Chapter 3
GIANNA
We returned to the city at just past six PM, at which time Lidia decided not to join us on our escapade at the last minute.
It wasn’t a shock, since that’s what usually happens.
She’s much happier at home, reading books or just gazing out the window, reliving the stories in her head.
Dreaming about the day her Prince Charming will come and take her away.
Never. That’s when that’s going to happen.
But I won’t tell her that. It’ll be painful enough once she realizes it on her own like I did.
What came as more of a shock is that I was considering not going either.
Usually, as soon as I get back to New York City, whether I’ve been away for a month or a day, the buzz of constant possibility this city is imbued in makes me want to go out and live all those possibilities.
That’s never really an option for me; I can look forward to living maybe ten percent of those possibilities in my entire life.
Especially while I’m still a Mafia Princess.
And if I ever do get married, my possibilities might be even more limited. I have cousins and friends who are married and never get to leave the house unless their husbands are with them. But I never miss a chance to do it and Chiara’s plan for sneaking out tonight is solid.
It involves taking out the trash and stuffing pillows under the covers in our bedrooms so even if they check they won’t know we’re gone. And with Lidia staying at home to cover for us, it will go off without a hitch.
But I’m still reluctant to go, even after I just spent over an hour applying my makeup at my vanity table—an ornate white thing with a mirror that has roses carved into it that also belonged to my great-grandmother.
She never had the amount of makeup to work with that I do, and I’ve been using it all for over an hour, creating one of my most elaborate makeup looks yet.
Gold shimmer, black shimmer, eyeliner, fake lashes… the works.
But I’m done now. It’s time to go.
I stand in front of the large mirror in my closet, admiring my reflection in the skin-tight golden dress and how well my eye makeup complements it.
I can see myself in both the mirror and reflection in the window, beyond which thousands of lights are shining in the darkness.
I look so good against that backdrop of the nighttime cityscape…
like I belong out there in the night, not locked up in this high-up penthouse I share with my sisters, while my mom and dad live in the other penthouse on this floor.
And as soon as I think it, guilt washes over me like a deluge of cold rain.
My family has been through so much grief lately, and every time I see my dad, there’s this sadness in his eyes like he’s wondering if it’s the last time he’s going to see me.
Pain over losing his only son, I’m sure.
Or maybe something more. Maybe a fear that he’s on the way out, so weakened that the vultures that are always circling will come for him and his position as the head of one of the five mafia families that run New York.
He has no heir, three unmarried daughters, and is aging. Things are not looking good for us.
I’ve spent a lot of time hating him for wanting to trade me off like cattle for favors, but the basic truth is that it had always been done like that in our family. I love my dad very much and I know he loves me. I’ve long since decided to focus only on that love and nothing else.
Going out tonight, putting myself in harm’s way and potentially disgracing myself even more than I’m already disgraced… that’s not something a loving, respectful daughter would do.
But in the end, I decide that I deserve a life too. Beyond these walls, beyond the tight confines of my golden cage, beyond family tradition and roles that never did me any favors and probably never will.
“That took you long enough,” Chiara exclaims as I finally join her in the living room. She stands up from the sofa where she was keeping Lidia company. “I mean you look amazing, but come on, I almost fell asleep waiting for you.”
“It is a great dress, isn’t it?” I twirl, loving how the shimmering of my gold dress adds to the lights twinkling all over the city outside the windows.
Chiara rolls her eyes and tosses a black trench coat at me. “Let’s go now. Put that on.”
I’d very much rather not put on the oversized coat she got from who knows where—probably one of those thrift stores she loves so much. But I do it, because I really want to be out in that darkness now, just one of the lights, not sitting perched up above it all, isolated.
“Have fun,” Lidia says. “I’ll cover for you the best I can.”
“You should be going with us,” Chiara says as she puts on her own coat, an army green number that goes very nicely with the white and silver jumpsuit type outfit she’s wearing.
“Maybe next time,” Lidia says, casting a glance at the thick book lying on the bronze and glass side table beside her steaming cup of tea—mint, by the smell of it.
“Sure,” Chiara says and rolls her eyes again, then turns to me. “All right, so you know the plan…”
“I do,” I interrupt. “We’ve done this a bunch of times.”
Lidia nods. She is already standing, holding a mostly empty black trash bag.
We have this routine down cold.
Lidia will go out the front door with the trash bag, Rafaelle or whoever is guarding our door tonight will follow her even though she’ll insist she can take the trash out by herself.
We usually have a guard each, but after we’re safely tucked away in our high-rise perch above it all, they take turns watching the door.
Whoever is out there tonight, will want to at least hold the garbage chute door for Lidia if she won’t let him take the trash out for her.
While that’s happening, Chiara and I will sneak out and rush to the service elevator.
Once there, we’ll ride down to the garage and take the side exit from the building.
In the coats and keeping our heads down, we’ll be unrecognizable on any cameras we pass, and there aren’t many of those on this route.
We’ve successfully pulled of this trash run form of escape a few times and it’s the most foolproof of all our escapes… it never fails.
Lidia leaves the apartment and we wait about half a minute before opening the door a crack to see if the coast is clear. It is. I can hear Rafaelle’s deep voice way down the hall as he talks to Lidia.
He used to be my brother’s right-hand man, his number one bodyguard and still blames himself for failing to protect Antonio.
That’s why he begged my father to let him guard us, the three daughters.
It’s a step down for him, but he sees it as the highest honor to protect my father’s last remaining children.
That also makes him annoyingly efficient and attentive.
We don’t speak, just hustle down the hall in the opposite direction. There’ll be no talking until we’re outside, it’s not worth the risk.
Everything goes off without a hitch. There wasn’t even anyone at the desk by the side entrance to try and stop us.
The sweet heady heat of the city feels like a breath of the freshest air on my face as we reach the sidewalk.
I’d like to stop, bask in it, let it fill me up with all the life energy that is so thin up in our apartment, but blazes like a thousand suns down here on the city streets.
But Chiara sets a brisk pace down the street towards 5th Avenue where we’ll catch a cab downtown and finally really be free. We ditch the coats in one of the flower pots along a tiny sidewalk sitting alcove… maybe they’ll still be there when we get back, maybe not, doesn’t really matter.
As always, I realize just how much I love being free.
I keep that need, that desire under very tight wraps most of the time, but actually being free makes it explode.
My life has always been home, school, shopping, and more home, with a party here and there, like the one organized for my birthday.
Nowadays, I don’t even go to school anymore. So it’s just home and shopping. Sad.
The cab ride to the Sphere—a hip new place in the Alphabets—will take about twenty minutes. Then the night will be ours.
“I can’t wait to get there,” Chiara says once we’re well on our way. “I’m gonna dance ’til I can’t no more.”
She laughs and I do too. “I’ll be right there with you. They’ll have to carry us out.”
“Oh, God, please no,” she says, her eyes wide in mock shock. “That would be way over the top.”
I shake my head. “Nothing about tonight will be over the top. It’ll all be exactly perfect. You’ll see.”
She grins at me, but there’s a sort of sadness in her eyes, pity maybe. Maybe that’s what she sees in my eyes too.
Fact is, we don’t have a normal life, and we never will. All we have are moments like these, short nights where we get to pretend we’re normal and not a couple of prisoners of the NYC underground.
So, yeah, tonight will be exactly perfect. I’m going to make sure it is.