Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
DARIA
T he Sicilian sun burned down on me, hotter than Mamma’s pizza oven. My feet took me home in white sneakers that had turned brown, much like the gravel I had ridden my i calacipiti on . For months I had been preparing my carretto for this race, and there was no way I was foregoing it because some don was coming down from New York for my sister.
Not even Mamma’s imminent anger was going to keep me away from the race. I was not home to help with whatever it was I had to help with. But most importantly, good girls didn’t ride Carretto . Apparently, they stayed home till the next made man thought it worthy to pick them up and take them a continent away. Away from family and all that we have ever known. For what exactly? Stay home to make home-cooked meals while he went about his days as a man whore. They were all the same. Made out of the same cookie cutter as Papà.
Minchia! I hated Papà. He was the reason I cursed so much, even if it was in my mind alone. I hated him when he was alive because despite all his faults, and God knows he had many, he made me love him. I thought the world of a man who stuck his dick in any woman with a pussy like it was his God-given duty to do so. I imagined he’d always been like that. Even if I had beautiful childhood memories of him. My papà, the Don of the Cosa Nostra but gentle and kind with me. Attentive to his wife. Loving, even. But the older he got, the worse my memories became. It was like the air around him masking his evil evaporated one deed at a time, leaving behind a truly sinful man. Bad to his very last bone. Before, he’d had his whores and mistresses lined up, but always out of sight. But in the last couple of years, it was like he stopped caring for his wife, or to have his dick in his pants. I idolized a man who took his pleasure from fucking any woman who stepped inside our home, whether Mamma was in it or not. Whether we were home or not. We’d all begun to dread a female hand knocking on our door more than a gunshot inside his office.
I hated him dead, too. As if it wasn’t bad enough to get himself killed while he was buried in another woman. He took so much away from Mamma. So much away from us. He had to keep taking away shit when he was dead. It was so easy for him. He was dead. Fucking Cosa Nostra was tilting off balance, and Vitale had to fix it by forming alliances using his sister as a pawn.
I didn’t know what was worse. Papà dead or alive. A world with Papà hurt like constant knife stabs in my heart. Without him, it all felt empty and felt suspiciously like sorrow.
My feet touched our driveway, and the chaos of activity quivered underneath me. Big, fat cars lined it right up to the street. I was not sure whose idea it was to invite our uncles, aunts, and cousins, but I couldn’t imagine it was a good one. Unease collected in my belly like little black pebbles in the shallows of a lake.
My plan had been simple. Sneak in through the backdoor up to my room and pretend I had fallen asleep. Except the moment my feet touched the black-and-white checkered, tiled floor of our kitchen, Mamma jumped on me as if she’d stood there the whole time waiting for me. Impossibile! My head jittered as she pulled me by the ear and shook me like I was a wet dog.
“I’ve been looking all over for you. Where’ve you been?” Mamma was a beautiful woman, but I swear when she was mad, death itself would dash away from her. Her lips thinned, and her face darkened, and she turned into a witch. It’s a pity she never showed it to Papà. Everything went blank in front of me. All my well thought comebacks scurried out of the room.
“Well…” her voice shook with impatience. “I don’t have all day, Daria.”
“Urgh…”
“ Schifiu ! I told you to stay home. Why can you never listen to me?” she wailed.
“Hmm—”
“Never mind.” She released me suddenly, making me stumble back. Her eyes coasted behind me. “Go now to your room,” she hissed.
I turned to find Divya with little Aria in her arms. Papà’s consigliere’s pretty wife was truly a blessing in disguise. I could have kissed them both. Mamma’s voice rattled with annoyance. “I don’t have time for this.”
I didn’t hang around for her to change her mind. I squeezed past Divya with a quick kiss to Aria’s cheek, and a whispered thank you. There was something about her that calmed Mamma down. A task not suited to any of her daughters. I was more than happy to pass it to her and rush out of the kitchen.
I ran into the hallway and stalled at the bottom of the stairs. Vitale’s office door was ajar, and I could see him pacing as he spoke on the phone. He’d converted the library into his office. We all knew why he didn’t want Papà’s office.
I hoped he wouldn’t get himself killed like Papà did. At least his sixth sense was better. He must have sensed my eyes on him because he turned and beckoned me with his finger to come in. His gaze dropped to my shoes as I stood near the doorway. He hung up without a goodbye. Typical, of course.
“Mamma know you took your carretto out? ” He asked, a light amusement dancing in his eyes.
“I won’t tell her if you don’t,” I quipped.
He chuckled softly, and it warmed my heart. I hadn’t heard it for some time now. “Go now before she catches you in those shoes.”
Hesitation stalled me. I wanted to tell him it was all going to be okay. He would be a better Don than Papà ever was. Except I was a girl, and it wasn’t the time now. So I turned and left. I was almost up the stairs when his voice floated up to me. “Daria.” I turned to see him framing the doorway, amusement but a distant memory. “You stay out of the way later. Sì ?”
Well, I wasn’t going to ride my carretto to meet the Don, if that’s what he meant. I frowned, nodded, and ran up the stairs. Just when I thought he was lightening up.
My room was what it would look like if a burglar had barged in and searched each cupboard, each drawer and had some junk food while doing it. Mamma sent the servants in every Thursday. Come Thursday night, it would look like they’d slept in my room rather than cleaned it up. Mamma said I had selective blindness. One that skimmed over dirty clothes and empty candy wrappers. I preferred to think of it as a talent.
I took off my dirty sneakers and hid them under a bunch of clothes puddled in my wardrobe. Once in a while, Mamma joined the servants to clean up. With my luck, she’d find it, and I’d get a bashing even if it was months after. I made a mental note not to forget to clean it.
I showered like the Don was coming for me, not my beautiful sister with her glittering black hair and ruby-red lips. None of us in my nuclear family was a fan of this contract wedding. Not even Mamma, I think, even though she pretended otherwise. Papà would have been, but he was dead, and his opinion didn’t count. But Orietta had agreed for some reason, and I wasn’t letting an occasion go by where I could dress up. So I got dressed in the prettiest, pink, frilly dress I could find, put on my favorite perfume, and sauntered out of the room like Cleopatra, till I passed Orietta sitting in front of her vanity in her room.
Medda! She looked like she’d do a Juliet and poison herself. I didn’t get why she had agreed, but hadn’t bothered to ask her either. I’d learned to avoid asking Orietta questions. Most often, I didn’t understand her cryptic answers and didn’t like her mean words. There was something between us that sparked wrong. But still, she was my sister, and I loved her very much.
“What?” she snapped, tracing her eyes with a steady hand. When she stopped, they were lined in black, just like her eyes.
“ Molta bella , Etta!” I wasn’t lying. Orietta was the kind of gorgeous that got grown men dropping to their knees. She was a woman, seductive to her core, and she knew how to use it. As if that wasn’t enough, she had straight black glossy hair. The type that looked great any time, any place. There wasn’t a single lock that was out of place. Her features were sharp. Her nose was the straightest I’d ever seen. Not flat at the bottom, like mine. Her pale skin was the envy of many of my cousins. She was lighter than our darker olive skin.
I stepped into her room and sat down on the bed next to the vanity. Her bed was made up and there wasn’t a spark of dust to be found on the floor. Fascination overtook me as she traced her lips with cherry red lipstick. “The Don is a very lucky man.”
She scoffed. “Like I care.”
Orietta confused me. I knew my brother. If she didn’t want to do this, Vitale would never allow it. His edges were tainted rough, and he was a made man to the core, but he wasn’t unkind. Not to his sisters. “Why did you agree to it then?” I grabbed her hand in mine. “If you don’t want to go through with this, tell Ale! He won’t allow it.”
“Oh, Daria, you are so na?ve.” She yanked her hand away. “You live in your own world with your silly shortened names. The princess in the tower. Don’t you realize…” she looked me in the eye and pointed her lipstick at me, “that I don’t have a choice.”
“I don’t get—”
“Of course, you don’t get it,” she snapped. “You know what the difference is between us? You’re still a child, and I am a woman. I have responsibilities. What do you think will happen if I say no?”
“I don’t know—”
“Exactly. You don’t. If I say no, there is no alliance and we will be alone when our enemies are waiting for us to fail.”
“Ale will find another way. It doesn’t have to be through marriage,” I pleaded with her.
“There’s no other way.” She took her blush and flipped it open. “No need to worry your pretty head off now. At least he won’t get my virginity.”
What? I blinked.
She smiled at me, brush in hand. “You didn’t think I was a virgin, did you?” She laughed at my surprise. “God, you’re so na?ve. Daria, haven’t you learned anything from Papà? If a man like Martello took my virginity, he’d own me! You think I’m going to give a man a power like that over me?”
Medda! Papà really did a number on all his girls. The worst part was that I understood Orietta for once.
“Daria!” Mamma’s yell hit from downstairs.
I released her eyeliner that I was clutching in my hand and made for the door. My heart edged with a heaviness again.
“Daria.” I halted at the door with my hand wrapped around the doorframe. I knew what was coming. “If you tell Mamma, I’ll have to kill you.”
I nodded. When I was younger, I thought she was joking. The first time she’d told me that, I had been five. Still, even if my family were the Cosa Nostra, I didn’t really believe my sister would kill me. But sometimes I wasn’t so sure.
“Daria!”
“Coming!” I ran down the stairs where Mamma waited.
A frown wrinkled her beautiful forehead. “Why are you all dressed up?”
“Same reason you are, I guess,” I quipped.
“Stop being smart, young lady. Zia Elena is waiting for you. Go through the back door.”
God! My family was confusing. “Why am I going there again?”
Mamma huffed. “I’ve told you this a million times! I don’t want you here when they come.”
“What? You didn’t tell me this. Why did I get dressed up then?”
“How do I know? I didn’t tell you to.”
“Is Lia staying?”
“Lia can be trusted to stay in her room. You, not. Now go.”
“But why, Mamma? I don’t want to go! I want to see my cognato ! See! I got all dressed up!”
“ Ridicolo. ” Mamma yanked on my arm and dragged me to the kitchen. “I don’t have time for this.” She pulled the door and pushed me out and closed the door behind me.
She can’t be serious. I muttered a million curse words while I waited for her to walk out of the kitchen. Three times Medda and three times Minchia . If she could have heard me, she would have probably torn my ears off my head for saying the ungodly words of shit and fuck out of my mouth. The moment the kitchen was empty, I rattled on the doorknob. Except she’d locked the door. She’s actually locked the door.
Minchia! Who does this? Urgh! Frustration crawled up my body. I kicked the door hard and snubbed my feet in my sandaled stilettos. Tears brimmed in my eyes. Why did she make me feel so helpless? I pulled my stiletto off and banged on the door with it. “Mamma! Let me in!”
Crickets. Of course. No one was in the kitchen. There was no way I could sneak in through the front door with all my uncles and my brother there. Was that why Vitello told me to stay out of sight? Minchia! Everything was planned out for me, and no one had thought to ask me. I smacked the door a few more times with the stiletto. I couldn’t stand Zia Elena. She was dull and traditional and all she ever wanted to do was read the Bible with me. Like I’d sinned even before my birth!
“Not going to break the door like that.”
I whipped around. Who the hell was out here in the garden when all the activity was happening inside? My gaze ran over the hedge and found nothing. I was about to thump the door again when my eyes flicked to the bench against the wall. Papà’s bench. Old and rickety. He always sat there to think. Now there was someone else seated. Not Papà. At all.
He looked at me like this was his house and I’d intruded on him rather than the other way around. I was pretty sure he didn’t have stakes in the house, so that meant he was no one other than the infamous Don from New York.
Well, Orietta should be happy. He was young, tall, dark, and handsome. They’d make a smart couple together. If he got over his arrogance. He lounged on the bench, legs spread wide, with one of his ankles on his knee, and arms draped on the back of it. Yeah. He was a capo all right, or his right or left-hand man, with a grand attitude.
I stalked closer and squinted against the sunlight. The whiff of pure male floated through my nostrils, and something else. My eyes fell on his hand, and my breath skidded to a halt. His tattooed knuckles held a cigarette. A number on each knuckle reading 1999. My birth year. I gave a visible shake of my head. It meant nothing. Only thing I should have seen was that he was going to be a rude cognato . I caught sight of another set of numbers on his other hand. I couldn’t read them well because the man himself was too distracting. He wore a suit like any good Italian, but he’d got the biker boy recklessness down to a T. His white shirt had a few buttons undone, and his tie hung open round his neck. Was this man even planning to dress up to meet his future wife?
Annoyance riddled me, and unease coursed through my veins. How dare he? He was a stranger. Yet he sat on Papà’s bench and came through the back door. If it wasn’t for him seeking an alliance, maybe we wouldn’t need to sign a contract.
“Didn’t ask for your opinion,” I snapped.
His entire attitude was nonchalant as he blew a cloud of smoke right in my face. Rude! His lazy gaze trailed me from top to toe. Past my brown wavy hair, past my pink silk dress, to my one-footed stilettoed feet. “Says the girl trying to break in.”
Even his voice reeked of dominance. The helplessness I’d felt before shot up like a rocket aiming for the moon. I felt like thumping the stiletto in my hand on his head. My fingers curled around it as I caught Mamma coming into the kitchen and backtracking hurriedly. Ha. That’s what she got for trying to hide her middle daughter. I was sick and tired of being the weaker sex. “It’s not breaking in if it’s your own house. More than I can say for you.”
He ignored me, of course. Just like any made man would. I was just a girl, unworthy of an opinion. His eyes followed a path down. I looked to see what the big deal was. He seemed to be fascinated with my naked foot. It made me uncomfortable, and I curled my toes into the gravel. I wanted his eyes back on my face. “In our family, strangers don’t come through the backdoor.” I meant to sound accusing, but it sounded more like a whine.
It must have sounded funny to him because the hand not holding his cigarette came up to his mouth and wiped off what looked suspiciously like a smirk. “Didn’t they tell you? I am no stranger.”
My head buzzed as I saw Vitale stride into the kitchen, with Mamma following. He must have noticed it too, even though they were behind him and his back was to a wall. But as a Don, maybe he had eyes in the back of his head. He stood up and suddenly he was too close, even though the distance remained the same. Geez. He was a lot to take in. My eyes rested on the play of black hair in the open collar of his shirt. It made me uncomfortable. Like I’d caught him coming out of the shower or something. I suddenly realized how sheltered I’d been my whole life. It was rare for me to be with a male alone who wasn’t family. What did that say about me? What had Orietta called me? Na?ve?
The kitchen door swung open behind me. I didn’t need to turn to know my brother was annoyed. Sarcasm dripped off his gruff voice. “Couldn’t find the front door, Lorenzo?”
My future cognato either didn’t pick up on it or didn’t care to. Something told me it was the latter. He snuck the cigarette down and squashed it under his leather shoes with his eyes on my face. The crunch of the gravel underneath was loud in the hair breath of space in between us. He leaned forward. Just an inch, but enough for his voice to catch the light dusting of hair on my skin.
“If you had asked nicely, I would have blown a hole through that door.” He took a sidestep and brushed past me.
Turned out my cognato spoke as rudely as he behaved. I turned in a daze to follow him and found Vitale’s unamused gaze on me. I had no idea what I had done, but apparently, it was something bad. Mamma pulled me inside as we followed the two men. They were both almost identical in height, although one was smartly dressed, and the other came into a stranger’s house with an open shirt, hanging tie, and uncouth words in his mouth.