I am Aveline, and in the morning the warm room was still mine.
Nobody had taken it back in the night, so I came down the stairs holding my pad like a shield.
Mattia: Morning. Did you sleep at all?
Alba: Eat something before you go down there, both of you.
Alba said it from the kitchen door, and she said it like I was already one of hers.
Mattia: I have to go down to the club. Come with me.
I wrote fast. I can stay up here. I don't mind.
Mattia: You can stay. But this is your home now, and you should see the place.
Mattia: And I want them to see you with me.
The club was under the house, down a narrow stair that smelled of lemon and old smoke.
The men stopped talking when Mattia came in. Then every one of them looked at me.
Mattia: This is Aveline. She lives with my mother. Nobody touches her.
A few of them nodded at me. One of them smiled, and I did not know yet what that smile was worth.
I wrote thank you on my pad and showed him, and he read it like reading a pad was normal.
Then a man at a table called his name about a delivery, and Mattia stepped away.
I stood alone by the bar with my pad in both hands, and I felt every eye in that room.
Berto: Well, look at this. The mute from Hoke's ice house, right here in the good club.
Berto: You're the little bitch that cost Tobias six grand. That was my money too.
I shook my head and stepped back, and the bar hit my back, so there was nowhere left to go.
Berto: Don't walk away from me, you dumb mute cunt. You open your mouth for money but not for a man?
His hand closed around my wrist and squeezed until the old rope bruises woke up and burned.
Berto: I'll tell you what you're worth. Six grand of used ice-house meat, and that's being kind.
He jerked me against the bar hard enough to knock the wind out of me, and my pad fell on the floor.
Berto: Make one sound and I'll break your fingers one by one. Nobody saves a mute whore twice.
I believed him. I always believed them, because they had always been right about me before.
Mattia: Take your hand off her. Now.
Berto: Boss, we were just having a word. She's not yours, she's nothing.
Mattia: She's not nothing, and you have about one second.
Mattia took his hand off my wrist and bent it back slow, and I heard the bone go before Berto screamed.
It sounded like a dry stick snapping in half.
Berto: My wrist! You broke my fucking wrist over a mute!
He was on his knees on the club floor, and not one man in that room moved to help him.
Mattia: Listen to me, all of you. She is under my protection. Not the family's. Mine.
Mattia: Any man who puts a hand on her, I take the hand. I will not say it twice.
Then he turned to me and his voice went soft, like a different man lived inside him.
Mattia: Let me see it. Did he mark you?
Red finger marks stood up on my wrist, and he ran his thumb over them so light that I shivered.
Mattia: I'm sorry. I turned my back for one minute.
I grabbed my pad and wrote fast, and my hand shook so bad the letters came out crooked. Not your fault.
Mattia: It's my club, so it's my fault.
I wanted to tell him things. Thank you. I'm sorry. I don't know why you do this for me.
My throat shut the way it always did, and I hated it, and my eyes went wet and stupid.
Mattia: Hey. None of that. You don't have to talk to me.
He said it like he meant it, like my silence was not a broken thing sitting in the room.
I wrote one word and turned it around. Why.
Mattia: Because you belong under my roof now, and I don't let anyone take what is under my roof.
He wiped the wet off my cheek with his thumb, and my breath caught in my chest.
Nobody had ever touched my face without hurting it. I wanted him to do it again.
In my room, I sat on the quilt with my pad on my knees and my wrist still warm from his thumb.
I wrote one line and looked at it a long time. I want to trust him.
But those same hands could close on my throat just as easy, and I had no way to know which way he would turn.