Without a word, I dove into her arms. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered into her ear.
She chuckled. “Even though we texted and Face-timed all the time?”
“It’s not the same as feeling your arms around me.”
Vittoria squeezed me tight. “I know just how you feel.”
As soon as Vittoria released me, I turned around to find Mother staring disapprovingly at the two of us. Ignoring Vittoria, she narrowed her eyes at me. “Your father wants to speak to you.”
That simple phrase triggered emotions I’d managed to bury for several months. But just hearing the words on her lips caused me to feel raw and exposed. “I just got home. Can I at least freshen up and unpack?”
She shook her head. “Now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Vittoria patted my back. “I’ll have your things taken upstairs and start unpacking for you.”
“Thanks.”
“When you're done talking to Father, come swim with us,” Audrianna suggested.
I forced a smile to my face. “I’ll try.”
As I started out of the kitchen and down the hall, I drew in a ragged breath. Since Marco’s death, I’d avoided Father’s study like the plague. Every time I swept through the door, phantom gun smoke mixed with blood assaulted my nose. Not to mention the agonizing images of Marco’s lifeless form, or the warm, sticky rush of blood splattering across my face.
To my surprise, his door was open. “Father?”
Without raising his head from his iPad, he said, “Come in.”
Instead of taking a seat, I lingered in the doorway. When he noticed, Father hissed, “Sit.”
The chair Marco was slaughtered in hadn’t been replaced. Instead, one of the maids had been forced to clean the blood and brain matter off of it. A slight, dark stain peeked out from a new rug that had been placed in front of Father’s desk.
It felt both comforting and somewhat ghoulish that he’d been gone for almost a year, but a small part of him remained.
Steering clear of both the chair and the stain, I eased cautiously down into the other chair. Since I had been perfectly angelic, I knew he wasn’t about to yell at me for any bad behavior.
No, I knew exactly how the conversation was going to go–I was going to learn who my future husband was. And that thought caused my stomach to twist so tightly I feared I might vomit all over that stain.
“I have to say I’ve been very impressed by your repentant behavior this past year.”
Gritting my teeth, I muttered, “Yes, sir.”
“Thankfully, the details of your transgressions didn’t leak to any of the other families.”
“Lucky me,” I muttered before I could stop myself.
Father’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, it’s very lucky considering it has enabled me to make a very advantageous match for you, Andrea.”
I stared him down for a moment. I wanted to tell him he could fuck his “advantageous match” along with himself. I wanted to say I’d rather die than marry any man he found worthy.
But I didn’t.
The peripheral view of Marco’s chair was the only thing keeping me from letting all the grief and anguish and frustration come pouring out of me in venomous barbs.
Although he wanted me to break first, Father finally said, “His name is Raphael Neretti, and he’s a future capo from New York.”
I perked up a little at the reference to a different city. The only redeemable factor of all this bullshit was the possibility of putting distance between myself and my parents. As long as I was in Philadelphia, Father would always have his claws in me.
