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“But—”
“I want you to make a lunch date with Angela Rossi and get all the information you have made a point of telling me I don’t know.”
“Fine,” she huffs, standing up. “I know what you worried about,” she says as she stops short of the door, “you’re nothing like him.” Then, Lucia walks out without saying another word, and I don’t stop her.
It’s Lucia’s way of trying to redeem herself by telling me I’m not like my father. Once, Ricardo De Luca was a great Don—respected by the other families in New York, his influence spread far and wide, yet with power comes temptation. His vices were primarily for women, drugs, and alcohol. By the age of forty he had almost run his entire empire into the ground, at fifty he was found dead in a motel surrounded by drug paraphernalia and hookers.
I don’t know what was worse, the sympathetic looks or the rumors that I had the same vices and often frequented whore houses and did drugs. Two things that I vowed to never touch. My father’s downfall was the drive I needed tonotbe like him in any shape or form. In fact, both of my parents had been huge fuck ups, so I was surprised I had marginally turned out well.
My mother was barely eighteen when she was brought to America against her will to marry my father, driven mad by years of his constant philandering she left and never came back. I never tried to look for her out of sheer pride, though I knew she had gone back to her native Sicily. Nicole De Luca wanted to forget her cursed existence with her drug-addled, drunk adulterer of a husband and mistake of a son.
My Nonna had raised me until she died when I was twenty-one; ever since then, I have been alone. My inner circle encompasses my men, nobody else breaches the boundary. I don’t trust outsiders, and that includes Lucia. The truth is she bears too much of a reminder of my father, from her lack of morals to her drug susceptibility. She is the picture of a past so tainted that I don’t ever want or need.
I can hear the sound of glasses clinking in the great room. Tonight, Don Paolo Falcone is hosting one of his famous celebrations. My cousin Alberto has just passed his initiation and is now a made man. The house is filled with various influential men of New York; criminal, political, and even some federal, all under one roof. If these walls could talk, they would be oozing with secrets, lies, and confessions that would make your ears bleed.
I, of course, make my usual dutiful daughter performative appearance. Pietro won’t be here tonight, which is a huge relief. Only the top tier crème de la crème have been invited to this party. Made men only, something Pietro isn’t and for that I am glad that I don’t have to see him. Only in the Mafia do wemeasuresomebody’s triumphs alongside how many lives they have taken. We reward the bloodshed, the murders, the violence; it’s honored, revered, and glorified.
Normally, I avoid the subject with my family because I know where it ends up. It isn’t something to be discussed; the mechanics of the inner workings of the Mafia is not something to be spoken of. There is a moral code that everybody obeys, a silent law that every family follows religiously.Omertais the silent understanding in the Mafia. You don’t talk, you don’t answer questions, and you most certainly do not confess. Ever.
I did confess once about Anton to a priest not long after it happened. He told me to say one hundred Hail Mary’s, and when I told him it wasn’t enough, he told me to forgive myself. He said God does not punish those who stray from the path if their heart is good. But what if my heart isn’t good? In fact, I feel it blacken in my chest like ash every time I even think of Anton.
When I close my eyes, I can still feel the heat of his kiss on mine, but it’s not him who is kissing me. Those lips belong to a man with charcoal gray eyes, not the blue ones that weigh down my conscience. I hadn’t dared to retrieve the jacket, which is still at the back of my closet with an old cheerleading outfit and a pair of roller skates I’d worn in eighth grade. The touch Rocco’s skin on mine is enough to convince me that any further dalliances between us would be catastrophic.
Rocco De Luca is dangerous, and I had proven that I am a girl who could not avoid temptation. Instead, I seem to be the girl who runs through every barrier and dance too near to the flame. I invite trouble and revel in chaos while embedding myself in sin.
Pulling my dress down, I walk down the spiral staircase in our home. Guests are strewn everywhere, and I shake hands with everyone as I approach Papa’s side. I give my cousin Alberto a kiss on the cheek and congratulate him. Alberto and I have always been close, and he has never asked nor judged me on what had happened in Chicago.
Papa’s captains are scattered all around the building. One or two of them glance at me knowingly because they had been there that fateful night. I should have known that running wouldn’t take me away from this. You can’t run away from this life because it just ends up hunting you down and re-capturing you. I wasn’t sure even that I wanted to run away. Perhaps, I craved the companionship of somebody who understood me.
Anton Romanov did. A chance in a lifetime meeting at a college party changed everything for me. When I met him, I knew there wouldn’t be anyone else who ever came close to the spark I felt. I had always benevolently followed the rules growing up, so to have a boyfriend was forbidden, and for me to have someone not approved of was a death sentence. Initially, it was the thrill that excited me the most; to have something nobody else knew about. I knew it was wrong, but it never felt that way. It waseffortlessbeing with him, so how could that be wrong? He offered me a way for us to be together, and I took it. I think I knew deep inside that we would be found eventually, but I didn’t want to consider the consequences, for I was drunk on the freedom. We holed up in Illinois for a week on his papa’s turf. He said we would be safe, and they couldn’t find us. He was wrong, I knew they wouldn’t stop looking for me until they tore us apart.
I excuse myself and wander to sit outside on the terrace, it feels like all the air has left my lungs, but it’s slowly coming back now. Even though I had blocked out much of what happened, familiar faces still seem to jerk the puzzle pieces back into my memory.
“If I knew I was going to see such beauty tonight, I would never have hesitated in coming.” Says a low voice behind me.
I swerve around to see a stranger observing me. His eyes lock into mine as I feel an odd feeling of familiarity grasp me.
“And you would be?” I ask curiously, trying to place his face.
“Henri Beauchamp,” he says, putting his hand out. I reciprocate, and he kisses mine delicately.
“I take it you’re definitely not Italian.”
“I’m one-sixteenth. Does that count?” he says, flashing me a smile.
“I’ll have to find out and get back to you,” I respond.
“It doesn’t count.” Another voice erupts from the darkness, and my chest constricts as Rocco emerges, his jaw ticking in annoyance.
“Don Rocco, we meet again.”
“Henri,” Rocco says drily. “I thought only the important people were attending tonight.”
“That’s right,” he says bemusedly. “I must excuse myself, but I hope to see you soon,” he says, while giving me a small smile.
“Bye,” I reply as he disappears back into the house.
“What was that about?” Rocco asks in irritation.
