AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 1
Santa Maria, Madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori, adesso e nell’ora della nostra morte.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
— the words every Made Man recites upon a death.
CATE
“Caterina, it’s time you were married. You’re twenty-one years old now and people are starting to ask why you’re not even engaged,” said my father, in his usual commanding tone.
He was the only person who called me ‘Caterina’. Everyone else in my life called me ‘Cate’. We were eating dinner at my father’s house—how I hated these weekly dinners. They were nothing like the family dinners we had when I’d been younger—when my mom and brother had still been alive.
I clenched my fingers more tightly around my cutlery before answering my father. “Father, I don’t want to marry anyone yet, especially not a Made Man.”
A Made Man was what we called a man initiated into the Mafia. My father, Ovidio Russo, was a Made Man—he was a Captain in the Fratellanza Mafia here in Chicago.
As we spoke, his forehead creased in annoyance. “It’s not a matter of what you want, Caterina. You know that in our world you are expected to marry to further the strategic bonds of your family and, just as importantly, to provide heirs for the Fratellanza.”
So, there we had it. I was expected to spread my legs to carry on the distinguished line of Made Men in the Fratellanza.
“Father, you know how I feel about our world and what goes on in it—”
“You’ve made your feelings quite clear, which is why I have allowed you to have a job and live in your own apartment since you turned eighteen.” My father’s irritation had made him interrupt me in a harsh tone. “Most families and fathers would not permit those freedoms to their daughters, especially to the daughter of a high-ranking Captain.”
Although it was unusual that my father permitted me to live in my own apartment, his soldiers still kept watch over me and guarded me closely every day, even when I went to work each day as a teacher’s assistant in kindergarten.
My father pierced me with his gaze. “Now it is time for you to do your duty.”
Duty. I was sick of hearing that word. It was used as an excuse for everything in our world. For business, for crimes, for murders. Anything could be justified in the Mafia by declaring it to be a duty.
“I have been approached by another Fratellanza Captain. He is looking for a bride and I think you would make a suitable match. After all, you are the daughter of a Captain and understand the responsibilities that come from being part of such a family.”
I felt like shouting out that I wouldn’t do it, but my mom had brought me up to be polite at all times, no matter the situation. Even though she was gone now, I didn’t want to let her down. I answered as calmly as I could, “Father, I’m not ready to marry anyone just yet.” And when I did marry, I definitely wouldn’t be marrying someone from the Mafia world—I’d seen firsthand how it could only lead to tragedy and heartbreak.
“Caterina, you’re twenty-one years old. In the Mafia world, the ‘two’ at the front of your age means that people expect you to be married by now or, at the very least, engaged. People are beginning to talk.” To not be engaged by the age of twenty was scandalous in our world.
“They are just a bunch of gossips,” I blurted out. “All they do is talk about the nearly-weds and the newly-deads. The women in the Fratellanza like nothing more than to speculate about who might be promised to who, and which families are trying to unite through strategic marriages. They haven’t got anything better to do.” I couldn’t help the bitterness seeping into my words.
My father pierced me with his gaze. “Your mom was married long before your age. She was married to me by the time she was seventeen.”
That sounded scarily young to me. “Father, I want to choose my own husband when the time comes, not be told who I am to marry.”
“You know that arranged marriages are the usual method of matrimony in our world, given that we do not marry outsiders. We don’t let anyone else into our circle. It is far too dangerous to let in people who do not understand our ways and the Mafia’s codes of honor.”
Every Saturday, I was required to attend dinner with my father at his house. My grandmother, Nonna, was normally at these dinners, but this week she was visiting her sister in Florida. I was missing not having Nonna here tonight to fill in the awkward silences and to act as a buffer between my father and me. Without her presence, my father was hounding me even more than usual.
Coming here once a week meant that my father left me alone for the remainder of the week. I just had to get through this meal without having an argument with him.
I looked down at my outfit. I was wearing a shift dress and heels. My father expected me to dress formally for dinner, rather than in the more casual clothes that I preferred. I wore my auburn hair loose over my shoulders and had applied some light makeup—just some eyeshadow, mascara around my hazel green eyes and some pale lip gloss.
“As Nonna isn’t here, I was thinking I wouldn’t stay the night like I normally do and skip church in the morning.”
After dinner here each week, I would stay the night before going to church with my grandmother on Sunday morning. Then I was free to go back to my apartment and my life for another week.
“Nonsense. You will stay the night and I will go to church with you tomorrow.”
I suppressed a sigh. I wasn’t sure what the point was of my father going to church. He wasn’t particularly godly in his beliefs, and it would take him at least a decade to confess all his sins.
