9. Isabella
9
ISABELLA
PRESENT DAY
Isabella, 24 years old
Niccolò, 27 years old
Today’s my twenty-fourth birthday.
A day to celebrate.
Yet, here I am, staring out the window. Trying to get my terrible birthday dinner disruption out of my head while also avoiding my sister-in-law Lux’s gaze because I know exactly what’s going through that mind of hers. I saw the unspoken question written on her face as she watched me from across our ruined five-course meal not too long ago.
Every year for my birthday, my family and I celebrate by going to Cartelli’s, one of my favorite Italian restaurants. It’s a tradition my parents started when I was still in diapers, and when they were killed nearly three years ago by a rival don, Giuseppe Silvestri, my older brothers, Teo and Enzo, continued with the tradition.
This is my third birthday without my parents, and no matter how hard my brothers try to continue this tradition, it doesn’t get rid of the hole that burned its way through my heart when my parents were taken away from us.
I thought I was doing better.
I was doing better.
But when my birthday celebration was ruined by the person who broke my family, threatening to come after us if we don’t give him access to our ports for trafficking, how can I not sit here and spiral, letting the past seep into my mind and cloud my special day like a dark storm?
And if seeing the man who’s responsible for the death of my parents wasn’t bad enough, I had to see him too.
Niccolò Silvestri.
The man who tore my heart out of my chest without a care in the world.
The man I thought I would marry.
The man I wish I had never met my freshman year at CU.
He stood there silently while his dad threatened Teo if he didn’t give him access to our family’s ports. The entire time, I felt his sharp gaze on mine. I tried to avoid meeting it, but my body betrayed me, sneaking a glance at him. Then to top it all off, he had the audacity to tell me to enjoy the rest of my birthday.
His eyes were dark as he took me in, but I know Nicco. The way he looked at me was like there was longing there, which I don’t understand.
I nearly gave us both away when I opened my mouth to call out to him, but I remembered I couldn’t. My brothers don’t know about Nicco and me, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.
Still, the anger from how he treated me when we broke up rushed to the surface of my skin, causing a reemergence of frustration to travel along the fine hairs. I don’t know what I was going to say to him when he was walking away, but I wanted to yell at him. To tell him to forget my birthday and forget me. Like he told me to forget about him.
But I kept quiet because, in the end, he doesn’t matter. Not anymore.