston docks, and he was the Don of the Vescari family. I slit open a striped bass. Julian frowned. ""Pearl. Is this how you greet a customer?"" ""Cod's twelve a pound. Bass is eighteen. Which one?"" I grabbed another fish and gutted it. A scale caught on his gold-rimmed glasses. He wiped it off, then covered his nose with a handkerchief, his mouth tightening in disgust. ""Was that deliberate, Pearl? Do you really have to do this?"" My brother Adrian clamped a hand over mine. ""It's been three years. Lily's a world-renowned pianist now."" ""That old woman's prediction isn't going to come true."" ""Come home."" His index finger pressed directly against one of the stumps on my right hand. Three years ago, before the National Piano Competition, the elderly fortune-teller the Vescari family trusted had given Julian and Adrian a warning. If I won, Lily Conti would be unable to bear the defeat. She would jump from a building. They'd done everything they could to make me withdraw. When I refused, Adrian held my hand against a table while Julian brought out the pruning shears. A dull itch spread through the stumps. I drove the knife into the cutting board and pointed at Lily, who was standing beside Julian. ""You want me to come home? Fine."" ""Cut off two of her fingers. Then I'll come."""
Chapters (3)
第1章
When I saw my ex-fiancé again, I was gutting fish on the Boston docks, and he was the Don of the Vescari family.
I slit open a striped bass.
Julian frowned. "Pearl. Is this how you greet a customer?"
"Cod's twelve a pound. Bass is eighteen. Which one?"
I grabbed another fish and gutted it.
A scale caught on his gold-rimmed glasses.
He wiped it off, then covered his nose with a handkerchief, his mouth tightening in disgust.
"Was that deliberate, Pearl? Do you really have to do this?"
My brother Adrian clamped a hand over mine.
"It's been three years. Lily's a world-renowned pianist now."
"That old woman's prediction isn't going to come true."
"Come home."
His index finger pressed directly against one of the stumps on my right hand.
Three years ago, before the National Piano Competition, the elderly fortune-teller the Vescari family trusted had given Julian and Adrian a warning.
If I won, Lily Conti would be unable to bear the defeat.
She would jump from a building.
They'd done everything they could to make me withdraw.
When I refused, Adrian held my hand against a table while Julian brought out the pruning shears.
A dull itch spread through the stumps.
I drove the knife into the cutting board and pointed at Lily, who was standing beside Julian.
"You want me to come home? Fine."
"Cut off two of her fingers. Then I'll come."
...
"Pearl!"
Adrian slapped my arm aside.
"Three years, and you still haven't learned how to behave?"
Years in ice water had left my knuckles swollen and red. His slap barely made a difference.
Julian looked at my scarred hand. His gaze lingered on the missing fingers before he turned away, swallowing hard.
He’d watched men bleed without blinking.
Apparently, looking at what he’d done to me was harder.
I'd seen that look often enough.
As long as it didn't cost me a sale, I could live with it.
Still, the market felt colder that day.
I scooped water over the bloody cutting board. Pink droplets splashed Lily's white dress.
She shrieked and jumped behind Julian.
"Pearl."
He crouched to dab at her skirt, then looked up at me.
"Enough."
"Lily came here to bring you home. This is how you repay her?"
I laughed and tapped the price board.
"I think you've misunderstood."
"I sell fish. I don't sell smiles."
"A better attitude costs extra."
Adrian scowled.
"You were the Marchetti family's princess. Now you won’t even speak to us without being paid?"
My phone chimed.
Transfer received: $30,000.
Julian held up his phone.
"Can we talk now?"
Thirty thousand dollars.
Exactly enough to pay my mother's overdue hospital bill.
Julian stepped around the dirty water and approached the counter. His nose wrinkled at the smell.
"I know your mother needs surgery."
"How long will it take you to pay for it by gutting fish?"
My knife stopped.
Three years ago, he’d used his contacts to turn a federal investigation against my father’s businesses, then seized what was left.
Adrian had helped him.
My father was dead. His men had scattered, surrendered, or gone to work for Julian.
Now he wanted to play savior.
My eyes stung. I couldn't tell whether it was the cold or the hate.
"If I refuse, will you take two more fingers, Don Vescari?"
"Pearl." His voice hardened. "That matter was settled three years ago."
"For you."
His jaw tightened.
"Still arrogant. Still spoiled."
He wouldn't meet my eyes.
Lily stepped forward and lowered her head.
"Pearl, I know you hate me. But wasn't that fire enough?"
She pushed up her sleeve to reveal a palm-sized burn scar.
Tears filled her eyes.
"I don't blame you anymore."
"Julian hasn't slept well since you left. I know he misses you."
"Please. Come home."
Her voice was soft and pleading.
Julian's hand tightened at his side.
Adrian looked away, his fists clenched.
The fire three years ago had been sudden.
The accusation hadn't. Lily had known exactly whom to blame.
And they'd believed her.
"I'm not going."
"Pearl. One last chance."
Adrian opened my mother's medical file on his phone.
"Her surgeon’s an old classmate. He’s arranging her operation."
"You wouldn't want any complications."
"She's your mother too!"
"Not since she married your father and had you."
第2章
I knew Adrian hated our mother for remarrying.
He hated her even more for having me.
My father had given him the Marchetti name and raised him under our roof. Adrian had accepted everything except the idea that he belonged there.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have helped Julian destroy the Marchetti family and divide the spoils.
He wouldn't have thrown my mother and me out for a housekeeper's daughter, leaving us to nearly freeze on a park bench that winter.
I just hadn't understood how deep his hatred went.
"Fine. I'll go."
I knew Julian Vescari. I knew what happened to people who refused him.
My mother only had one life.
I couldn't gamble with it.
The Marchetti estate on Beacon Hill had new owners.
The wing damaged in the fire had been rebuilt. My father’s name had been removed from the gates.
Lily and Rosa, once our housekeeper and her daughter, now treated it as their own.
"There aren't any guest rooms. Just the servants' quarters out back."
"I hope the Marchetti princess can manage."
Rosa held a cup of espresso. My mother's expensive shawl lay across her shoulders.
Adrian shrugged.
"The Marchettis are finished. She should be grateful she has a roof."
"Shouldn't you, Pearl?"
I bit my lip until I tasted blood.
"She's less difficult than I remember," Rosa said.
"But if she's staying under my roof, she can earn her keep."
"Adrian? Julian?"
Neither objected.
Rosa ordered a maid to bring a basin of hot water. She took off her heels, settled into an armchair, and tapped the basin with her toe.
"Well?"
"I can't sleep without soaking my feet."
I looked at the water.
Then at Julian.
He stood beside the fireplace, watching me, his expression unreadable.
When Rosa had worked for us, my mother had treated her with courtesy. Even after discovering her interest in my father, she'd kept quiet to spare her the humiliation.
Now Rosa wanted me kneeling at her feet in my mother’s house.
Julian frowned.
Before he spoke, Lily stepped in.
"Mom, don't tease her. Pearl's a guest."
"You can't ask her to do a servant's work."
She slipped her arm through mine, then gagged.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."
"It's the smell. Why don't you wash up first?"
Only when I reached the servants' quarters did I unclench my hand.
My nails had cut into my palm.
That night, I lay awake on the narrow bed, looking at a photograph of my mother and me.
I traced her face until my pillow was wet.
At one in the morning, I heard a familiar piano piece from the main house.
Julian was at the Steinway, playing the unfinished composition I'd written three years ago.
He stopped when I entered.
"Remember this?"
How could I forget?
I'd written it about us, about growing up together in two families bound by an old alliance.
My father used to say Julian would keep me safe when he no longer could.
I’d believed him.
I’d planned to play this piece at the competition and propose to Julian onstage.
Now he was sitting at my piano in the house he’d taken from us.
"Finish it, Pearl."
He put the score in my hand.
His face softened, and for a moment I almost forgot the past three years.
I remembered him waiting outside my practice room. Bringing me food when I forgot to eat. Listening while I played the same passage until midnight.
My fingers trembled around the paper.
Then he spoke again.
"Lily's competing in the Boston International Piano Competition in three days."
"This piece is perfect for her."
So that was why they'd brought me back.
Whatever hope had stirred in me died.
I tore the pages apart and dropped them into the wastebasket.
"You want my music to make her a star?"
"Not a chance."
"Are you sure?"
Julian took out his phone and showed me security footage of my mother's hospital room.
She was asleep beneath a white blanket.
"Russo answers to me, Pearl."
He held the screen in front of me.
"Finish the piece. She gets her surgery."
I stared at him.
"And then?"
"We wipe the slate clean."
第3章
I'd told Julian countless times that I hadn't started the fire.
He'd always used the fortune-teller's warning against me.
"Pearl, you think our love gives you permission to do anything."
"You say you did nothing wrong. What did Lily do wrong?"
"You had everything. Couldn't you stand us showing her a little kindness?"
A woman had predicted Lily would jump from a building.
Somehow, that had become proof that I wanted her dead.
Then the fire happened, and Julian decided he’d been right all along.
That was when I’d stopped expecting him to listen.
Today was no different.
I turned my back.
"Remember what you said."
"I finish the piece. You arrange my mother's surgery. You let me go."
I left before he could answer.
From then on, I was a prisoner in the servants' quarters.
Adrian said I couldn't leave until the music was finished. Meals arrived on trays. He took my phone.
I wasn't even allowed to call my mother.
A guard waited outside when I tried the door.
"Mr. Marchetti’s orders."
My childhood home had become a cage.
Then came Lily's birthday.
Julian and Adrian threw her a lavish party. Music executives, critics, and concert patrons mingled with the Vescari family's captains and associates.
I was dragged out of bed at dawn and put in a server's uniform.
The caterers needed help, they said.
Three years ago, I would've torn the place apart.
Now, whatever pride I had left had gone down the drain with the fish scales.
I carried drinks past men who had once called my father Don.
One recognized me and lowered his eyes.
Another glanced at Julian before holding out his empty glass.
I filled it.
Julian stood beside Lily all evening, smiling.
Adrian kept coming over to straighten her dress.
She basked in the attention, wearing a necklace I remembered seeing in my mother’s jewelry box.
Before she blew out the candles, Julian tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"What's your wish, Lily?"
"Julian, I want to marry—"
"Behave. Make a proper wish."
His voice was indulgent, but his eyes flicked toward me.
Lily pressed her lips together.
When she looked up again, she was smiling.
"My wish involves someone very special."
She walked toward me.
My breath caught.
I turned to leave, but someone shoved me from behind.
Lily caught my elbow.
"Careful, Pearl."
She winked, then lifted my right hand for everyone to see.
"Pearl was my first piano teacher."
"I'd love for her to play something tonight."
People stared at the missing fingers.
"Isn't that the Marchetti girl? The prodigy?"
"Don't feel sorry for her. She tried to burn Lily alive. Losing those fingers served her right."
"God, she smells like fish."
Their looks grew uglier.
I looked at the men who’d once sworn loyalty to my father.
Not one spoke.
Julian frowned.
"Enough."
"Lily, choose another wish."
Before he finished, I walked to the piano.
I sat down and placed my damaged hand on the keys.
Julian stepped forward.
I struck the first note.
It was a beginner's piece. A child could play it.
I stumbled through every bar.
My hand reached for notes it could no longer cover. The rhythm broke. Wrong notes rang through the room.
Someone laughed.
Then someone else.
I kept playing as the laughter grew.
Julian had heard me perform pieces that brought entire halls to their feet.
Tonight, he watched me struggle through one I’d learned as a child.
I finished without looking away from the keys.
By the time I raised my head, his face had gone rigid.