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‘I know, I know, girls didn’t go to College in Sicily, blah, blah.’
‘Actually,’ he said, giving her a surprisingly serious look, ‘I was going to tell you that most girls, especially in families like ours, would get married on their sixteenthbirthday.’
‘Married? Seriously? The day they turned sixteen?’
‘Of course,’ he nodded.
‘But what if they hadn’t fallen in love with someone by the time they were sixteen?’
‘My innocent little girl,’ Giovanni shook his head, with a wry smile. ‘In families like ours, girls and boys don’t get to choose their spouses.’
Families like ours.
It was a phrase that her Papa and Mama had repeated countless times to her over the years. They never went into details, of course, but Sophia knew there was something special about her family. Something different.
The clues were everywhere: the way the other children in her expensive private school treated her with deference and — sometimes — fear in the schoolyard; the fact that her family employed a stupid amount of heavily-armed security guards whenever they had a party; the countless gifts and tributes that countless uncles and aunts would leave for her father almost every day of the year.
Her father was a powerful man. A well-respected man. But he was more than that, too. Sophia knew there was a side of him that she didn’t get to see, and she wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
‘But you got to choose Mama,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘But you love her!’
‘Of course. I’d do anything for your mother. But I learned to love her. And she learned to love me. Believe it or not, relationships like ours are often more stable than morenormalones.’ There was an air of disgust in the way he said that word: normal.
‘You and mom didn’t know each other before you married? I had no idea!’
‘Well of course, your mother and I didn’t want to trouble you with this. But now you are an adult.’
‘I’m only sixteen, Papa.’ Her voice was small and quiet. It was the way she spoke when she was connecting to the young child who still lived inside her.
‘You are an adult,’ he repeated. For a moment, he looked past Sophia, presumably at the view through the window. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘let’s not worry about that just now. First, your presents.’
He gestured to his butler, who wheeled out a tray of presents into the breakfast room. There were tons of the things, mostly square, but there were a couple of irregular shapes among them, too.
‘Start with this one,’ he said, picking out a bulky package wrapped in shiny pink giftwrap. ‘This is something to say goodbye to your childhood, but to remind you that you’ll always be Papa’s little girl.’
She unwrapped it with glee.
‘Ohhh, Papa! I love him.’ The bear was plush and soft and clearly very well made.
‘It’s a Steiff,’ he said, pointing out the little stud in the stuffie’s ear. ‘Expensive. And this particular bear is extremely exclusive.’
Sophia wanted to tell her dad that she didn’t care how expensive or exclusive the bear was, but she was too wise for that. Any time she said anything that her father perceived as a criticism, he had the liability to fly off the handle.
‘Thank you, Papa,’ she said, squeezing the bear tight. ‘He’s perfect.’
‘Good. Now, I have another surprise for you,’ he said, looking toward the door. ‘Hank? You ready to meet her?’
The door swung open and in stepped a man. He was tall and in his mid-forties, already graying, with a round belly and thick, hairy arms. Hank was wearing scruffy biker’s gear — a sleeveless denim jacket and scuffed leather pants. The thing that struck Sophia the most about him, though — the thing that would stick with her throughout her whole life — was his boots. Big, black, mean-looking things, with the leather torn up and the laces pulled tight through bolt holes. As soon as she saw the thick soles, she imagined them pushing her down into the dirt.
‘Pleased to meet you, miss.’ The man had a Southern accent. On someone else, the accent would have sounded nice, but his voice was torn up and mean, and something about the way he spoke made him sound cruel.
Sophia didn’t reply. She was too freaked out by all of this. How was this a birthday surprise for her?
‘Sophia,’ her father said, taking another sip of his coffee, ‘for a long time now, my business prospects in this city have been hampered by a group of men that this man, Mr. Groat, represents.’
