1. Gianna
PRESENT DAY
CHAPTER 1
It’s been six months since I left my apartment. Days and nights bleed together with the same shows playing as background noise to give my mind something harmless to focus on. I repeat the lines as they’re spoken like old friends. Like I’m not so lonely I’m going insane. The law degree I earned is nothing but a picture on the wall. I might as well have saved the time and gotten myself mass-produced hotel art or a nice saying written in script.
Dad: Meet us at the lakehouse for dinner tonight. Drive the M3 and come without Carlo.
My hands shake as I read the message again. I nearly dropped the phone when it first came in because I was so shocked at being spoken to directly by my father. Our previous correspondence has come in the form of Carlo passing messages and him ignoring my attempts to reach out.
Me: Papa, can we please talk about this?
Me: This is extreme.
Me: Papa, I need to get out of this apartment.
Me: I miss you, can we please talk?
Me: Let me use this damn degree you paid for.
With each day, those rejections hurt a little less. Each year he grows colder toward me hardens my heart, but this direct contact has exposed me. The lake house is a three-hour drive. I want to be offended that it still wasn’t a request after all this time. I miss you too, please come to dinner. Is that too much to ask for?
Why bother when he knows I’ll come? My time is his to control. He’s my warden, even if I haven’t heard more than a couple of words from him or my mother since my birthday six months ago.
I drift around my bare room. My clothes lay stretched out over plastic pop-up tables from the department store. My bed is a mattress and box spring on the floor, a far cry from my old hand-carved four-poster bed. This place was supposed to be short term, but I guess my father and I have different opinions on the meaning.
I stuff some things in an overnight bag, not sure what his plan is, and then sit on the edge of the bed. A few chairs occupy the living space, but I don’t have a couch or anything, so I usually sit here. I stare at the single painting on the wall wishing for the millionth time I had a fucking window. When I asked, Carlo told me it was a security measure, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a fire risk.
Reading my father’s text for the hundredth time, I still can’t make sense of it. If I had any idea what I was walking into, I could make a plan, but it’s been a long time since I was in a position to be clever since no one has told me anything. I may not have been able to shake Carlo while away at college and law school, but those were the best days of my life. It was the closest to freedom and respect I ever tasted.
Carlo has been my bodyguard since I was five, and my father has never made a request like this. Leave his protection for a dinner. Carlo goes days sometimes without checking in on me since I’m locked inside, but he at least answers his phone when I call. He’s never once been instructed to leave me without protection.
I get dressed in something I think my father will like. I’m kissing up to him in the hopes that whatever this sudden need to see me stems from also comes with the end of my prison sentence. He used to tell me I looked like his mother when she was young and how happy my smile made him. I can’t imagine that’s still true, as it’s been months since he even answered my texts and years since he showed me a scrap of that old affection.
Not since... I choke back tears as I think the single word Dante. Five years have passed since my brother was killed under unknown circumstances, and the loss and mystery don’t seem to be growing any easier to bear. I’m far past the point of trying to wear something my mother likes. Her issue is me, not my clothes, and the fact I didn’t die instead. But maybe my father has something left in him that my presence and old memories can shake loose.
The M3, the car I’ll be driving for the first time tonight, was a birthday gift from him six months ago. A more ostentatious one than he’s ever given me, but he knows I love to drive. In my opinion, it’s a sure sign of his guilt, a feeling that he could just pay a little extra to make up for all the love he simply no longer has for me—that’s a stab to what I falsely considered a patched-over wound.
While I was away for my birthday weekend, my father sent the car to the body shop to be wrapped, insisting I not drive it until it was perfect. Around the same time, his second was murdered and beheaded. The box was delivered to my apartment with a birthday card from the Bouchards, and I still wonder about Niko’s hand in it.
The car was returned to the garage in a new building, but I was never given the keys. I returned from my trip to find my apartment emptied, cleaned, rerented, and all of my belongings shoved into boxes. My father’s men moved me to this windowless, fluorescent-lit shithole for my own protection. I still haven’t had the heart to tell Carlo just how many of my things went missing.
I stare at the keys for one full minute before grabbing them off the hook, wondering if I shouldn’t just stay here. Because whatever my father has to tell me might be even worse.
“I’ll see you later, Carlo,” I say, pretending my life really is that easy. Truth be told, while I’ve left my apartment a couple of times to visit other parts of the building, I don’t have a clue where the garage is or which spot is mine.
“I’ll take you down,” he answers with his most no-nonsense expression firmly in place, but it’s a relief that he plays along.
Three hours later, I’m nearly at my parents’ lakehouse. Carlo drives immediately behind me and speaks to me through my car’s stereo. Simply being outside is incredible.
“I don’t like this, Gianna.”
“The sky is also blue if we’re pointing out obvious things.” And it is blue, so fucking blue. The sun shines so bright, and the breeze carries the fresh scent of mountain water. The anxiety of why my father would want this meeting so suddenly dulls beneath my euphoria.
“You can take me inside with you if you want. I can disobey him if it’s to keep you safe.” A question twists his voice, like he’s not convinced of what he’s saying, and I smile with real fondness for him.
“It’s okay, Carlo. You can turn around. I’m going to be fine. It can’t be worse than spending more time inside that apartment.” I shiver as I say the word apartment. We’ve been arguing about this for the past three hours, and I don’t know what I need to say to make him feel better about obeying these orders.
“Hey, I tried really hard to make that place homey for you.”
He has given it his best effort, which is on par with a college kid or a new bachelor whose ex-wife has picked everything for twenty-something years. He thinks intense minimalism is a style and unpacked boxes are furniture. He doesn’t spend much time there, though, and I don’t think he realizes just how bare it is when you live with a television as a window replacement.
“If it’s so homey, go back to it and let me drive in peace.”
“I didn’t hear you, Gianna. It sounded like you wanted me to put a target on your back.”
For once in my life, I would actually be able to drive away from it. So I press the gas. I stare out over the stunning landscape, winding deeper into the mountains. The road tightens with a wall of crumbling stone and trees to my left and a steep drop-off to my right that I stare at just a little too long.
“The target is already on my back, Carlo. It’s been there for as long as I can remember. Isn’t that why you work for my father?” The reality of my mortality is something I’ve had to deal with my whole life.
He grumbles something I don’t catch.
“I’m sure that’s true, but we’re nearly there, and he was very specific that I come alone.” Carlo can’t refuse my father any more than I can.
He knows I’m placating him, but he doesn’t argue. He’s not as young as he once was, and I don’t like to stress him unnecessarily. This entire request has been nothing but that. I’m not sure what I would do without Carlo. How small can my world possibly get before nothing is left and I disappear?
The drop-off dives even steeper as the mountain climbs higher, and I once again think about death. My obsession with it has only grown more intense in the past six months, but what am I supposed to do when I’m locked inside all the time? When news of what’s happening comes fewer and further between. When people die every day like it’s nothing, and heads are sent in boxes with my name on them.
I never got to see the note. Did Niko finally have something to say to me? Is it sick that I was more concerned with the possibility of hearing from him than Ignazio’s severed head? I already know the answer, and it’s only more disgusting because I know Niko didn’t have a hand in it. Severed heads were never his style. I wasn’t worth saying goodbye to back then, so I sure as shit am not now.
“I will follow your father’s orders, Gianna. I don’t have to like them. I think you understand that more than anyone.” And there’s defeat in his tone as he admits this.
I have always been my father’s faithful daughter. I have always obeyed and honored him, and all that’s gotten me is a small, painful life closing up and shrinking tighter by the day. The ticking of the clock is a death knell.
Why did my father call me here? Who’s dead this time?
My palms slicken as I consider this possibility. Things have changed drastically since the first two bodies fell in the war between the three families when I was seventeen. For half my life, we’ve been at war, and in that time, I’ve watched nearly everyone I love die or betray us. It didn’t used to sit so heavy on my chest, but being alone changes a person. All the pillars of my strength were built on community, and I’m nothing without them.
I suppose I understand why my father has locked me away, at least in part. It took almost ten years to eliminate the Medeiros. It was an ugly fight we did our best to stay out of, but my brother’s death five years ago was the definitive end of any civility between us and the Bouchards. The intervening years have proven to be a bloodbath beyond my imagination. I don’t think my father wants to lose me too, not that the way he treats me now betrays any fondness.
“Yeah, I understand following orders, Carlo.”
“Are you going to be okay, kid?”
“Does it matter if I’m not?”
“You know I wish I could say yes, but I’m not the boss.”
I shake my head and take a deep breath.
“You’re driving behind me. That’s hardly following orders.” But I’m a beat too late, and I sound all wrong.
“He said to let you come to dinner alone, not to leave you unprotected for a hundred miles of open territory.”
“Could we try the final five miles of our own territory?”
“No.” He answers exactly how I expected him to, and I finally yield, hanging up the phone.
The remaining drive to the lake house is scenic enough to pretend I don’t see him a few car lengths back, and the passing scenery stimulates my desperate brain. I take the familiar turns, and my sense of time only grows blurrier. The years slip away. Instead of the aging man following me, I swear I see the young one I first met.
All along the river, sweet flowers fill the trees. My brother and I used to pick them so our housekeeper, Violetta, could make the jam my mother loves so much. My brother's laughter and teasing are close enough to touch. It aches in a way I can’t make sense of. Dante should still be here.
The trees break, revealing the path to the house. The car jumps slightly as I drive over the alarm cable. My parents will know I’m on my way up. This is the first time I’ve been to our family’s lake house since my brother was killed five years ago, and every inch of this place is steeped in happy memories of him. I’m worried I might completely disassociate in front of my parents and unintentionally reveal how fucked up I am from all this isolation and loss. Carlo is already worried about me, but he’s promised not to say anything.
Toward the back of the property, weeping willows line the banks of the river. I pull into a parking spot, and the edges of the gray water flirt with my gaze. The monumental vacation home interrupts the view of the multi-acre lake, preventing me from seeing it entirely.
If I thought it couldn’t get worse, I was wrong. I’m crushed, trapped into reliving my summers here with Dante like a mega screen plastered in front of my face. We ran beside that river until the lake broke wide, diving into the calmer waters to get cool, trying to drown each other, and playing games in the dying sun. A million little fights and arguments that seemed so big then but were nothing more than a flicker of disagreement between two souls who only had a short time to be young and innocent together.
I try to breathe, but I don’t quite manage it. I’m told that one day thinking of him won’t weigh like a stone on my heart, but it’s not today. If I climbed into that water right now, I’d surely sink.
Wiping a stray tear off my cheek, I step out of my car and find that Carlo didn’t follow me up the drive. I half expected he’d tuck off behind one of the willows, a graying Italian specter. There’s a warm, stormy pressure in the air but a lack of anyone. For once, no men line the property. Instead of relief, I’m flooded with suspicion.
My heart pounds as I walk to the back door. My eyes relentlessly scan my surroundings, finding the open world too big. Have I ever stood entirely alone outside? Has the world always been so large or have I shrunk alongside my environment? There’s still no one to be seen, and right as I’ve convinced myself something is dreadfully wrong, the door swings open.
Violetta, our sweet housekeeper, stands with her hand on her hip and her brow tipped in a practiced expression of begrudged affection. Pins hold her finger curls in place, and wrinkles crease her cheeks even deeper than the last I saw her. It’s been so long it takes all my effort not to cry.
“I’m not late,” I tell her before she can say anything, forcing the clog out of my throat.
“You’re not early enough to get to the table on time, picciridda. That’s the same as late.”
She pulls me into a big hug, and the warmth and love in her embrace squeezes a tear from my eye as I soak it up. She pushes me back and holds me at arm’s length to look at me.
“Is Carlo feeding you? You have bags under your eyes. Where were you? I expected you twenty minutes ago.”
I sigh and beseech her with a pout. She narrows her gaze but steps aside and lets me into the house.
“Is my mother already worked up about me being here?” The food in the kitchen smells amazing, and while I dread the reason for this whole evening, I’m excited to eat whatever she’s making.
She doesn’t answer, brown eyes shifting to the side, revealing she knows something. Instead of answering, she tries to take my purse. But I hang on tight. We have a brief tug-of-war before she says, “Not worked up.”
“I think I’ve changed my mind,” I tell her, releasing my strap and deciding none of the stuff inside the purse is worth it. Who needs a phone or wallet? The door is still open, and she’s not that fast anymore. I seriously consider attempting a last-minute escape.
“Don’t you even think about it,” she warns, seeing my intentions long before I can act. She smacks the back of my hand. Damn, not even five minutes before I earned the smack I’d hoped to avoid.
“Ow, shit, Violetta.”
“Don’t curse, awful girl.” She smacks me once more as she yanks me deeper into the kitchen. “Get inside before you wind up in trouble again.”
I’m already inside, but what Violetta really means is go where you belong. I let her close the door, putting a tragic distance between myself and the exit. I roll my eyes only when I’m sure my back is fully toward her, but I could cry for the normalcy and companionship. I don’t hurry like she said. I’m sure I’m already in trouble and don’t need to give my mother thirty extra seconds to harp on me.
When I reach the dining room, my mother’s glare catches me perfectly, already aimed at the space she expected me from. Green eyes glitter in the candlelight from the ten-inch tapers as I step into her view like a mouse presenting itself to a snake.
“Hi, Mom.”
I go to her side and kiss her cheek, getting the faintest, “Gianna,” from her in return.
My mother has never liked me or had particular use for me. She had her son. Her prince. Her Dante. I’ve always been an extra and perhaps a source of competition for her. Now, I’m just the wrong one to live. I swear to God, I pray I never have a son just so I don’t activate this psychotic, male-obsessed curse that seems to lurk in the doting hearts and minds of Italian mothers.
I regret my thoughts as soon as I have them. Dante was worth it.
My father still hasn’t looked at me. The change in our relationship since Dante’s death is much harder to deal with in person.
“Papa, how was your trip up?” I ask as I go to his side and kiss his cheek next. The weight of my mother’s disapproval is one I’ve grown used to bearing, but the distance between my father and me still rubs painfully at my wounds. It’s like I lost him and Dante both on the same day, but that wasn’t my brother’s decision.
My mother continues staring at me like I’m something dragged in on her shoe rather than her only remaining child. Her discomfort at my father showing me more attention than her was something I thought to be a thing of the past with me securely out of their lives, but her shoulders notch up at least two inches from me greeting him.
“Sit down, Gianna. We need to discuss something,” my father says.
I assumed as much from the fact that he wanted me to come alone, but I’m not used to him being so to the point. Whatever this is, it’s more than serious.
“I thought we were having dinner.”
“Once matters are settled.”
I don’t argue with him. His brown eyes are duller than they once were, and barely a speck of black remains in his hair. Seeing him like this after all this time is anticlimactic. A silly part of me expected my old father, but I should have fully accepted a long time ago that he’s not there anymore.
“Sure, Papa. What do we need to discuss?” I sit down, looking at both of them with true fear. “Is someone dead?”
“No, thank God,” my mother answers, but my father’s face says he doesn’t consider it a comfort. I’ve always been able to read my father. A perk of wanting the man's approval more than I need oxygen, but my skills are rusty.
What’s worse than another one of us dead?
“Gianna, I have never asked much of you,” my father begins, and my already sick stomach dives another few inches into the mud. “These past months have been hard on you. I know you think I don’t know that, but Carlo tells me. They have been hard on all of us too, but I have done my best to give you everything and keep you safe.”
I have to swallow twice before I can hold the shake out of my voice long enough to answer. “I know that, Papa. You have always been generous and kind with me.” The words stick to my tongue, the lie barely willing to come out.
My father’s eyes rest on me fully for the first time in years. He’s barely offered me glances since Dante’s passing. And his full attention settles into my bones like the weight of the world and an eternity of expectation. It’s all caught up in a strangely cold brown gaze, and I mourn the father I knew before Dante died. Now, he may as well be a stranger. With that same timeless agony that followed me on my drive in, he becomes both.
“It’s time to pay your debt to this family.” He doesn’t seem aware of what’s happening inside me, and that’s likely for the best.
“Debt? What debt?” I shake my head, clearing my throat.
He straightens his tie. I’ve only ever seen him without it a handful of times.
“Call it duty if you prefer.”
But that doesn’t answer my question.
He scratches his gray beard with a lined hand. Most days, I forget he’s over sixty. He’s handsome and strong but tired if you know the places to look.
“What’s my duty?” The answer seems obvious, like I’m stupid for asking, but that still doesn’t explain his meaning. Shouldn't I know if I have a duty other than hiding in my apartment?
“Gianna, I’m getting too old to keep fighting this war.”
“I know that, Papa. I see how tired you are.”
He smiles, but the sad bend of his lips doesn’t touch his eyes or press his dimples into his softening cheeks.
“I am so glad to hear you say that. Sometimes, Gianna, I’m not so sure you notice anyone but yourself.” He laughs, tired and broken as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a picture. His insult lands like a gut jab, but my curiosity burns about that photo.
“We are almost out of loyal men, and most of the men we do have are hired guns. Hired guns can always be bought with more money.”
He takes a long look at what he’s holding before laying it on that table, but I don’t reach out to take it. It’s like a check in a restaurant—first to touch it claims it, and I certainly don’t want whatever has my father acting like this.
“What is that?”
“The only people you can truly count on in life are family, and sometimes not even them.” I understand that far better than he thinks.
“What are you talking about?” I barely force the question out.
“The oldest and most effective way to strengthen your family is to form an alliance, combine families. Ideally, it would have been a more even deal, but we weren’t in a position to be demanding.”
“What is that?”
“A picture, Gianna. Pick it up.”
My hand shakes as I do, and I’m incredibly confused to find a tall, fifty-something-year-old man with dark hair and possibly Russian features. He stares at me with cold black eyes, and a shiver runs down my spine. He's not bad looking, but his eyes scream cruelty.
I pick it up and turn it over. In unfamiliar handwriting is a name in English and Cyrillic. Fyodor Domalachego. That’s familiar, but I don’t know much about him besides that he’s a high-ranking Bratva.
I stare at it for a minute or two, avoiding the stupid questions my father has no patience for. I should be able to figure out what he means, but I’m having difficulty remembering my name. I’m on the verge of that disassociation I feared.
My finger trails the edge of the picture as I rack my brain for how this man could relate to my debt, duty, or family. Dread settles so thick in my gut I’m grateful we didn’t eat first.
“Why are you showing me this picture, Papa?” But this time, I know.
“He’s your fiancé. I thought you’d like to see him before he gets here.”
I swallow my initial reaction, then my second and third, and finally settle on the much more reasonable. “I don’t have or want a fiancé, Papa. You can’t be bringing this man here.”
“Gianna,” my mother admonishes me. But I’m thirty-two years old, and I do not have a fucking fiancé. Has my father lost his mind? A Bratva alliance!
My father continues unfazed.“He will be here in an hour. That should be enough time to get yourself into the right mindset.”
“The right mindset? What is that exactly? Housewife? Broodmare?”
“We are losing this war, Gianna!” my father shouts, uncharacteristically losing his cool. “You know how bad things are. You asked me yourself if I was calling you here today to tell you of another death in our family. But there aren’t many of us left to die. Your baby cousins, your own mama, and me. Who do you expect to put an end to it?”
I grind my teeth. I wanted it to be him, and if he couldn’t, then Dante, but nothing has gone as planned.
“I’ve long since given up the hope that someone would.” There’s no disrespect in my tone, but I meet my father’s eyes and he hears exactly what I’m thinking but wouldn’t dare say.
“Your brother isn’t here. You are a woman. And I made the only choice I could to keep us all alive. To let us live our lives similarly to how we’ve grown accustomed.”
Piles of death wrapped up in a luxurious bow? I want to ask, but I dig my nails into my palms instead.
“And how did you do that? Exactly,” I demand.
“I made a deal with Fyodor. He took his father’s position. He is without a worthy wife. He doesn’t want a young girl not ready to be a wife or mother, and he thinks you are stunning. Exactly the type of beauty he’d like to carry his sons and daughters.”
It takes one full minute for the significance of those words to dig through my skull.
“Was there a specific number of children mentioned?”
He doesn’t look at me, staring off toward the edge of the room. I realize the table is set for four.
“No less than three, no more than eight.” I’m thirty-two right now. If he expects me to pop out eight children, I’ll be pregnant from now until the day I turn forty.
“Eight,” I repeat. “You agreed to a maximum of eight children with a man I’ve never met. Is he even a good man, Papa?”
He winces but doesn’t immediately answer.
“You’ve been allowed to live a very sheltered life. One I made for you with money and force, but this fairy tale isn’t reality, Gianna, and all things come at a cost. It’s time for you to pay, my sweet girl. Your brother already has.”
How dare he throw Dante in my face after everything?
“Enough fucking games, Dad! Have you lost your mind? Fyodor Domalachego will bury us himself!”
His eyes snap to mine, and there’s an icy second where I know I’ve gone too far. I’ve crossed a line with a man whose only true currency is respect.
“You’re right. He made that very clear to me when he made his demands. He will kill us all if you don’t marry him, and he’s going for the Bouchards next. We join him, or we die.”
“You’re a coward.” I don’t say it like an insult. It’s a gasp from my broken heart. “You let a man come to you and force your hand for your only child. You’re weak.” I’m really not trying to be awful to him, but my world is collapsing like a house of cards. I’ve been hiding for six months, not because we’re fighting a war, but because we’ve given up.
Standing, he steps around the table. I’m sure he’s going to slap me much harder than Violetta did, and maybe I deserve it because I have no intentions of paying my debts or honoring my duties. Just like he’s not done with his. I don’t give a fuck what he thinks I owe.
He’s three feet from me when he raises his hand, and even though I know he’s wrong, I sit there waiting for the blow. I expect the sting and smacking sound as his hand collides with my face, but it never comes.
Instead, a deep crack breaks the tension. Something shatters and falls like heavy rain. My head fills with static buzzing, a cranked-up car stereo with no station. My papa stares into my eyes for a moment before a drop of blood slides down his nose, his face goes slack, and his body drops, slamming against the floor.