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1
GINEVRA
“Pregnant,” I said to my sister, my voice flat and furious. “You can’t fulfill Papà’s marriage contract with the Irish because you are fucking pregnant.”
Silence weighed heavily on the other end of the line.
Fucking hell.I escaped that world ten years ago, and this fucking idiot was drawing me back in.
I stopped myself. I wasn’t being fair. My sister was kind and sweet and compassionate and utterly fucking oblivious to the evil it took for my father to keep her in isolated comfort.
“Does our father know?”
Sofia’s despondent sniffle answered my question.
“And our mother?”
“Mamma knows something’s wrong, but she doesn’t know what,” Sofia whispered.
I didn’t need to see her to know that tears streamed down her perfect face, turning her nose a delicate shade of pink and making her blue eyes shine. Even as an infant, she was one of those girls who only became more beautiful when she cried.
I pinched the top of my nose in hopes of staving off the oncoming migraine. “Who’s the father, sis?”
Sofia was silent.
“Who is the father, Sofia?” I repeated, a tight edge to my voice. I couldn’t help her if she didn’t give me the information I needed.
“Sergio Accardi,” she whimpered.
Fuck.Fuck.Accardi was acapofrom a rival family, a top-level captain, but not an actual family member. My father would gain nothing from marrying her to him. Accardi, on the other hand, had everything to gain from knocking up my sister and trapping her into marriage. Ten years ago, he was a decent man. He treated my sister and me with respect and kindness. Today? I didn’t know. I’d been gone too long, and I couldn’t be sure of anything.
“Ginevra, Papà invited O’Conner over for dinner. He wants to sign the contracts tomorrow night,” my sister wailed over the phone.
“Have you thought about getting an abortion?” I snapped, my temper getting the best of me.
The shocked silence on the other end of the line told me everything I needed to know. Sofia was a Catholic Italian-American raised by a traditional mafia family to be a good wife, an excellent hostess, and to look the other way no matter what her damn husband did.
“Right,” I said, exhaling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I spoke.”
Her voice broke. “I don’t live in California, Gin. I live with Mamma and Papà, and I still go to mass every Sunday. I’ve never known anything else—”
“You don’t want to know anything else,” I interrupted. Again, I was being unfair. When I took off, our father locked Sofia down. With me out of the picture, she was the only remaining marriageable daughter. She’d graduated high school, but hadn’t been allowed to go to college, and my father was arranging her marriage to a stranger.
“Does Luca know?” I asked, wondering if she’d clued in our brother. He was a classic middle child, an attention hound, but also a peacemaker.
“I haven’t told him yet,” Sofia said, her voice strengthening as she realized I might help. “What are you going to do?”
“I haven’t spoken to him in months. He’s going to know something’s up as soon as I call,” I warned her.
“Thank you, big sis,” Sofia cried into the phone. “Thank you.”
Fuck.
My housemate peered at me over his iPad as I hung up the phone. “You look like you need a drink.”
It was nine in the morning, but who the fuck cared anymore? I walked to our fridge and opened the bottle of Cristal I’d been saving for the premiere of my next movie. I poured myself an overfull flute and did the same for Min-joon.
“Cheers,” I toasted bitterly, clinking my crystal flute against his.
