Chapter 2
Noemi
The Genovese estate feels less like a home and more like a mausoleum these days. A cold, sprawling tomb built of white marble, imported mahogany, and the suffocating weight of my father’s paranoia.
I stand at the top of the grand staircase, my hand resting on the polished wrought-iron banister, watching the chaos swirling in the foyer below.
It’s past midnight, but the house teems with made men.
Soldiers in dark suits pace across the checkered floors, their jacket sleeves pushed back to reveal the heavy, threatening bulges of shoulder holsters.
The metallic clack-clack of a slide being racked echoes from the hallway leading to the kitchen.
Voices are hushed but tinged with a frantic, bitter edge.
We are at war. A cold war, my father calls it, because the Capo dei Capi hasn’t explicitly given the green light for the streets to run red. But tell that to the widows. Tell that to the men bleeding out in back alleys over hijacked shipments and burned-out warehouses.
Cassio Vellutini is tearing our territory apart piece by piece, and my father is bleeding us dry trying to hold the line.
Just the thought of the name tastes like bile on the back of my tongue.
He’s the new Don of the Vellutini family, a twenty-eight-year-old mad dog who inherited a throne he didn’t earn, only to instantly set the entire fucking kingdom on fire.
My father, with his old-school rules and outdated tactics, is playing chess. Cassio is playing with a flamethrower.
"Miss Noemi."
I blink, tearing my gaze away from the armed guards below.
Enzo, one of my father’s oldest Capos, is standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me.
His face is lined with exhaustion, his grey hair is thinning, and a lit cigarette is pinched between his calloused fingers despite my mother’s strict rules about smoking in the house.
I guess tonight, the rules don't matter.
"Your father wants you in his study," Enzo rasp. He doesn't look at me with respect. In this world, respect is reserved for men with guns and women with wombs who know how to keep their mouths shut and their heads bowed. I only possess the former, and fail spectacularly at the other two.
"I'm going to bed, Enzo. Tell him it can wait until morning."
"He said now, Noemi." Enzo doesn't add 'please'. A Capo doesn't beg a spinster daughter for compliance.
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper, swallowing the vitriol that wants to spill past my lips. Defying Enzo is one thing, defying the Don of the Genovese family in front of his soldiers is a death wish, even if you share his blood.
I descend the stairs slowly, my silk nightgown brushing against my bare calves, a thick cashmere robe is tied tightly around my waist. I keep my chin high, my expression blank, an icy mask perfected over twenty-four years of surviving this misogynistic hellscape.
The men in the foyer part for me, but their eyes linger.
Not with lust because I’m too old for the young ones and too terrifying for the old ones, but with a kind of pitying disdain. The unwed daughter. The burden.
My father’s study is at the end of the east wing. The heavy oak doors are slightly ajar, leaking the stench of stale scotch and expensive Cuban cigars into the hallway. I push the door open without knocking and step inside.
Don Orlando Genovese is seated behind his massive mahogany desk, looking every bit the aging tyrant he is. His silver hair is slicked back, his bespoke suit is wrinkled, the collar of his shirt is undone. His face is flushed, a permanent state of rage etching deep grooves around his mouth and eyes.
"Close the door," he barks, not even looking up from the spread of ledgers and territorial maps littering his desk.
I push the heavy door shut until the latch clicks, sealing us in. The room is stifling, a monument to a dying era. Leather-bound books that have never been read line the walls, and the mounted head of a stag stares blankly from above the roaring fireplace.
"You sent for me," I state, keeping my voice perfectly level. I don't step closer to the desk. I stand my ground near the Persian rug, crossing my arms over my chest.
My father finally looks up, the same eyes I see in the mirror every morning narrow into venomous slits. "Sit down."
"I prefer to stand."
He slams his open palm against the desk. The crystal tumbler of scotch rattles violently. "I said, sit your fucking ass down, Noemi."
The command hits like a whip, but I don't flinch. I slowly move to one of the leather armchairs opposite his desk and lower myself into it, crossing one leg over the other. I stare at him, refusing to drop my gaze. It’s the ultimate sin in our world, a woman looking a Don in the eye with anything other than submission.
"What is it?" I ask, my tone comes out bored, even though my heart is hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
He grabs his tumbler and drains the amber liquid, slamming the glass back down. "I just got off the phone with the Bianchis. You insulted their oldest son at the gathering last week. Lorenzo. You embarrassed him in front of his own Capos."
I let out a harsh, bitter laugh before I can stop myself.
"Lorenzo Bianchi is fifty-two years old, Papa.
He smells like rotting garlic, and he tried to grab my ass in the coatroom while his third wife was in the bathroom.
I didn't insult him. I told him if he touched me again, I’d take a cigar cutter to his fucking fingers. "
"He is a made man!" my father roars, half-rising from his chair. "He is a ranking member of a loyal family, and he offered to take you off my hands! He offered a generous dowry, considering you are past your prime and have a mouth like a street whore!"
"He wanted a nurse with a pulse, not a wife," I snap back, my blood suddenly boiling, the ice in my veins melting into pure, unadulterated fury. "I am a Genovese. You are the Don. You are supposed to protect me, not pawn me off to the highest bidder just to get me out of your sight!"
"Protect you?" He spits the words, his face turns a dangerous shade of purple.
He rounds the desk, pacing the length of the room like a caged, wounded bear.
"I am trying to protect this entire family!
The Vellutini boy is slaughtering our men in the streets.
He hit the docks tonight. We lost six men and half a million in hardware because that psychotic little prick doesn't respect the old borders.
I am fighting a war on two fronts, against the Irish, the Russians, and against our own fucking blood!
And what do you do? You sit in my house, eating my food, spending my money, and chasing away the only men desperate enough to marry a bitch with a tongue sharper than a switchblade! "
"I don't want a husband," I lie, the words taste like ash.
"Good. Because you're not getting one," he sneers, stopping in front of my chair to look down at me with absolute disgust. "Look at you. Twenty-four. Hard. Cold. You look at men like you want to slit their throats. You argue. You talk back. You think you’re smart, Noemi?
You think you are superior to every man who crosses your path? "
He leans in close, his breath feels hot and reeks of liquor. "No man wants to marry a man, Noemi. They want a woman. They want a wife who smiles, who spreads her legs, and who keeps her goddamn mouth shut."
The words are a physical blow, a vicious strike to the darkest, most insecure corner of my soul. But I refuse to let him see me bleed. I raise my chin, my expression turning into stone.
"Like Lucia," I say softly with venom.
"Yes. Exactly like your sister," he replies smoothly, relishing the hit.
"Lucia is twenty. She is beautiful. She is obedient.
She understands duty. When the time comes, I will arrange a marriage for her that will secure alliances, bring wealth, and strengthen this family.
She is a prize. You?" He scoffs, waving a dismissive hand at me as he walks back to his chair.
"You are a liability. You will die a maiden in this house.
You will rot in that bedroom upstairs, an old maid, until I am dead and Enzo ships you off to a convent. You are nothing to me but a mistake."
The crackle of the fire is the only sound in the room after his poisonous words.
I want to scream at him. I want to overturn his desk.
I want to tell him that his archaic, backwards way of thinking is exactly why Cassio Vellutini is beating him at his own game.
Cassio doesn't play by the rules of old men, and my father is too blind to adapt.
But saying that would only earn me a backhand across the face.
"Are we done here?" I calmly ask.
He goes back to his maps. "Get out of my sight."
I stand up, pull my robe tighter around myself, and walk out of the study. I don't slam the door. I don't give him the satisfaction of knowing he broke something inside me. I walk with my spine perfectly straight, past Enzo, past the armed guards, and up the sweeping staircase to the second floor.
Only when I am safely inside my bedroom, the heavy lock clicking securely into place, do I let the mask slip.
My breath hitches, a jagged gasp escaping my lips.
I press my back against the heavy wood of the door and slide down to the floor, pulling my knees to my chest. The tears are hot and angry, blurring my vision as they spill over my cheeks.
I swipe them away furiously with the back of my hand, hating myself for crying. Hating him for being right.
No man wants to marry a man.
I look around my gilded cage. It’s a beautiful room. Silk sheets, antique vanity, walls painted a soft, muted cream. But it’s a prison. And the worst part is, the warden is my own father.