Solace

59 | actions and its consequences

Alessia

What was worse than suffering? Probably to inflict the suffering that you know, that you have struggled with or still do, to inflict that very suffering on someone else, that was worse.

I understood nothing of Mikhailov's words and I could not look at it objectively enough to analyse them. First, he made it sound like they had raped her, then he said it was just a 'joke' and they had done 'other things'.

She did not deserve to be raped or harassed or anything else; she did not even deserve to be there surrounded by these kinds of people.

Rape, as you would call it.

Did I perceive it as wrong? Rape happened against one's will. But to consent or refuse, a question had to be asked. Was that what he was trying to tell me? Henry had never asked, there was never a question I could have answered with a yes or no, so it did not count as rape?

And besides, you could not receive anything without giving something. Maybe it was the sacrifice I had to make to not be alone. Sex in return for companionship, perhaps I had blamed Henry for something he had not done.

Had I dragged Henry's name into the mud even though he was not to blame?

"Are you okay?" Ryan's voice snapped me back into the real world.

I noticed that we were back home and the shame and guilt I felt increased.

"I can't go in there," I whispered.

I could not face them. Not now nor ever. Katarina was right, I was responsible for Domenico's death. Maybe I was also to blame for Arcangelo's death, I did not know. In any case, I was not innocent. I had caused Marcel's death and sent Katarina through hell.

"Why?"

"Because I convinced them that your sister would be fine, when she's anything but," I confessed to him. He would soon find out anyway.

"The person you met told you that?" He asked, and I nodded. "Was that person reliable?"

I shook my head.

"Then why do you believe his words so blindly? He's probably just trying to scare you, Alessia. We won't know what happened to Katarina until we hear it from her mouth."

I wanted to believe him, but in the end, I said that nothing would happen to Katarina. Because I made a mistake, I only focussed on whether Henry or Mikhailov would harm her and forgot about the dozen men they have. And that they preferred to let others do the dirty work.

It was my fault that Ricardo did not act faster to save her. Every single minute she spent there and everything that happened during that time was put on my account.

It took me an hour to find the courage to leave his car. Ryan stayed with me the whole time, but when he got a call from Pietro asking him to join them at the warehouse, our ways parted.

His mum had raised him well, really well. He had a compassion I had never seen before. He was the kind of man who changed sides of the road when he walked behind a woman at night because he never wanted to make anyone feel uncomfortable or cause trouble. Even his involvement in the Famiglia was minimal. Unlike us, he had no blood on his hands.

Leandro and Pietro were in the warehouse and Antonio also had to attend to his duties. So I had to face the three of them, who I consider to be the most intense in the family, on my own.

They had one thing in common: they could see through me without any effort.

But I was ready to face the consequences of my actions. Or maybe I just wanted to get it over with. But what I wanted was to be punished, in some way. I deserved the worst of the worst for what I had done to Katarina.