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"I'm sure Catalina is too tired to indulge you, Giovi," my father says repressively. "The don and his family are here to get to know Carlotta."
It's as blatant of a claim to what this visit is for as my father could make. No one denies it, least of all the don himself. He is looking at Carlotta with approval.
My heart falls. A tiny part of me was still hoping that all this talk of marriage and engagements was just that. Talk. That Don De Luca was not interested in my nineteen-year-old sister. It was a ridiculous hope.
He is the most powerful mafia don in the country, who else would he choose for his bride than the most beautiful mafia princess? The don isn't going to settle for just any woman. He will take for a wife only a woman that will make others envious. Just as his father did before him.
At least Carlotta is not already promised to another like Signora De Luca had been all those years ago. Aria De Luca was supposed to become Aria Jilani. It was considered a good match. My father was the oldest son of a capo. Everyone expected him to become capo one day, but instead he was promoted to the role of consigliere at a very young age.
I wonder if Severu De Luca is aware my father's appointment to such a prestigious position was part of the bride swapping bargain between his father and my own?
My father gave up his claim to Aria and accepted my mother as his substitute bride. Mamma came with an impeccable pedigree and advantageous connections, but she was not the elegant and charming beauty that Aria was. Mamma was short, curvy and worst of all, according to my father, painfully shy.
Despite his pretense to the contrary, my father never got over losing the woman he'd been promised, and he'd made my mother pay for it every day of their marriage.
A touch on my arm makes me jump. It is my aunt, and her expression is filled with concern. "Is your father right, are you too tired to play?"
I look around me and realize everyone's attention is on me.
"Of course, she is," my father states with authority. "You know Catalina lacks stamina."
"Oh, if you are not up to it, that is quite all right," Signora De Luca says.
And I realize two things. One, I missed part of the conversation while I was lost in memories and two, apparently the don's mother has added her request to my uncle's for me to play a solo.
The look of smug triumph in my father's eyes spurs me on as nothing else could and I stand. "I am happy to play for you." I speak directly to the don's mother.
Then I turn and go back to the piano while Carlotta takes my place on the sofa with our aunt and uncle.
I hear a quickly indrawn breath when I start playing and am sure it is my father. He knows this song choice for the act of rebellion it is.La Campanellahad been my mother's favorite piece and was one of the last songs she taught me to play before her death.
Losing myself in the music, I forget about getting back at my father. I forget my audience. I simply play and feel the peace I knew as a little girl sitting on this very piano bench beside my mother.
As my fingers still on the piano keys, I want nothing more than to slump into myself. I am more than drained, I am hollowed out. But I keep my spine straight and my shoulders back. I will not let my father win. I show him no weakness.
The applause barely registers as I stand. "I will have coffee brought into the living room," I say, prepared to make a quick exit to the kitchen.
The don stands. His mother and siblings follow suit.
"No coffee for us." Don De Luca catches my father's gaze with his hard eyes. "I will call you tomorrow to discuss the particulars of the engagement."
Does anyone else see the way my sister's eyes narrow?
She deserves so much better than this. She deserves a proper proposal, even if this is a mafia arranged marriage.
Signora De Luca shakes her head. "That's my son, ever practical."
I would have said abysmally insensitive, but nobody asked me.
"We'll meet for lunch tomorrow to start planning the wedding," she says to my sister. "I would like you both to join us."
This time she meets Zia Lora's eyes and then my own. We both nod, but I notice my sister says nothing. Everyone takes her acquiescence for granted and that worries me.
Carlotta is used to getting her own way. She's never run right up against the wall of our father's intransigence. Rock, meet hard place.
One of them is going to shatter and I don't think it's going to be the consigliere, no matter how indulgent he usually is toward my sister.
Chapter 10
