Chapter 4
GAbrIELA
“Drink up, Beppe.” I hold up his collapsible water bowl, and he stares at it with disinterest.
“Or not.” I sigh.
He’s too distracted by the commotion in the café to care about much else, so I tuck him back into his tote.
I crack open my notebook to work on the Capstone Studio design brief.
The admin part of the project is my least favorite, but it’s necessary.
If I put it off, I’ll procrastinate forever, so I’ve been trying to chip away at it in manageable chunks.
Soon, I’ll have to draw up a business plan to present to a mock panel of investors.
The café isn’t an ideal space to work between classes, but all my usual spots are taken. I’m digging through my backpack for my headphones when someone sits down across from me.
“Hey, Gabi.”
I freeze, blinking at the guy across from me in confusion. I’ve seen him around campus a few times, and I’ve caught him watching me more often recently. Once he smiled, and another time he winked. It felt like he was flirting with me, but I don’t know. We’ve never actually spoken before.
“How do you know my name?”
“You’re BiteSizedGabi on the university Discord, aren’t you?”
My stomach flips at the mention of my username. It’s very specific, and while I suppose he could have randomly noticed my profile picture, what are the odds? It’s not like we’d be in the same communities. I know he’s not a design student. But then again, I have been lurking in the bio server.
As I study him, I wonder if he could actually be Eros415. He’s tall and muscular, with brown hair and piercing blue eyes. It was hard to tell with the mask and hoodie, but they look like they have a similar build.
I shift in my seat, feeling Julian’s gaze from his usual post by one of the brick columns.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
The guy leans forward with a smirk. “Are you going to pretend you don’t know?”
His answer seems to confirm my suspicions, though he isn’t what I pictured when I thought of Eros. This guy looks like he majors in beer pong, and I imagined Eros as something more…intense. But what are the chances someone else would approach me with my username the day after I asked him to meet?
“Are you a biology major?”
He arches a brow at me like I’m missing the obvious. “You’re not the only one who likes sharks.”
Okay, it has to be him.
I want to ask what happened to us not meeting, but Julian’s giving him the stink eye as he texts someone on his phone. I have a feeling he’ll be over here any second now, and I’m not the only one who’s noticed.
“What’s up with that guy? He’s always following you around.”
“It’s hard to explain,” I mumble.
“He’s not your boyfriend?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“A guard then?”
That’s too specific to be a guess, so he must be a member of IVI, or at least know about it.
In the past, having a guard with me deterred most guys.
The few who did approach usually got freaked out and stopped talking to me quickly.
I never knew if that was because of the guard or something else.
My previous guard didn’t care who talked to me as long as he could observe.
Julian, on the other hand, seems to mind an awful lot.
His scowl deepens as he shoves off the brick column and heads our direction.
“Can you ditch him on Saturday night?”
“I can try,” I blurt, because I don’t have time to think about it.
“Give me your phone for a sec.”
I unlock it and hand it over, watching him enter his contact as "Nate". He sends himself a text from my phone, then saves my contact.
“I’ll fill you in on the details later.”
Before I can say anything else, he stands up just in time for Julian’s arrival.
“Everything alright here?” Julian glares at the interloper.
“Everything’s fine.” I squeak. “We were just talking about the fall event calendar.”
I’m the worst liar ever, and I can tell Julian isn’t remotely buying it, but he seems to let it go as Nate turns to leave.
“See you around, Gabi.”
I nod at him and gather up my things, avoiding Julian’s gaze.
“I should get to class.”
By Friday, Nate has called me a few times, seemingly abandoning our Discord chat.
I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but our conversations feel more stilted.
Part of me wonders if he’s actually Eros, but I’m too embarrassed to ask now.
I keep thinking about what he said in the café—if I was going to pretend I didn’t know who he was.
It makes sense that he’s Eros, but I think I’m a little disappointed.
When he invites me to a dock party on Saturday, my first instinct is to say no.
Parties with strangers aren’t my scene, and it gives me anxiety even thinking about it.
But at the same time, I feel like I need to step out of my comfort zone and give this a chance.
I can’t just let the months pass me by until I’m forced to marry Riccardo and let him touch me. I want to live while I still can.
I call Mariella and ask for her help. Being the only daughter of the Vitale family, she’s spent a lot of time in this penthouse and knows it well.
She’s also one of the smartest people I know.
When she isn’t helping abused women through the Aegis network she created, she’s doctoring for The Society and the Cosa Nostra alike.
Whenever there’s a problem, she almost always has a solution, and she doesn’t let me down.
She tells me about the panic room in the penthouse, explaining that it has a private elevator. All I need to do is get to the primary suite, and I can use that to leave without Julian finding out.
That’s a problem for tomorrow. For now, I have to focus on the more immediate disaster—which is tonight’s dinner with Riccardo.
I’ve felt sick to my stomach all day just thinking about it, and I could hardly concentrate in class.
If I didn’t already know Michael would rage at me, I’d tell them I came down with something.
Unfortunately, I doubt that excuse would work.
So I drag myself out to the car beside Julian and settle in for the thirty-minute ride to Laurelhurst.
The Venturis are related to the Vitales, and like the Vitales, they come from generational wealth. That wealth has trickled down to Riccardo, and he flaunts it every chance he gets.
Over the years, I’ve heard stories about him sowing his wild oats and blowing his cash on coke, escorts, and high-stakes poker games. But like most men in the Mafia, there comes a time when they have to settle down and appear "respectable".
Marriages in the Cosa Nostra are transactional, usually involving cash or business arrangements. In my case, it was my stepfather Michael’s responsibility to strike a deal. He’s never seen me as anything more than an annoyance he had to deal with, and he was all too happy to sell me off.
Riccardo’s reputation has limited his choice of brides, but somehow everyone involved makes it sound like he’s doing me a favor. Michael pitched me as “different, but obedient,” telling Riccardo I’d play the dutiful wife and wouldn’t nag him.
Riccardo made a point of relaying all this after our first family dinner, when he told me I didn’t look autistic—as if that were a compliment.
A more insufferable man has never existed, and I knew then that I would never love him. But, truthfully, I also feel like it’s what I deserve. Romeo’s life wouldn’t be ruined if it weren’t for me, so it only seems fitting that I should suffer for the rest of my days, too.
When the car pulls to a stop on the driveway of the Venturi home, I’m not remotely prepared. But I never really am.
Julian gives me a sidelong glance as he holds the door open, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he looks sympathetic to my plight. I’m not sure whether it’s because I have to marry Riccardo or because I had the misfortune of arriving at the same time as my parents.
I stand at attention, every muscle in my body rigid as I watch them pile out of the car.
Michael exits first, dressed like a slick car salesman in a suit three decades out of fashion.
Except, instead of slinging cars, he spends his time at a mob-owned nightclub.
A noxious cloud of cologne follows him wherever he goes, and his gel-lacquered hair could survive a category five hurricane.
Likewise, my mom Angie prefers to wear dresses so tight she has to shuffle from place to place.
Her signature makeup look is from the eighties, and her hair is teased within an inch of its life.
She’s almost always chewing on gum and looking down her nose at everyone else.
We’ve never had anything in common, and most people wouldn’t even guess we’re related.
The only person absent tonight is my half-brother Joey—the golden child.
He was born four years after me, and he already had our parents’ favor simply because he was a son, rather than a daughter.
It’s not as if there was ever a competition.
My mother never hid her resentment toward me.
She loved my father, but for some reason, the fact that I inherited his traits did little to endear me to her.
I was born in his likeness—so similar she could hardly stand to look at me.
In turn, that resemblance seemed to breed bitterness in my stepfather.
In a way, I’ve always been a haunting reminder of the man who came before him.
For those reasons, I spent the majority of my childhood making myself small and holding my breath. I did my best to stay out of their way, living for the moments I could spend with Abella, Valentina, and my aunt.
When my father died in a Mafia dispute, Martina took me in for a few years, and it forged an unbreakable bond. She was my father’s sister, and the only parental figure who didn’t mind the things others complained about.