He experienced an inexplicable stab of envy that the bondbetween the Rossellini parents and daughters was so strong that their eldest was so willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of love for her father. Gennaro wouldn’t sacrifice a day of his life for his father. Not even an hour.
As if she could read his thoughts, her expression softened and she said, “Why do you hate your father, Gennaro?”
If she hadn’t posed the question with the same softness of tone as in her eyes, he very likely wouldn’t have answered. “Because he’s a selfish, cruel, violent, jealous bastard.”
He waited for surprise to light her face. Instead, she closed her eyes and breathed out a sigh before her eyes fixed back onto his.
There was no demand for him to explain himself. Her soft, steady stare stayed on him, waiting for him to speak without pressure.
“Cruelty and violence are innate in my family,” he eventually said. “The Martinelli history is littered with it, going back generations. Fights, the beating of women, even murder. Our wealth and so-called nobility meant most of these incidents were swept under the carpet. My father has the gene in him.” His eyes glittered. “He shot our family dog when I was a child because the dog crapped on an expensive rug.”
Her horror was immediate. It was a horror he shared. Gennaro had never forgiven his father for that. One of many things he would never forgive him for.
“He beat a man he thought was flirting with my mother to a pulp. He’s beaten more men than I could ever know about for trespassing on our land.”
Her golden cheeks had paled, and he remembered how close Luisa had been to his mother.
“He’s never touched my mother if that’s what you’re thinking. No, she’s his enabler.” At her widening eyes, he added, “She facilitates his cruelty by pretending not to see it. He beat my brother black and blue and always she turned a blind eye.”
Her fingers fluttered to her lips in shock.
“I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about Niccolo that pushes my father’s buttons. I don’t remember him ever liking him. He was always hyper-critical and it seemed like he took pleasure in finding fault because then he could punish him. ‘Correcting’ him, as my father called it. His form of correction usually involved a belt buckle across Niccolo’s backside but he liked to use his fists too.”
“And your mother let this happen?” she whispered hoarsely.
“She always said it was for my father to decide how he wished tocorrecthis own son.”
“And you? Did he ever…?” Her voice trailed off as if she couldn’t vocalise the words in her head.
“Niccolo was his whipping boy, not me. The only time he hit me was the day I stepped in to stop him killing Nic.” He shook his head and drained his champagne to wash away the bitter taste coating his tongue. “I’d been out and came back earlier than expected. I’m certain my father didn’t know I’d returned. I was in my room when I heard a crash, and when I came downstairs I found Niccolo curled in a ball and my father kicking his head like a football. I’d seen my fathercorrecthim before a few times – he usually saved the beatings until I was out – but never like that. I pulled him off and so he swung around and punched me.” He touched the bump on his nose and met Luisa’s horrified stare again. “I punched him back, hard enough to floor him. He went sprawling onto a coffee table and smashed through it. I told him if he ever touched my brother again, I’d kill him. He must have believed me because he never laid another finger on him.”
There was a long beat of shocked hush. “How old were you when that happened?”
“Sixteen.”
Luisa leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I’m so sorry. I…”
“What?” he probed when she quietened. “Speak your mind.”
Trying to gather her jumbled thoughts, she rubbed her chin on her knee. “I never liked your father – Marisa didn’t either, and I don’t think our mother did – so to hear about his viciousness… I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not. But your mother…? I loved her very much, and to learn she allowed and enabled such cruelty makes my heart hurt.” She squeezed her eyes shut to drive out the vision of Giuseppe viciously beating Niccolo, a man she’d always regarded as a cousin. But it wasn’t Niccolo her heart was hurting so hard for. It was for his brother, a man she’d never seen under the terms of family, and it made her feel wretched that she’d long wanted to shake the hand of whoever had caused the bump to Gennaro’s nose.
No wonder he’d always held himself apart from everyone.
The courage it must have taken him to stand up to his father and protect his brother would have been immense. She remembered her father smacking Marisa’s bottom once as a chastisement for something naughty she’d done when they were small. Luisa had cried harder than Marisa. She didn’t know if her tears were the reason but her father had never raised a hand to either daughter again, and she knew in her heart that Gennaro had suffered that same distress and that he would have spent the entirety of his childhood trying to protect his brother from their bully of a father.
In her heart she’d always known Giuseppe Martinelli had a cruel streak. It was there in his cold eyes, the reason she’d always been instinctively wary around him. To her father, though, Giuseppe had been his friend and benefactor. It was thanks to Giuseppe’s patronage that her father’s law firm had grown so successful, but that success had been entirely tied to Giuseppe. As soon as her father’s disease had startedimpacting the timeliness of his work, Giuseppe had appointed a new law firm to take care of his business and personal needs without even blinking. The effect on her father’s business had been instantaneous.
To imagine living with such a cold-hearted brute…
She pulled in a ragged breath. Gennaro wouldn’t want to see her distress for him. “I suppose it shouldn’t shock me,” she whispered. “I thought I knew your mother but she spent decades pretending to love us and then the minute my father’s law firm hit trouble when his disease accelerated, she sided with your father in dropping us and in making sure their circle of friends spurned us too.” She thought of all the weekends and holidays they’d spent with the Martinellis and all the bonds and familiarity that had developed between the two families. It had all been a lie. Everything about Giuseppe and Carmella Martinelli was a lie. “I must have been blind.”
“Not blind. They are experts at painting themselves in the light they wish to be seen.”
Luisa took a moment to gather thoughts and emotions that were all over the place. “You know, I spent years wondering why you and Niccolo stopped joining us at family celebrations. I think the last time I saw Nic before you and I married was just before he went to university. By the time I went to art school, you’d long stopped joining us too.”
“I lived in the family home until Nic left and then I left too.”
“You stayed to protect him?” A question she already knew the answer to in her heart.