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“The nightclub,” he breathes, looking around as though for something else to throw. “Alessandro just smashed it to pieces and killed Rocco.” He finds a glass and spikes it into the ground. “Fuck!”
“So we deal with it,” says my mother, approaching him cautiously. She’s the only one who can talk him out of a rage. “Let’s take this step-by-step.”
He grimaces, but his breathing calms. “Okay. Step-by-step, you’re right.”
My mom nods approvingly. “Good. If Nazzaro is dead and the grandson isn’t, that means Alessandro is in charge of the Rossi family now. That’s not ideal, but it’s an improvement in circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”
“Wait,” I break in, “did you just say Nazzaro Rossi is dead? What the fuck? What does that mean for me?”
She gives me a withering look. “Ava, the adults are talking.”
My dad rubs his forehead. “Okay, step one, we take out Alessandro.”
“What?”My mouth hangs open in shock and rage. “Yesterday I’m supposed to marry the guy, now you’re going to fucking kill him?”
“Ava—”
At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m angrier than my dad was when he threw the phone. I stomp toward him, radiating fury. “You just got me unaccepted from college so you could force me to marry Alessandro Rossi, and now you are literally planning to murder him? Do you have any idea how insane you are?”
“Out!” my father shouts, pointing a quivering finger to the stairs that lead to my bedroom. “Get out! And pack your suitcase. It won’t be safe for us at home for a while.”
***
“I know you killed Nazzaro Rossi,” I grumble from the backseat. “You can stop talking around it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says my dad, driving.
My mom tuts. “Your father did no such thing.”
I know it’s only going to piss them off, but I can’t resist needling. It’s all I have. “Yeah, like I would believe you. Let’s see, want to run through the list of things I’ve caught you lying about?”
My dad slams his fist on the steering wheel. “Ava, that’s enough.”
“Of course, I’m sure it was just a coincidence that they got attacked on the way to meet with us. How silly of me.”
“Ava, I swear to god…”
I let it drop at this point, disappearing into my phone. Next to me, my father’s henchman shifts awkwardly in his seat, holding a sawed-off shotgun.
***
“You should have let Marco drive,” chides my mom.
“It’s fine,” my dad grumbles, stretching his back. “I would have been going nuts staring out the window.”
We’re at our family’s safe house—sorry, “vacation” house. We’ve had to come here a few times throughout my life, and it’s only as I got older that I realized what it meant.
Right now, it means Alessandro Rossi is out for my dad’s head.
I wheel my suitcase inside as a second car pulls up, and two more armed Gagliardi soldiers join us. As I go up the stairs, I’m past feeling defeated.
I’m angry.
All of my plans, ruined. No more college. No more dorm room. No more being classmates with Isabella. My future, everything I wanted, gone. And now I’ve been whisked away to a fucking safe house for god knows how long, all because my dad is suddenly at war with the guy I was supposed to marry.
I haven’t had control over any of it. I’m completely at my father’s mercy. And unlike most children of awful parents, I can’t just move out, go no contact, start a new life. My dad is a fucking mob boss. He canceled my college application with a snap of his fingers. Anywhere I go, he’ll be able to find me. Any decisions I make, he can unmake.
The only power that matters is the kind of powerhehas. The kind of power I don’t have at all. I’ll never have any control over my own life without it.
