"No wonder the Don says he's more comfortable with Catarina. Giovanna's temper is way too much." Another voice. Quiet, but not quiet enough.
They all talked over each other, a chorus of noise that split my skull open. My breathing turned shallow and ragged. The room pressed in. Every face was turned away from me or turned against me, and I understood, in that moment, how completely Catarina had constructed this. She had given them exactly the story they wanted. The jealous wife. The innocent widow. The helpless child.
I pressed my hands harder against my stomach and forced myself to speak.
"Enough! All of you, shut up!" My voice tore out of me with a force that startled even me. I saw two of the soldiers step back. "'Giovanna' and 'Catarina'? Do none of you have any sense of right and wrong? This isn't the old country. A man doesn't get to keep a wife and a mistress under the same roof and call it honor! Tomasso cheated. That's on him! And even if I did hit Catarina, she had it coming!"
My outburst stunned the room into silence. Real silence. The kind where men stop breathing because they are not sure what happens next.