The Child Bride

Ch-2:The Carllone Bride

Ch-2-The Carllone Bride

Casey has been engaged since she was literally born, she didn’t have a mom, she didn’t have a lot of friends, she didn’t have a home, she didn’t have a family, but she had a fiancé. It’s not something most people can attest to, but Casey was the seemingly lucky one in a million. She suppose the idea must be romantic to someone out there because she isn’t the first woman to be shipped of and branded in the name of business insurance and as far as she knows nobody had ever complained before, in fact people like Cecelia Devitto look forward to it with starry eyes and pretentious pride. Casey on the other hand, stole a kitchen knife and snuck it with her to her honeymoon, ready to use it at the first sign of trouble from the man that she barely know who also happened to be her husband, so it’s safe to say she isn’t one of those people.

Her life, in all its meager painful 18 years, has been a series of ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ moments, she was born was just when the Devitto family needed a stooge to solidify their deals with the Carllone family with a well-timed engagement without having to give up their own perfect daughter to a life of pseudo- s*****y hidden under the title of a marriage.

The Carllone bride, it’s the one thing she has been classified as since the moment she was born. When she was a kid she didn’t get it, especially since she was more or less raised by the maids and kitchen staff who were more horrified rather than marveled at the idea, but by time she got the gist of it pretty quickly, it’s safe to say she wasn’t thrilled to be married at 18 to a man a good decade older than her who looked at her like she was the reason his whole world split in the middle. She tried, Casey had never really been the person to not try when people boxed her in, she’s got the bruises and scars to prove for it, but the esteemed Devittos, her ‘family’ made it distinctly clear that her consent was the last thing they cared about, and contrary to popular beliefs she could take a hint, especially when a gun was lodged into her mouth every time she dared to say something otherwise.

So when the time came, she gathered up whatever self-preservation instincts was left of her and decided to be the meek, virgin, defenseless little Carllone bride just like they always wanted her to be, with larger things at stake it didn’t seem like a big deal to suck it up and get transferred from one abusive, insane crime family to another.

Expect not really because it turned out the ‘another’ in the equation was one pathetically lonely Carllone heir with attachment issues to his alcohol issue who didn’t give a damn about her, again, it’s not something most people wound tag as a positive aspect of getting married at 18, but to Casey it was the best god damn thing to ever happen to her.

For the first month she didn’t buy it, it was literally too good to be true, their honeymoon was spend at some fancy beach at some fancy island where the guy more or less forgot the fact he was alive far less the fact he was married, she just assumed the guy was super busy and as long as she stayed out of his sight she could walk away unmolested as the best case scenario. Then the guy actually told her that he didn’t want to see her, sure he had shouted quite a lot and seemingly consumed a large amount of alcohol in the two minutes he spent threatening her to stay away from him all the while more or less throwing money at her as compensation for something she is still unsure of, she would have told him how she totally agreed but then he had more or less ran out or passed out on the hallway and Casey had been a mix of confused and overjoyed to actually process what happened.

She had spent rest of the week keenly observing the guy because there was no way in hell things would have suddenly gotten that easier, good things never happened to her, maybe it’s because by time Casey had let herself believe the over exaggerated gory stories of what exactly a business issued marriage -where every right she had was easily stripped of- like hers warranted from her, which mostly consisted of a lot of seemingly impossible and sadistic s*x stories and how she was meant to be more or less a baby making machine like some sick rendition of old romance novels. But in her defense she grew up watching old man Aldrich Devitto, every woman- and some case men- that worked at the house was scared to go past him even in his old age, the sick bastard had the habit of f*****g everything with a pulse no matter his recipients wanted it or not. Her other frame of references were the late Aldrich Devitto’s sons, her ‘step brothers’ who could give their father and his torturous hobbies a good run for his money.

So given the men she knew, or observed on a daily basis were downright bastards with no moral bone in their body, it’s safe to say that she had issues with men in general, and considering the Devittos had more or less gave free reign over her- both legally and morally- to her husband she had all rights to be suspicious, the last thing she wanted to be was lulled into a false state of calm just to have everything crashing on top of her again. Marriages such as these came from old traditions, mainly so that the men could torture the women if somebody did go past their ‘deals, but it also gave them the right to do whatever they wanted and as the wife she was meant to sit there and take it if she didn’t want to get murdered, as if murder is any worse than some of the things these bastards gets up to.

But for all her efforts Donatello Carllone was the living, breathing contrary to what she assumed he would be, sure he was seemingly trying to drink himself to an early grave, and that presumably resulted in some rage issues if the way he yelled at her for literally no other reason that existing was anything to go by. Casey had spent two months being married to him, where not only had the man ignored her for most parts, given her a free reign into his house, his people and also agreed to pay for her college degree she could honestly say Donatello Carllone was the most decent man she had ever witnessed in real life.

And that honestly terrified her.

With the Devittos there was always something on the line, something she could potentially lose that would act as the leverage they needed over her to manipulate her into compliance and obedience, it’s the only way they had managed to get her to behave. In the rare occasions she did get something good in her life, her dear siblings and step mother clearly stated that she owed them in turn for obtaining whatever was.

Casey is not stupid, she knows that’s not how real families work, in fact the Devittos and her are the furthest thing from a healthy family, even ignoring the countless times she had gotten hurt from their hands. She’s been caged in, scarred and marked, starved and burned, locked away from the rest of the world for most part, so even if she knew the rest of the world compared to her family were god given angels; she had never really expected it, she had never really expected to have a life of her own, that when she did get the freedom due to the mercy of this amazing man she had no idea what to do.

She had spent most of the first month caged in her room watching one silly TV show after the other, mostly because it provided an escape, she didn’t have to think a lot when she was immersed in something else, and if she was allowed to think she was gonna pull her own hair out. Eventually she knew she had to come out, especially after her conversation with Don where he was definitely much less drunk than the last time.

The Carllone house was huge; but that’s not a big deal because the Devitto mansion she grew up in was seemingly even bigger, the difference was the people occupying the said structure. The Devitto family itself was giant with way too many members; the older Devitto heirs and their wife and children chose to live as a joint family rather than live separately, she didn’t really know why exactly they did that, Mrs. Devitto tended to preach on about strong relations and keeping a strong front in front of their enemies for every weird custom the Devittos had, but considering they also forced her marriage at 18 and almost refused to let her go to high school, a close depended family was the least of their painful orthodox notions. These members coupled with security, the maids and other help meant that the house was usually full. Not that it mattered anyway to her because it had been made clear that it wasn’t her house, she might have worn the name Devitto but she had even lesser rights to the house than the maids that worked in there.

The Carllone house was the very opposite of that, for the first part there is distinct lack of people with weaponries going in and out, there was no dried blood on the curtains and the place was always filled with a silent calm that she hadn’t been able to sleep well since she got there nights not because she didn’t like it, but because she honestly didn’t know how to deal with things actually being okay for once. The staff working there was the bare minimum, a cook that came in every other day to stock up the kitchen and two maids who only came in once a week to clean the entire house, the security was also the bare minimum and even if there were more they did their best not to be seen so that the house more or less always seemed empty. Donatello himself barely ever came home, or chose to lock himself up in his own house office. So usually it was always her alone in a giant house.

Casey had did her research on her husband, and while it didn’t help much she knew they weren’t quite as bad as other old blooded families in the area hoping to make alliances with the Devittos, Don himself had admitted that he was trying to get out of the illegal parts of their business, but yet the simplicity if not the quietness of the place still took her by surprise and overwhelmed her more than once, and that was the exact reason Casey found herself sitting on a couch starring at the oversized build in aquarium of the house in the middle of the night.

It’s not the first time she found her way into the lone couch in the massive corridor, and considering the way her nightmares tend to follow her around it probably won’t be the last either. She had never really expected her to find herself being lonely, even when most people back home ignored her or chose not to talk to her afraid of the repercussions there were always people around in general, but all of a sudden the only living company she had was the fishes swimming in the giant mimic of what is hopefully meant to be a smaller version of Atlantis.

She’ll admit it was the best part of the oversized house with no people whatsoever. At night the lights were complete dimmed out and what was left was the ethereal glow of the water, and considering it covered the whole wall it acted much like a secret cave where Casey was starting to associate as a safe place with the amount of time she had come down to stare at the aquarium. She names the little guys swimming around by her second visit, just after she managed to push the couch closer to the glass so she could fall asleep watching them.

The larger ones were named after various superheroes and other TV characters they reminded her of; she was yet to learn to differentiate between the tiniest ones so for the time being they were all ‘johnnies’, her favorite was Bruce Wayne, the flat black fish with the single yellow stripe on its tail that always floated around in the darker corners, he (assuming that it is a he) always came up to say hello, or at least just stare at her for a few seconds before swimming away. Casey had spent almost a good day researching on every type of fish in the tank after she discovered them.

It’s safe to say she has grown attached to them, latching onto the only living thing willing to keep her company in the house. She talked to them most nights where she didn’t have the worst of her panic attacks, mainly to listen to her own voice because she barely ever uses in otherwise. She was always a loud person, mainly because not being loud meant she was letting them have the last word and she never knew how to ignore taunts and jeers thrown at her. But for once she didn’t have to be loud there was nobody out to get her, so the fishes were the ones to listen to her pointless blabber.

Today was not one of those nights though, she had woken up in cold sweat unable to breathe, it had taken her almost an hour to snap out of it, and afterword’s by the time she managed to make her way to her couch and her fishes she had been too tired to do anything other than just lay there and stare at them, a little scared to go back to sleep. It didn’t make sense, the tiredness or the irrational fear, she did literally nothing other than watch TV or go exploring the house and hence make accidental messes that has the usually discreet security staring at her weirdly and considering college doesn’t start up for almost another two months (presuming Donatello kept his word) she would have nothing to do anyway, so there was no reason for her to feel so tired and he haunted by her nightmares.

The fear made a little more sense though, considering the things she had been forced to see and endure it was a god damn miracle that she hadn’t already managed to kill all the Devittos or kill herself trying to do just that, but it didn’t matter anymore, the Devittos were thousands of miles away from her, as long as she kept Donatello fairly happy she wouldn’t have to worry about seeing them any time soon, and even if she didn’t manage to be on her husband’s good graces she presumes running away would be easier from the Carllone house rather than back at the Devittos’.

She sighs out and reached her hand forward to touch the glass, a few of the tinier fishes come forward when she taps the glass a few times, eyes wide and curious that Casey forces herself to smile at them.

“I am okay, things are good- I am married to an alcoholic but he is the best alcoholic I have ever seen, I am fine- I am perfect” she tells the little guys “You’ve got my back yeah?” she wonders, and forces herself to believe her earlier words before she slowly closes her eyes, and hopes to god the only thing she sees is puckered fishes and tiny treasure chests for the night.

It doesn’t usually work out that way, but Casey had never been the one to give up without trying even if she knew there is no way out.