Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77998 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77998 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Over her dead body. Hmm.
I look at her thoughtfully. Stroke my chin. Flick my eyes to Romeo, who’s clenched his fist and taken a step closer to her. I’ll let the Don handle his own. Still watching, I take another sip of espresso and watch as Romeo speaks to her in Italian, words I don’t catch, but she shakes her head.
“You’re no better than your father!” she screeches. “You—”
I stand, prepared for her to attack me. Italian women can go from screeching to physical violence in the blink of an eye.
But now the Rossi men have had enough. Orlando, the largest of all of them, reaches her first with a sigh and looks as if he’s going to hug her but actually restrains her in his big arms. She fights and smacks at him, but he only shakes his head. “Fighting won’t help,” he says with an air of resignation. I blink in surprise when she ducks, kicks him hard on the shin, and the next moment lunges at me.
I’m ready, though. I duck her blow and quickly block a second as Tavi joins Orlando and they reach us just as I lift her up and restrain her with her back to my front, her arms tucked by her sides.
“Maybe,” I say to her as she kicks and screams and curses at me, “you should’ve thought of this when you were training your daughter. Now you’ve left the job to me, haven’t you?”
Tavi’s eyes blaze at me but he takes his mother from me. Between him and Orlando, they wrestle her to the door. She sobs and pleads, half in Italian, half in English. “Let me say goodbye! Let me help her pack! Please,” she begs. Her voice cracks. “Lei è la mia bambina!”
Romeo remains stoic. Marialena and Rosa are gone, likely unwilling to witness their mother’s breakdown. The door closes behind Tosca and her sons with finality.
I sit back down and finish the last cold dregs of my espresso.
CHAPTER FOUR
Marialena
I think I'm in a state of shock. I'm not sure what that looks like, but I don't feel anything. My body is numb, like I've taken an ice bath and every cell has been neutralized. No, no, that's not it. I'm not numb. My heart feels as if it's breaking, I do feel that. It's my reactions that are numbed, because I don't want to make anything worse than I already have.
I heard my mother screaming. I heard her crying. I heard her tell Romeo that I'm her baby. I don't know if I'll ever forget the pleading in her words, the way her voice cracked, or the way they dragged her away. My brothers don’t ever manhandle my mother, but they physically dragged her out of the room as if they feared Capo’s retaliation at any moment. Rosa hustled me out of the room before I had to witness it all, but I heard it.
And now I stand in my room. Rosa is pulling out luggage. She's yelled for Elise, her friend and Tavi’s wife, but she doesn't call for Vittoria, Romeo’s wife. She probably knows that Vittoria will find out what happened sooner or later, and I doubt that she wants to involve her now. Vittoria may not forgive Romeo.
I stare at an empty suitcase. How many times have I delicately packed my clothes, shoes, and toiletries in preparation for a trip to Tuscany, or France? Every time I layered my clothes and shoes and toiletries in the bag, it was with a sense of anticipation, not the sense of dread I’m feeling now that's numbed me from the inside out.
Elise stands in the doorway. And when I see the look on her face—sad, but resigned, detached but determined—I know why Rosa called her here. Elise was raised in the mob like us. She, too, has known what it was like to be married to a man who didn't love you. She will not break down and cry.
I expected Rosa to ask her to help me pack, but she doesn't. "Have you heard?" Rosa asks Elise. Elise stands stock-still, her hand at her throat.
“I heard a little.”
“Marialena accidentally helped a woman who was betrothed to one of the mob’s most dangerous to escape.”
“No. What are the consequences?" she whispers. Her voice wavers. “Is he…” He has the right to kill me. If he decided to execute me, I couldn’t stop him.
"I have to marry him," I say, trying to be brave, but my voice breaks at the very end. I wring my hands and pace the floor, trying to wrap my brain around leaving my family… The Castle… My sisters, my brothers, my nieces, my nephews. "I don't even know where he lives."
As if that matters. Prison is prison whether it's in Siberia or Hawaii.
Elise blows out a breath. “Who is it?"