Prologue #2
She opened the lid and blinked, staring past the disturbed cloud of dust. It didn’t look like more pictures.
It looked like … letters. Am I living a cliché right now?
Confused and more than a little wary, Evelina reached inside and sifted through the old, yellowed envelopes.
They didn’t appear stacked in any order.
But they looked sealed, addressed, most of them even stamped.
And, finally, the name on the address seeped into her brain.
Eleonora De Salvo
All of them. Every single one was addressed to the same person, to the same place.
All of them to New Jersey. The realization smacked Evelina in the face, the photo of the state sign she’d found earlier flashing through her mind.
She didn’t realize she had gasped that time, or dropped the envelope from her hand, until Otto was kneeling beside her and gripping on her shoulder. “Lina. Maybe this is enough for one day.”
She set her jaw, refusing to admit he was probably right, and shrugged him off. “I’m fine, Otto. I just … wasn’t prepared for this little foray into my family history. That’s all.” She could feel him scowling at her and she turned her head enough to arch a perfectly trimmed brow.
His own were narrowed with disapproval, or disbelief, and his lips were set in a thin line. But he dipped his chin after only another moment’s hesitation and retreated once more.
The show of obedience, with their continued lack of an audience, should probably have alarmed her. It wasn’t something he was known for after all the years he’d been assigned to her. But her mind was elsewhere, so she took it for what it looked like and dropped her focus back to the letters.
There had to be close to two dozen. The first several were addressed in a child’s scrawl, but slowly the handwriting improved and became more recognizable.
There was no doubt in Evelina’s mind they were written by her mother.
It was hard to make out the dates on all the postmarks, but as she rifled through, she realized years separated many of them.
And the closer she looked, the more it seemed each and every one had been returned unopened.
A piece of Evelina’s heart broke for the child she’d seen in those photographs, and questions rose like mountains in her mind.
Who was Eleonora De Salvo? Why had she returned all of Annetta’s letters, or had she even received them?
What sort of relationship had they actually had, how had they met?
A lump formed in Evelina’s throat. Her grandfather hadn’t been as abusive as her father, but he hadn’t been a kind man, either.
Was it possible her mother had befriended this Eleonora, and tried reaching out to her later?
Her fingers danced along the edge of the envelope in her hand. They were so old, and so clearly abandoned. Asking her mother about this might upset her to the point that it made her collapse, even. What could it hurt if I just took a peek?
Chewing briefly on her lip, Evelina decided to open what looked like the oldest one, hoping that child-Annetta had spilled her heart out in her first letter.
She just wanted to understand. And, really, her mother’s youth was a portion of time she knew little about—neither Mamma nor Nonno really liked talking about that history.
So she pulled out what she determined to be the oldest letter and carefully dragged her nail through the weathered paper crease. It tore like butter.
Her heart snagged a little at the child’s swirling handwriting inside, but she read anyway.
Dear Nora,
I miss you so much. I miss New York so much.
I even kinda miss New Jersey now. Papa’s not the same.
We never stay anywhere long and he barely talks to me.
He’s told me not to write to you, too, but I’m doing it anyway.
He’s not here, again, and he can’t tell me not to write to my own sister!
You are still my sister, aren’t you, Nora?
Even though you’re married now and you changed your name—
Evelina practically jumped backward, all but throwing the papers off her lap as her heart slammed into her ribs. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.
She had an aunt? Or, at least, she’d had one once. Along with who-knew-how-much extended family. In New Jersey.
“Lina.” Otto’s voice was a bit firmer this time, his hand settling against her mid-back.
Feeling distinctly unsteady, Evelina reached out and latched onto his shirt before finally lifting her gaze to his stare. “Otto,” she whispered, “I … I need to talk to Mamma.” Even if it upset her. There were questions she had to ask.
Because, above all else, she couldn’t imagine Nonno allowing one of his daughters—particularly his eldest—to marry some rando.
Nonno had been too power-hungry for that.
Her mother had been given over in an arranged marriage, so that begged the question of whether or not her aunt had, too.
But more than anything, Evelina needed to know if she still had this mystery aunt, and who her relatives named De Salvo actually were. If they actually were.
Still, it took her nearly forty minutes to get time alone with her mother. Most of that due to the hovering hospice nurse Evelina usually appreciated.
Annetta offered a weak smile when Otto clicked the door closed behind him, finally, and they were left alone. “Lina … my love. What troubles you?” Her voice was weak and she could barely ask the question without coughing.
The carefully folded letter and re-gathered picture hidden beneath Evelina’s sweater weighed her down like cement blocks.
She dug her nails into her palms. Other than you dying, and Otets treating us both like an inconvenience?
She still had a long list, actually. But she drew a breath.
“Mamma, I’m sorry, but I wanted to ask you about something that might be hard.
” She held her mother’s tired gaze and fought the burn of tears that always threatened.
Annetta’s brow twitched. “Ask away, darling.”
Evelina swallowed hard and straightened.
“Remember how I mentioned cleaning up the stuff in the attic?” She paused, and her mother tilted her head in a semblance of a nod.
“I found some things, and I don’t … I don’t understand.
” She drew a deep breath. She’d never been good at subtle.
It was the Nikolaev in her. So she pulled the items out and laid them side-by-side in her mother’s lap.
Her mother’s rattled gasp reverberated in her ears.
“Who is Eleonora? Why did you call her your sister in this letter?”
Annetta reached for the picture—the one from the engagement party—with a shaking hand and stroked a thumb over the glossy front. “Nora,” she whispered in an affectionate, almost reverent tone. She sucked in another breath and promptly dropped the photo, falling into a coughing fit.
Evelina leapt up, helping her mother straighten and rubbing her back, her chest pinching with guilt.
I shouldn’t have asked. Her mother would continue to have fits regardless, and all she could really do was be present and patient.
It hurt like hell. But pushing for conversation, forcing a rise of emotions, pretty much guaranteed more of these moments of suffering.
The information she wanted couldn’t be worth it.
When Annetta began to settle again, Evelina passed over her glass of water and encouraged her to take a few sips, then helped her return to her semi-reclined position.
The items from the attic had shifted, falling lower in Annetta’s lap with all the movement, and Annetta stretched out a hand. “Bring me … those.”
Evelina glanced down and frowned. “Never mind, Mamma,” she said, the guilt churning thicker in her stomach. “It doesn’t really matter. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, it does,” Annetta argued, her voice as firm as Evelina had heard it in weeks. She wiggled her fingers in a silent demand.
Still feeling guilty, but increasingly curious, Evelina complied before reclaiming her seat.
Annetta pulled the image up to her chest, laying it over her heart, then glanced over the letter.
She brushed her fingers down the paper quietly, exhaled, and finally said, “Nora—Eleonora—was my elder sister.” Her lips lifted in another smile, this time both tired and sad.
“I couldn’t tell you now if she still lives or if she has passed.
But she was ten years older than me, much as Otto is to you.
” Her lips twitched as though she thought the comparison was funny.
Evelina barely heard the joke, still attempting to catch her breath from the sucker punch. “I … have an aunt?”
Annetta dipped her chin in a weak nod. “You may even have cousins.” Her smile turned sad and she lifted the picture to look at it again.
“Papa arranged to marry her to a dangerous man when I was still a girl. He was coming of age in a mafia household back then. I only met him twice, and he made me nervous. But I saw the way he smiled at Nora … and I thought maybe, even though she hadn’t wanted to marry …
she might be all right.” Her entire chest heaved with a hard intake of air.
“The last time I saw my sister, or spoke to her, was the day she left for her honeymoon.”
Evelina rolled her lips between her teeth.
It was no great surprise to learn Nonno had arranged a marriage for both his daughters, let alone that he hadn’t considered either daughter’s feelings on the subject.
It was still a much larger shock to learn her mother had a whole sister she’d never heard of.
A sister she herself had apparently not heard from in many years. “How long has it been?”
Annetta set down the picture. “I was twelve.”
Her heart cracked. Decades had passed since the sisters had spoken. Yet her mother had written so many letters.
As if reading her mind, Annetta said, “It was a long time before I learned … that Papa had given me a false address … when he told me where she would be.” She drew another shuddering breath that rattled audibly.
“These letters you found, these letters I wrote so desperately … she had no hope of seeing them.” She made a sound like a weak laugh.
“It’s a bit of a miracle, really, that so many of them … came back to me.”
Evelina gaped. That was too cruel. “Why? Why would he do that?”
“Because, though the marriage hadn’t been his idea, Papa still expected to receive a position of authority within their mafia in return.
” Annetta set down the picture and moved both hands to the letter in her lap.
“When he realized he would gain no power, he took me and fled. Papa … was a selfish, cowardly man, Lina.” She gasped again, harder than before, and held out the paper.
“Please, Lina, do your mother this favor … find her. Find my Nora. Or what family she left behind.” Tears built in Annetta’s eyes.
Fuck.
“Tell her … I’m sorry, and I always kept her … in my heart.”
Refusing to show her own tears, Evelina carefully took back the letter and folded her hands around her mother’s. “Of course, Mamma. I’ll find her as fast as I can, and maybe you can tell her yourself, even.”
Annetta managed a twitch of a smile as a single tear trailed down her cheek. They both knew how unlikely that was.
Evelina helped her mother to lie down, letting her keep the old picture, and quietly stepped from the room.
If her aunt was ten years her mother’s senior and had married into a mafia household, the odds of finding her alive seemed slim.
But she could certainly try. The photos and the letters would hopefully give her claims of relation validity to whatever family her estranged Aunt Nora had built.
She glanced up at Otto and another thought occurred to her—a more dangerous, more ridiculous one.
Her father was pakhan, and she was his only surviving heir.
Many were unhappy about that, considering her mixed heritage, but their relation was the same reason she herself was allowed the freedom and provided the protection she was.
It was also why she constantly found herself challenged.
No one really wanted her taking over—she was female and only half Russian.
But this was fucking America, not the motherland, and it wasn’t her fault her father had agreed to wed and bed an Italian woman.
Her brother would have been just as half-blooded as she was.
Regardless, she had a fight coming. She didn’t know when, or if it would be loud and sudden or slow and subtle, but she was sure it was headed her way.
Because though she was daughter of the standing pakhan, she was not the only blood heir.
He had a nephew who was of purer Russian descent.
And her cousin was a nasty piece of work.
Evelina made a quiet beeline for her room upstairs, which she’d remodeled into two portions—the actual sleeping space and a work station with a small home office setup.
She nodded briefly to Otto as she left him at the door, then headed straight for her computer.
First, she needed to see if she could even find anything on these De Salvos.
Then, maybe, she’d see if this Italian mafia her aunt had married into might be strong enough to give her a leg-up on the coming competition.
Just because she’d promised to find her mother’s estranged family didn’t mean she couldn’t make it worth her while, too.