Chapter 4 - The Violated Altar
The master bedroom on the second floor had always been Elena’s sanctuary. Designed with vaulted, coffered ceilings, warm silk draperies, and an expansive terrace overlooking the manicured grounds, it was the space where the violence of the outside world had never been permitted to cross the threshold. Tonight, however, the heavy double doors swung open to reveal an obscenity.
The room smelled of Rafael’s cedarwood smoke, mixed with the sickeningly sweet, unfamiliar trace of gardenia—Lucia’s signature perfume.
Elena did not turn on the overhead lights. She pressed the switch for the low bedside lamps, bathing the room in an intimate, golden twilight that only illuminated the wreckage of her life. She walked over to the grand king-sized bed, framed by hand-carved mahogany. The heavy duvet of ivory linen had been violently thrown back. The 1,000-thread-count sheets were twisted, rumpled, and deeply indented, carrying the unmistakably fresh imprint of two intertwined bodies. The silk pillows were strewn across the mattress, one of them bearing a faint smudge of dark mascara.
A lesser woman would have torn the sheets from the mattress, would have thrown the crystal vases against the wall, would have screamed until her throat was raw. But Elena stood beside the bed with her hands clasped loosely in front of her, absorbing the visual evidence with a clinical, terrifying detachment. She was taking inventory of the murder of her nine-year devotion.
She walked past the violated bed and entered the walk-in dressing room. Pulling a small, sleek midnight-blue carry-on suitcase from the top shelf, she laid it open upon the vanity.
Her movements were neither rushed nor sluggish; they were precise, methodical, almost surgical. She did not pack the diamonds Rafael had showered upon her after his successful port acquisitions. She did not touch the furs hanging in cedar garment bags, nor the designer gowns acquired for charity balls where she had played the role of the pristine mafia consort. Everything bought with De Luca money, everything purchased to maintain the polished facade of his empire, stayed on its hanger.
Instead, she selected three simple changes of clothes: tailored trousers, dark cashmere sweaters, a pair of flat leather boots. From the built-in safe, she removed only her passport, her personal bank records from before her marriage, and the modest pearl earrings left to her by her maternal grandmother. She took nothing that belonged to the myth of Elena De Luca, the Don’s queen. She took only what belonged to Elena, the woman who had existed before the fortress had consumed her.
As she zipped the suitcase closed, the sound of the teeth locking together sounded like a prison gate sliding shut on the last decade of her youth.
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She turned back to the bedroom. Her eyes fell upon the bedside table, where two crystal wineglasses rested beside an uncorked bottle of 2010 Brunello di Montalcino. A thin rim of crimson liquid remained at the bottom of each glass. Rafael had not even bothered to pour his own wine; he had opened the vintage they had purchased together in Tuscany three summers ago, sharing it with a woman who had coveted Elena’s life from the moment she crossed their threshold.
Elena walked over to the nightstand. She picked up the first glass by its slender stem. Then she picked up the second.
