Chapter Two #2
My face burns hotter at the words. That ominous undercurrent I’ve been wading through makes more sense, suddenly. The crowd isn’t comprised of just Papa’s family—his wife’s family is also present. Their enmity isn’t reserved solely for me, the pretender to their sacred circle. It’s for Papa, too.
I wonder again—what am I doing here?
Papa ignores the jibe, but his fingers clench even more tightly around my hand. “Come,” he says again to me, gruffly, as his cheeks burn a ruddy hue. “Your uncles, cara mia. My brothers, Lorenzo and Matteo.”
They’re both older than Papa, tall and powerful where Papa is square and squat. Neither look welcoming. Instead they look at me with…not contempt, but indifference. I’m beneath their notice, not any true family to them.
“Is this one as useless as Nicky was?” Matteo asks Papa, and I feel myself bristle at the question. A surge of anger slides up my spine, pulling my shoulders straight.
Papa’s wife gives a high, sharp wail of grief and buries her face in a handkerchief, and I forget my own offense for the moment.
I can’t imagine how awful it must be for her, to have lost her only child.
How it must feel like I’ve replaced him.
Under similar circumstances, I don’t know if I would have it in me to be kind, either.
“My Catalina is a good girl,” Papa says to his brothers in a voice that reeks of supplication. “Pretty, like her mamma. And so smart. She just got her master’s in—what was it, Catalina?”
“Early childhood education.” My voice comes out whisper-soft, as if even it is afraid to trespass in this place it doesn’t belong.
I’m a little annoyed with the question. Papa paid for my undergraduate degree and my master’s.
But he’s never cared what I studied, or why.
He’s never asked even one question about my education.
Papa’s tepid praise elicits nothing more than boredom and vague disdain. “Feh,” says Lorenzo, dismissively. “What a waste of money, to educate a woman. They’re good for only two things. Fucking and cooking.”
A riffle of masculine amusement slides through the room; the sounds of agreement from the men present. Either the women present are accustomed to such blatant sexism, or they don’t dare to disagree with the men.
I wonder if I would be just as still and silent as them, if I had been raised in this family. And I do dare to disagree. “It’s not a waste. I’m going to be a teacher. I’ve already accepted a position teaching third grade at—”
“Hush, Catalina,” Papa snarls, and he squeezes my hand until it hurts. “Now is not the time. Tonight, we are discussing your future in this family. You’re a Russo, and that means something.”
“It means there are certain obligations,” Matteo says. “Something Nicky never bothered to learn or respect. But the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, eh, Giulio?”
Francesca makes another keening wail of grief. “My Nicky was a good boy!” she sobs. “A good—”
“Thief,” Lorenzo sneers. “I don’t give a fuck who else he was shaking down, but your fuck-up of a son stole from family. He could have gotten all of us killed. We’re lucky it was Morozov who discovered it, and that the price for his silence isn’t beyond our means to pay.”
Papa swallows audibly. “We can discuss this over dinner,” he says, in a rough, scratchy voice laden with discomfort.
“Our cook made ossobuco with polenta.” He gestures to an open doorway, as if to shepherd the crowd through into the dining room, but nobody moves. My feet feel stuck to the marble floor.
I don’t like the way everyone is staring at me. Like there’s some sort of knowledge hanging in the air just above my head, and I can’t see it. A secret everyone knows but me. “What’s the price?” I ask. “What did Nicky do?”
Papa draws in a massive breath. “Catalina—”
Matteo doesn’t mince words. “It’s you. You are the price.”
“What?” A shred of a laugh trips across my tongue. “You’re not serious.”
“Catalina,” Papa hisses, squeezing my fingers again. “Show respect to your elders. And to your uncles.”
“We don’t know how he found out about you when we didn’t even know,” Matteo continues, slanting a sharp look at Papa. “But it seems Giulio was careless with his little secret, and Morozov’s intelligence is too damned good. He could have put all of us in the ground. Instead, he asked only for you.”
“But I’m not—” An odd little sound squeaks through my tight throat as my brain whirls through a succession of wild speculations built upon everything I learned in my mafia research. “So what is this, like a—a mafia marriage? An alliance?”
“Not a marriage, no.” Matteo adjusts his cufflinks idly.
I don’t understand. For a long moment, as everyone stares at me in silent expectation, I don’t understand.
And then I do. I’m supposed to whore myself out for them. Because a man I’ve never met has decided he wants me. And whatever Nicky did was bad enough to make it happen. Or maybe I’m just worth less than whatever money it might cost to solve their problem.
“He has evidence, piccola,” Papa says, and there is a tinge of desperation in his voice.
“This is dangerous for us, for the family. But you can save us all. We need you, cara mia, to find this evidence he has and destroy it. And the rest of it is not so bad,” he says, and the soothing inflection he attempts falls startlingly flat. “You only need to—”
“Fuck him,” Matteo interrupts bluntly. “And when he is bored with you, you can come home again.”
“This is what obligation means, Catalina,” Lorenzo says, in that dry, bland voice I’m coming to loathe. “This is what it means to be a Russo. You don’t want to be another of Giulio’s mistakes, do you?”
Now, finally, I understand. Papa is the family disappointment, and Nicky only continued down the path that Papa paved. And I—
I’m the scapegoat. The sacrificial lamb. Brought in to pay for their sins.
My stomach pitches and rolls as bile coats the inside of my mouth. Somehow I manage to say, “I think I need a drink.”
“A drink. Yes!” Papa claps his hand on mine, affecting a jovial manner. “We can discuss this matter further over dinner and drinks.”
Over my dead body. I’d rather be alone than sacrifice myself for these people I don’t know, people who don’t want to know me.
People who wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire, and certainly don’t consider me to be part of their family.
“Papa,” I say, shaking at my hand still clasped in his as the people filling the room start to file away into the dining room without so much as a second glance at me.
As if this is a done deal, and I exist only to serve this family.
“I have to use the restroom before dinner.”
Gradually his grip loosens. “Of course.” He lifts his hand to summon a member of the staff. “Marta will show you the way,” he says as he turns to join the rest of the family and heads off toward the dining room.
The family’s future hangs upon my shoulders, and I’m not stupid enough to think they’ll simply let me refuse. Let me leave. And my suspicions are confirmed when I close and lock the bathroom door, but I don’t hear any retreating footsteps.
Marta is waiting for me just outside, to ensure I don’t wander off.
But there’s a large window on the rear wall, and when I turn on the water to wash my hands, it’s loud enough to muffle the sound as I slowly pry it up and climb out into the night.
He’ll forgive me, eventually. He has to. He’s my papa.
Maybe someday I’ll be able to forgive him, too.