THE WIDOW OF A MONSTER

CHAPTER 3

LESSONS IN SILENCE

Serafina learned that silence was not the absence of sound.

It was a language.

At first, she thought obedience meant doing what she was told. Standing where she was placed. Speaking when spoken to. Wearing what was chosen for her. She believed, naively, that compliance had edges—that there was a clear boundary between right and wrong, between obedience and punishment.

She learned quickly that there was no such boundary.

Obedience, she discovered, was not an action. It was an instinct.

It was waking before Alessandro stirred and making sure the curtains were already drawn back, the room flooded with the kind of light he preferred. It was learning the exact temperature he liked his coffee and the precise distance she should stand when handing him the cup. Too close invited scrutiny. Too far suggested defiance.

It was watching his face, always his face.

His moods announced themselves subtly, like weather changes only sailors noticed. A tightening of the jaw. A pause too long before answering a question. The way his fingers drummed once—only once—against the armrest of his chair.

Serafina trained herself to read these signs with the same seriousness others reserved for prayer.

The mansion itself seemed to demand the same awareness. It was a place where sound traveled too easily, where footsteps echoed and doors carried memory. She learned which corridors were safest at which hours, which rooms were neutral ground, which spaces were charged with expectation.

Her bedroom was not a refuge. It was simply where she waited.

The staff never spoke openly to her. They addressed her politely, respectfully, but always with a distance that reminded her she was not one of them—and never would be. They did not offer comfort. Comfort, she realized, was dangerous currency. To give it implied acknowledgment. To acknowledge suffering was to invite consequences.

She learned to thank them for nothing.

The first real lesson came on a morning that appeared unremarkable.

Alessandro was seated at the long breakfast table, the morning light cutting sharp lines across his features. A newspaper lay open before him, untouched. Serafina took her place across from him, careful to sit straight, careful not to make eye contact unless he did.

“You were late last night,” he said without looking up.

“I stayed to speak with Signora Vitale,” Serafina replied softly. “She had questions about the charity—”

“You do not manage charities,” he interrupted. His voice was calm. That was worse.

“I was only helping,” she said. The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Alessandro lowered the paper slowly.

Helping.

He studied her for a moment, his gaze sharp, unreadable. Then he stood, walked around the table, and stopped behind her chair.

Serafina’s heart began to race. She kept her hands folded neatly in her lap, her posture straight, her breathing shallow.

“I decide what you help with,” he said quietly. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said immediately.

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she repeated, her voice steady despite the tremor beneath it.

He rested a hand on her shoulder—not gently, not roughly. Just enough to remind her of his strength. His control.

“Good,” he said, and returned to his seat.

That night, she slept on the floor.

He did not tell her to. He did not have to.

She learned then that obedience also meant anticipating punishment—accepting it before it was demanded. It meant offering submission preemptively, hoping it might soften the blow.

It rarely did.

Another lesson came weeks later, during a dinner with allied families. Alessandro was in high spirits, laughing more than usual, drinking slowly. Serafina felt a fragile sense of relief settle over her. She allowed herself to breathe a little easier.

She should not have.

One of the guests complimented her dress, asking where it was made. It was an innocent question. Serafina answered politely, naming the designer.

Alessandro’s smile flickered.

Later that night, he asked her why she thought it was appropriate to speak without permission.

“I was asked,” she said carefully.

“You were asked,” he repeated. “And you assumed that meant you were allowed to answer.”

She stared at the floor, her throat tight. “I’m sorry.”

He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Sorry is meaningless if you don’t learn.”

She learned.

She learned that even correctness could be dangerous. That obedience required not just restraint, but erasure. She began to answer questions with glances instead of words, letting Alessandro speak for her. She learned to smile and nod, to exist as a presence rather than a participant.

The more invisible she became, the safer she was.

Fear settled into her bones gradually, the way cold did in winter. At first it was sharp and constant. Later, it became background—always there, shaping her movements, her thoughts, her very breathing.

She stopped asking for permission altogether.

She stopped wanting things.

Wanting, she realized, was the most dangerous impulse of all.

The mansion was filled with mirrors, but Serafina avoided them when she could. When she did catch her reflection, she barely recognized the girl staring back. Her expressions were controlled, her posture perfect. Even alone, she moved carefully, as if the walls themselves might report her.

Sometimes, late at night, she pressed a hand against her chest just to feel her heart beating. It reminded her that she was still alive—that she had not disappeared completely.

The most important lesson came the night Alessandro hosted a gathering that ran late into the early hours of morning.

The house was filled with voices, laughter, the low murmur of deals being struck over expensive whiskey. Serafina moved among the guests when summoned, refilling glasses, smiling, retreating. Her role was decorative, precise.

At some point, Alessandro called for her.

She approached him, her steps measured, her head slightly bowed.

“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the chair beside him.

She obeyed.

One of the men across from them—a rival disguised as an ally—made a joke at Alessandro’s expense. It was subtle, cleverly veiled, but it landed wrong. The room tensed.

Alessandro smiled.

Serafina felt it immediately—the shift in the air, the tightening of something unseen. She stared at her hands, willing herself to disappear.

The joke was laughed off. The night continued. The guest left unharmed, smiling, shaking hands.

Later, after the house emptied, Alessandro summoned Serafina to his study.

The door closed behind her.

“You heard what he said,” Alessandro told her, his voice even.

“Yes,” she replied.

“And you said nothing.”

“Yes.”

He studied her. Then he nodded. “Good.”

Relief flooded her so suddenly it made her dizzy.

He leaned back in his chair. “Silence is loyalty,” he continued. “You understand that now.”

“Yes,” she said, and meant it.

That night, she was allowed to sleep in the bed.

It was a reward.

The realization hollowed her out.

From then on, Serafina treated silence as armor. She learned to swallow reactions before they reached her face, to bury thoughts before they reached her tongue. She listened far more than she spoke. She watched. She waited.

She learned which silences were expected, which were suspicious, which were dangerous. She learned when to lower her eyes and when to hold a gaze just long enough to avoid offense. She learned how to exist in a constant state of readiness, every sense attuned to survival.

And always, somewhere at the edge of her awareness, Luca Romano watched.

He never interfered. He never corrected Alessandro. He never offered her comfort or warning. But he noticed things.

Once, when Alessandro dismissed her sharply in front of others, Luca’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Once, when she stumbled on the stairs and caught herself before falling, Luca stepped forward before stopping himself, his hand hovering in the air.

Their eyes met then.

It lasted only a second.

In that second, Serafina saw something unfamiliar in his gaze—not pity, not indifference, but recognition. As if he understood the rules she was learning. As if he knew the cost.

The look unsettled her more than cruelty ever had.

She turned away.

By the end of her first year as Alessandro’s wife, Serafina no longer thought of herself as brave or weak. Those words belonged to a different life. She thought in terms of survival.

Obedience kept her alive.

Silence kept her breathing.

And somewhere deep inside, buried beneath fear and discipline, a part of her kept count—marking every lesson, every bruise, every quiet humiliation.

Not because she planned to rebel.

But because even silence, she was learning, could remember.