Chapter 25
GIANNA
Dad sent word that he wanted to see me in his office at noon. The message came via Rafaelle who was even more grim-faced and silent than he usually is when he delivered it. He didn’t answer any of my questions about what Dad might want, or even say much beyond telling me to be there.
My sisters and I have come up with so many possible answers since then that my head is spinning and my stomach feels like I’ve had way more to drink last night than I actually did.
He wants to marry you off again.
He’s sending you to a convent.
He wants to make you the head of the family.
Those are just some of the answers we’ve come up with. The one that gave me the worst of the stomachache is the first. But he wouldn’t set up another engagement for me. How? With who? Gianna the Cursed is the least eligible Mafia Princess in the whole world, I’m sure.
It’s almost noon and I’ve already done so much pacing across the apartment that my feet and calves actually ache.
I still haven’t told my sisters about Matteo.
He’s also the reason why I’m so worried that my dad did in fact find another sucker who’ll try to marry me.
Now that my father doesn’t have a direct descendant anymore, the lure of getting married to me, his eldest daughter, might be stronger than superstition. I hope not.
At ten to twelve I decide it’s close enough, tell my sisters I’m going, barely hear them wishing me luck, and enter my parents’ apartment through the connecting door.
The room beyond is clean, cold, and empty, as the rest of the apartment seems to be.
Mom’s been out all morning, which I saw as a bad sign regarding my meeting with Dad.
And upsetting because she would’ve given me some clue as to what it’s about, I’m sure.
I smell lilies as I walk down the hall to my dad’s office, but don’t actually see any anywhere. Funeral flowers. Death flowers. Another bad omen of what I’ll find on the other side of my father’s study door.
I listen through the thick wood for a few moments and when I can’t hear a thing on the other side, I knock.
Sheepishly and quietly at first, but then I follow it up with a proper knock.
Because I promised myself a long time ago that I would face my future—such as it is, such as other people like my dad will create for me—with my head held high.
“Come in,” Dad calls and I open the door so fast the doorknob slips from my sweaty palm sending the door crashing against the wall.
He winces and looks annoyed.
“You wanted to see me?” I ask instead of apologizing.
“Yes. Not for you to break my door, though.”
“Sorry. I’ll be more careful next time.”
And there I go, assuming the role of the dutiful eldest daughter once again. How many times since my brother died did Dad wish I was born a boy and not a girl? How many times even before then? He loves me, I know that. But I would’ve been more useful to him as a male, there’s no doubt about that.
“You’re spending a lot of time with that new guard, Matteo Rovina,” dad says. “It’s not seemly.”
“Seemly?” I scoff. “How about you let me go out by myself? Then I wouldn’t have to drag my bodyguards to dinner with me.”
His eyes cloud over, dark rage gathering. But I need to deflect this accusation he’s making. The last thing I need is him driving Matteo away because he thinks there’s something going on between us. Not now that I’ve finally managed to crack open his dark, hard shell a little.
“Or we could go… the whole family I mean,” I add, since I don’t want him raging at me either. “We never do that anymore. That restaurant I went to last night… I’ve wanted to try it for ages.”
His eyes cloud over again, this time with something much lighter and much more terrible. Like twilight mists falling over a lake, making it eerie and oh, so sad.
He clears his throat and shakes his head, probably trying to dispel the pain. I doubt it works.
“This is a very bad time for any of us to be out and about, including me and your mother,” he says. “But we’ll go out to dinner soon. As a family.”
His voice cracks a little on the last word and the pain of missing my brother is like a red-hot knife through my heart. Probably still not as painful as what he feels over losing his only son.
We never talk about Antonio. But I’m sure we all think about him a lot. A year is not a long time at all. More like a minute in terms of making the grief more bearable.
“I’d like that.” I smile and sit in one of the black leather chairs facing Dad’s desk.
“Me too,” he says and returns the smile. But it’s a very sad smile. Like he’s thinking about losing me too. And all the rest of us. Why did I have to go down this road?
“Why aren’t we safe to go out, though?” I ask. I’m not sure if this is any better in terms of what we could talk about, but I really want to know.
“Something’s brewing,” he says, which is more than I expected him to tell me. He never talks about the business with us girls. “All the famiglias are noticing more attacks. Like the way you were attacked in that night club.”
The fact that all the top mafia families in New York are facing attacks is the last thing I wanted to hear.
It means more strict protection, if nothing else.
Bad enough I’m already forced to spend my life locked in a high tower, now I can’t even go out a little, or what?
The leather of the seat it sticking to my bare thighs, uncomfortably hot all of a sudden.
I want to run out of this office, this apartment, this building, run all the way to the beach, to the mountains, somewhere so far away from here I can forget all about it.
He must read the shock on my face because he smiles again, more reassuringly this time. “We will deal with it and then everything will go back to normal,” he says. “But for the moment, we have to be careful. Please convey that to your sisters too. They listen to you.”
Yeah, not really. They used to, when they were younger, but not anymore. I won’t tell him that though. He’s got enough to worry about.
“OK, I will,” I say. “You can count on me.”
He nods and smiles sadly again in that way that never fails to make me think he regrets that I’m not a son.
Usually it makes me bitter, today I almost suggest he find me a man he can trust to marry.
So he could have someone loyal by his side.
Someone to keep him safe in the battles he must fight. Someone to keep him safe.
But Matteo could do all that.
And I’m pretty sure he’s the only man I’ll every truly want to marry.
And there I go, building my castles in the sky, like always. But what else can anyone expect from a girl who spends her days locked in a tower?
I stand up, the skin on the back of my thighs peeling off the leather painfully.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I say. “And I’ll do better from now on.”
He seems lost in all the bad stuff this conversation stirred up in his mind. At least I successfully deflected talking about the original reason he wanted to speak to me.
But his voice is sharp as he calls my name right before I open the office door to leave.
“I don’t need talk of my oldest daughter carrying on with a bodyguard,” he says sharply. “Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes, Dad,” I say, my voice somehow making it past the lump in my throat. “I understand.”
There’s talk?
From who?
What am I supposed to do now?
Staying away from Matteo, denying our connection feels impossible. But continuing on could mean his death. And then I’d truly lose him forever.
* * *
As I get back to my apartment, I’m still reeling from all the emotions running through me following that conversation—my own and my dad’s which I felt just as keenly.
“So? What happened? What did he want?” Chiara asks breathlessly, while Lidia looks at me over the top of her book, eyes wide and questioning.
I sigh and plop down on one of the plush white armchairs, enjoying the softness against my things and wishing everything could be simple again.
That I could just enjoy sitting in a nice chair, looking out the window at the nice view and that it would be enough. It’s time to come clean to my sisters.
“What? How bad was it? Is he trying to marry you off again?” Chiara asks, her voice getting more and more agitated with every word.
I shake my head and still the words don’t come.
“What then?” Chiara asks.
I focus on the busy view out the window and take a deep breath.
“He wants me to stop hanging out with Matteo.”
The silence that follows is something I should’ve expected, since on its own, I didn’t tell them anything yet.
“But you don’t want to do this?” Lidia asks, speaking slowly as though she isn’t sure she’s getting it right.
“No, I don’t,” I say, take another deep breath and add, “Because I really like him.”
They both gasp at the same time, and practically in the same way, the sound amplified unnaturally because of it.
“Why?” Lidia asks. “He’s so grumpy and dark all the time. Even when he was saving you from the ocean he looked like he hated doing it.”
“I don’t think he did,” I say. “I think he’s just scared by the connection we have. And what it could mean.”
“You have a connection?” Chiara asks.
I grin widely, can’t help it. “A connection like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Or imagined I could feel.”
There I said it. And all the feelings I have for Matteo are more now, not less—more amplified, more real, more visceral. If he were here right now, I would probably kiss him because I couldn’t help it.
“Wow,” Chiara says breathily and leans back on the sofa, looking at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. “Wow.”
Lidia says nothing, but is looking at me in the same way.
“But maybe I should break it off with him,” I say and all the emotions running through me just turn into a deluge of sadness. Like the coldest winter rain on the coldest, greyest day.
“What? Why?” Chiara asks.
I don’t want to say it.
“Because Dad’s warned me now. And next time he’ll just have him removed… maybe even killed.”
They both gasp again.
“Dad isn’t like that…” Lidia says, but it sounds like she doesn’t believe it herself.
“You don’t get to be the head of the New York mafia without being exactly that guy.”
Neither of them can argue with that.
And I can’t either.
I was born to be a dutiful daughter. An obedient, meek daughter who does as she’s told. Because if I don’t, people die.
So I must do as I was ordered. Because I can’t live with another death on my conscience. Especially not Matteo’s.
It was nice pretending for a moment, but the consequences are too deadly if I carry on.
“You can’t just forget about him… not if you have a connection,” Lidia says quietly. “You won’t be able to. Because it’s against the laws of love.”
“The laws of love?” Chiara asks, scoffing. “What’s that?”
“A real thing,” Lidia says, more defiantly than I’ve ever heard her speak yet. “Love is force that can’t be denied.”
She turns to me. “And you shouldn’t try to deny it either. Who knows when and if any of us will ever find love? Don’t throw your chance away.”
“Even if Dad kills him for it?”
She shakes her head. “He won’t, not if he sees you’re in love. I’m sure of it.”
I’ve rarely heard Lidia speak so assertively or give advice in such a forceful manner. For that alone, I believe her. But I also believe her because she’s absolutely right. This could be my one and only chance to explore love, or whatever this thing I’m experiencing with Matteo is.
But is it worth risking his life for it?