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“You couldn’t hurt him,” Gabby chimed in.
My world stuttered to a stop as my past words reared their ugly heads in my mind. Swallowing the burning guilt rising in my throat, my fingers blindly found the fake money and started fiddling with it. “You don’t know how I treated him when he was in Los Angeles with Sebastian and Nicu. I was awful.”
I felt the need to explain myself because it suddenly mattered what Star and Gabby thought of me. I liked them and I wanted them to like me back. I didn’t want them to think that I’d been as bad as those childhood bullies.
“You have to understand,” I pleaded. “My clan viewed the Lupu as a threat. Back in LA, I saw them as an invading force, a group of mafie men who came to take over what my father and clan had built with blood, sweat, and tears.”
I blew out a breath, winded from explaining myself. It certainly wasn’t a position I was used to being in, but I was trying my best. For these girls, I was willing to try.
“Do you trust them a little bit more now?” Gabby inquired.
Star interjected, “More to the point, do you trust Tatum more?”
“I do trust him more... It’s strange, I won’t lie. I’m not used to being around strangers or trusting anyone outside of my clan. You know how it is,” I responded with a shrug of my shoulders.
They grew up mafie, just like me. They’d been raised to fear strangers as much as I had. Growing up as we did, we knew the rest of the world hated us. If it wasn’t another mafia or syndicate trying to take a piece of what was ours, it was the police and FBI trying to infiltrate our clans from ten different entry points. Despite it all, I had begun to trust Tatum and the Lupu women I’d met.
“We understand, believe us,” Gabby said with a pat of my hand. “It was brave of you to come to New York by yourself, live with another family, and open yourself up to another clan. That’s impressive.”
I nodded solemnly. Of course, they didn’t know I’d fought my father tooth and nail. I had only done it because it had been a direct order, and until recently, I’d been as close-minded as ever.
Honestly, getting to know the Lupu women is what did me in. Alex’s mother and grandmother took me in as if I were their own flesh and blood, constantly fussing over me, giving me a taste of something I’d never had—female companionship. After my brother was born, my mother had stuck around for a few years, but she was a broken woman before she disappeared for good. After she left, I took up the mantle of woman of the house. I’d never had the kind of unconditional love Alex’s and Tatum’s relatives showed me. These women treated me like a daughter, and Star treated me like an older sister. I might be tough, but I wasn’t a monster. I couldn’t fight against the overwhelming feminine love they’d enveloped me in.
“You know…,” started Star. “I’ve never seen Tatum look at another woman the way he looks at you.” She widened her eyes and pursed her lips together as if to say, “Do you know how significant that is?”
“I’m serious,” she went on. “I’d never seen him look at another woman, period. And then the way he looks at you…Whew. I wish a guy looked at me that way.”
“Bitch, stop it. You’re beautiful. One day, a man will look at you that way, believe me. It’s going to happen,” Gabby pronounced with determination.
Star waved her hand dismissively. “This isn’t about me. This is about Clara and Tatum. Something’s happening between them, even if they like to pretend it’s nothing.”
“Naughty of you to bring this up,” I teased, gnawing on my bottom lip. I’d been doing my utmost to resist Tatum, but it was getting increasingly harder. Hearing about his childhood split my chest into a chasm of compassion for him. The poor, struggling, browbeaten little boy who was clever enough to befriend the boss’s kid and work his way to the top, pulling his family up with him.
“I’m serious,” Star said. “There’s no reason you and my brother shouldn’t be together. People get trapped in arranged marriages with strangers, or worse, with people who are awful.” Star’s eyes darted to Gabby, whose face pinched. There was a story behind that.
“What I’m saying is that the two of you have more intimacy than most mafie couples have going into a marriage.”
What I loved about Star was how she wore her emotions on her sleeve. I had to remind myself she was a young girlish romantic with stars in her eyes. Her beautiful, loving childhood allowed her to conjure up Disney-like fantasies about love and marriage.
I had the opposite. I’d seen my father work himself into the ground, seen it destroy his marriage, seen my mother bring treachery into our family. I’d been brought up knowing my place was at the head of my clan. In the world my father had forged for me, there was no place for anything beyond love of clan. Certainly not marriage. But I couldn’t tell her that, could I? On the other hand, it was my duty to show her life for a mafie woman didn’t automatically have to center around hearth and home.
“Do you know what my clan calls me?” I asked them, holding first Star’s gaze and then Gabby’s.
They shook their heads. Of course, they didn’t know. Nothing existed beyond New York City for them.
“The Virgin Queen,” I replied.
Their eyes grew wide.
“Want to know why?”
Oh, they were about to get the shock of their young lives.
I leaned in close and whispered as if I was about to tell them a coveted secret about life. In turn, they leaned in toward me.
“Because I am to become their sef.”
Both their bodies reared back as if I’d slapped them.
