AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s what everyone said. That you killed both your parents and then took over power of the Fratellanza. But why did your father kill your mom? She had more than done her wifely duty by him even by Mafia standards—she’d produced five children for him, including four boys as potential heirs.”
“He killed her to make a point to Alessio and me.”
“What?” My scalp prickled. “Why would he do that?”
Marco was silent for a while. Then he started to speak. “I was eighteen years old and Alessio had just turned seventeen. We had been initiated into the Fratellanza a few years earlier. Our father thought we were still weak.” Marco paused then.
“I don’t understand.”
Marco sighed. “He sent Alessio to kill one of his soldiers who had been skimming money off the profits and keeping it for himself. I went along as well. Alessio roughed him up pretty bad and thought that would be enough to teach him a lesson and stop him from doing it again.”
“So, he didn’t kill the soldier and your father was mad?”
“Mad is an understatement. He was livid that Alessio had disobeyed him. He said Alessio was weak, and he decided to teach him a lesson to make him toughen up. Then he shot Alessio’s dog.”
I could feel the blood draining from my face. “Oh my God,” I whispered.
“The dog was called Comet. Alessio was as close to Comet as he is to me. Our father thought loving a dog, or any sort of pet, was a sign of weakness. He killed Comet in front of us.”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
“I remember crying out when the bullet hit Comet. But Alessio wouldn’t give our father the satisfaction and he didn’t show any emotion. But killing Comet wasn’t enough for our father—he wanted Alessio to admit that he was too emotional and too attached.”
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with your mom?” I said in bewilderment. I didn’t understand what had happened to her, but my sixth sense told me that it was really bad.
Marco was silent again as if he were lost in his memories, before carrying on.
“Our mom had been scared of our father. As we became older and realized that, Alessio and I tried to look out for her and protect her. I was nine when Camillo was born; even at that young age I could sense the tension at home.”
I stayed quiet, just listening as he dug through his memories.
“Alessio and I used to help my mom with Camillo, feeding him and playing with him. She always seemed so tired and rundown. I was twelve when Danio was born and I had just been initiated, but I still tried to help my mom as much as I could, changing diapers and just doing whatever I could.”
Marco paused, then gave a small smile. “Then Debi was born a year later. My mom was thrilled to have a girl at last, one child that wouldn’t have to be initiated into the Fratellanza. Man, she was so cute. So was Danio—he had the greatest chuckle and was always laughing. Camillo was a holy terror—always up to mischief, and that’s never changed.”
I found it hard to imagine Marco changing diapers, but when he spoke about his siblings, I could clearly see the love in his eyes. “Our father couldn’t stand that we helped our mom with the babies. He said we were mommy’s boys and we needed to toughen up. He didn’t see that we were being tough in standing up to him.”
“When he didn’t get a reaction out of Alessio after killing his dog, he got even more furious. He wanted to see that his punishment had an effect. He dragged our mother into the room and shot her in front of us, point blank in the front of her head. He thought that we were too attached to her as well. He said that any sort of love was not an option for a Marchiano and that we had to hold ourselves apart to be strong.”
I felt tears running down my cheeks. I couldn’t imagine what Alessio and Marco must have gone through that day.
“When he shot our mom, neither me nor Alessio could hold back. We beat him to a pulp until there wasn’t an ounce of life left in him.”
“I can’t believe…any father would do that.”
“He said that we had disobeyed him, our Capo, and that we had not done our duty to the Fratellanza. Obedience and duty are everything in our world. But he took it too far. He was deranged and unhinged, and we were glad to be rid of him. But becoming Capo meant nothing to me after what happened to my mom.”
“To do that to his wife, to the mother of his children. And to do it in front of his children, that’s utterly horrific.”
“It was my fault. I should have killed the traitor myself when Alessio didn’t finish the job properly. I was the oldest and I was the future Capo. It was my responsibility, and I didn’t do what I should have done—what might have stopped our mom from paying with her life. It’s my fault that Camillo, Danio and Debi had to grow up without their mom.”
“You were barely an adult. How can you say that any of it was your fault? You can’t blame yourself for your father’s sins, and your siblings would never blame you either.”
“That’s why I have to protect them now. They are my responsibility. I would lay down my life for them.”
Marco didn’t say any more after that and said he wanted to sleep. I knew ours was a cruel world and nothing either of us said could change that. We lay in each other’s arms, silent with our thoughts, until we eventually fell asleep.
CHAPTER 31
