3. Valeria
VALERIA
“You’re engaged.”
When Stefano and I were kids, we used to get so sleepy on road trips that we’d fall asleep on each other like a pair of puppies. Sometimes I’d wake up, and the quiet murmuring of my parents’ conversation and my older brother’s arm protectively wrapped over my shoulder would lull me back to sleep.
Now, we’re in the car again. But Mom is gone, and no one talks.
After I told my boss I’d thrown up, she let me leave work early. The moment I’d gotten into the car, Stefano told me the news. “You’re engaged.”
I’d almost laughed. I’m not engaged. I’m not even dating someone.
“His name is Nico Matassa. You’re meeting him for dinner tonight. Put on something nice.”
When I tried to argue, Stefano gripped my arm like a vice until I whimpered, and that was it.
I changed out of my polo and khakis into trousers and a lumpy old sweater. I fixed my bangs and drew on harsh eyeliner and red lipstick and reapplied concealer to the mark Stefano had left on my cheek.
Stefano took one look at me and told me to put on a fucking dress.
Now he’s driving, and Dad and I are in the back seat. My tights offer practically no warmth under my knee-length skirt, and Stefano likes to leave the AC running, even in the winter.
Next to me, Dad slumps against his car door like a corpse.
Ever since he was punished by the don, he hasn’t been the same. His once perfectly pressed suits are rumpled. He hasn’t shaved in weeks. He won’t leave his room.
I used to be so scared of him. Scared he’d find out I was trying to leave the family. Scared he’d discover my money stash. Scared he’d let Stefano go too far when he was hitting me.
And now he scares me for a different reason.
Don Salvatore mutilated my dad.
The don took his left eye. His left ear. His left hand. His tongue.
The Family doctor has been by a few times to change his bandages, otherwise, I don’t think Dad would bother. That night he came back home, I listened to Mom sob in the downstairs living room. Then, a few hours later, she slammed the front door shut and hasn’t been back since.
“Listen, Val.” Stefano parks the car. A brick wall looms over us.
We’re sandwiched between two other SUVs.
Stefano turns. His gaze touches Dad and skitters away to me.
He used to look up to Dad, to try to be like him.
“You need to get this right, capisce?” Stefano and I don’t speak Italian, but he likes to pretend anyway.
Get this right? Our family was supposed to be cast aside after whatever Dad did.
No one in their right mind would want to marry me, least of all Nico Matassa.
It doesn’t make any sense. Nico is Don Salvatore’s half-brother, and their dad is an important don in New York. Their family’s wealth and power is practically infinite, while my family’s barely staying alive. My stomach churns on nothing.
The scrap of paper burns in my pocket like a bad luck charm. Watch yourself.
Stefano’s anger from the other night when I got home late clicks into place.
“When was this engagement brought up?” I ask.
“Don’t ask questions,” Stefano snaps.
I wince.
He forces a smile onto his face. It looks painful. “We’ve been given a second chance, alright? It doesn’t fucking matter why Nico wants you, just be fucking happy he does.”
Stefano has always wanted to be a made man, ever since he understood what that meant. But the consequences of failure mar Dad’s body in the car with us. How could he still want to be a part of the Family now? I don’t know if he even realizes there are other paths to choose.
We walk to the restaurant together, slowly, because Dad can’t seem to drum up the energy to move any faster these days. I don’t know if he’s been eating. I leave cups of plain yogurt in the fridge for him, and sometimes one or two are gone by the time I get home from work.
I don’t do it out of love—I don’t love Dad. I figured that out a long time ago. But that doesn’t mean I want to see him die. For now, I’ll help him, and once I move out, taking care of Dad will be Stefano’s duty. Dad always preferred his son anyway.
A hostess with long, silky hair and bright baby blues ushers us through the restaurant the moment we step inside.
She doesn’t look at Dad’s missing ear or eye patch—Stefano must’ve called ahead to prepare her.
Everyone else in the restaurant, men and women in fancy evening clothes, gawk openly at Dad as we pass by.
The old Dad would’ve quietly seethed at all the negative attention. His image was always an expression of his power. Now, he drags his feet, staring at the ground a few steps ahead.
I itch to lend him my arm or walk on his bad side for him, but instead, I set my jaw and follow Stefano. I won’t let him die, but I’m not going out of my way to offer sympathy to the man who let Stefano hit me for years.
The hostess leads us up a set of creaky narrow stairs to the second floor.
The room is empty save for a long table with a red linen on top and a stack of wooden crates along one wall. A lone flickering candle in the center of the table struggles to set the mood.
The hostess assures us this is VIP seating. It looks like the restaurant’s infectious disease unit.
I make a beeline for a center chair—far away from the men who will claim the end chairs, but Stefano snaps his fingers and points to another seat, right next to the head of the table. The hostess clears her throat as I stiffly obey.
She swaps places with a gangly server who appears at the top of the stairs.
He can’t be much older than eighteen and has tight, blonde curls like a lamb’s, but swaggers to our table with the confidence of a veteran server.
His megawatt smile dims only when he asks for our drink orders and sees that Dad needs to write his down.
Once we have our drinks, we wait.
By the third time the server jogs up the steps to ask us if we’re ready for food, Stefano tells him to get lost until our guest arrives.
My stomach grumbles, but I don’t complain. I stare forward at the terracotta plaster wall and trace the fading patterns with my eye.
Even before we were ostracized, I was never a part of the Family grapevine. I usually worked while my cousins went to weddings, baby showers, and graduations. Most of the time, I was only invited to events as an afterthought.
But even I’ve heard about Nico. Annetta Lombardi told me his dad sent him to Chicago to look for a wife. She said it with a twist of pity in her voice, like marrying Nico would be a tragedy.
I wished I’d thought to ask her more, but even before Dad messed up, there was no world where Nico would pick me as a bride. Our family has always been low on the food chain.
I’m not even entirely convinced that this isn’t a cruel prank—some further humiliation for Dad and Stefano to dress me up for an engagement so we can all be laughed at when no one shows.
I hope that’s all it is.
The server comes.
Stefano’s leg shakes beneath the table like he’s holding in a piss. Dad bows over his drink, already on his third cup. If he keeps this up, Stefano might have to carry him back to the car.
I hate that Mom left, but even I can admit she made the right call. It’s not like Elisa Aceto was ever going to win any Mom-of-the-Year awards anyway. Whenever she and Dad had big blowout fights, her go-to was to ditch the family for a trip to Europe or a spa to “find her peace”.
I spread my fingers over my lap. Tonight is a tiny hiccup. Eventually Stefano will give up on a Prince Charming lifting our family out of hell and let us go home. And tomorrow, I’ll tour a few apartments over the weekend and move out. Just like Mom.
“The kitchen will close in fifteen minutes,” the server says. He doesn’t bother smiling. “Are you ready to order?”
Stefano has never done well on an empty stomach. He drums against the table. “Let’s order the New York—”
Dad slams the table with his single fist, and we all startle. “No,” he forces the words out around his missing tongue, his first words that I’ve heard him speak in a month. “Wait.”
The server pales. “I’ll just leave you to...”
“He’s not coming,” Stefano snaps.
Dad shakes his head roughly, the old anger he used to drag with him lighting up his pallid face. He tries a word, but it doesn’t seem to come out how he wants, and he grunts in frustration.
“They forgot us,” Stefano says.
“No,” Dad says darkly. He waves off the server, who slinks away.
Dad and Stefano stew in angry silence while I huddle in my seat and try not to draw attention to myself. Stefano is right. Nico forgot about us or never meant to come. In either case, I only need to get through the next few hours. My heart lifts a little.
Relief slowly trickles into me with each passing minute.
Until I hear footsteps.
The server rushes up the stairs to us, wearing a broad, false smile to make up for the way his shoulders are set in stiff annoyance. “The kitchen and restaurant are now closed. However, I’ve been told your guest is on the way, so my manager and I will stay to serve you until he arrives.”
A bag of stones drops into my stomach.
“Good,” Stefano says. He shuffles in his seat and drums on the table. “That’s good.”
We wait for two more hours, the kitchen staff distantly and good-naturedly cursing at each other, and my belly tightening and twisting on air.
Until finally, a man appears at the top of the stairs.
Dad stands.
Blood roars in my ears. Next to me, Stefano rises.
I can’t move. I’m frozen to my seat as the man casts his eye over us.
He’s dressed in a fitted, all-black suit. His hair is dark and shorn close to his skull. Tattoos peek out from under his sleeves and collar.
A snake tattoo coils over his neck.
His gaze touches mine. Just like at the party, I’m caught. A bug in a sticky web. Except this time, he’s not shrouded in darkness with a white sheet pooled at his hips. He’s in full color now, and the same honey-colored, amber eyes—identical to Don Salvatore’s—are watching me now.
My gaze snaps from his and fixes to the single candle on the table. It was dark at the party. I didn’t know. I didn’t look that closely.
You knew he was Italian. You knew he was bad.
I fucked everything up.
Regret surges in my throat. I fucked him. I made it good for him, and now he wants more. Stefano grabs my arm and slings me to my feet.
“Come on, Val, your fiancé is here,” he mutters.
I can’t breathe.
“Nico,” Dad forces out past his missing tongue. It sounds like a foreign word in his mouth.
I’m going to throw up.
Nico Matassa doesn’t say a word. He takes silent, measured steps to the table—to me. I stare at the candle’s sputtering flame. It’s about to drown in the melted wax.
If I don’t look at his face, this will go away.
It’s a joke. Nobody would touch an Aceto girl like me. I’m spoiled goods after Dad betrayed our don.
Pretty girl.
The ghost of Nico’s fingers cling to my skin like cobwebs. I want to shower. I’m exposed. Everyone can see the evidence of Nico’s mouth on my skin, of his cock inside me.
I couldn’t have known who he was. It’s not my fault, but I’m still up to my neck in guilt. I want to cry, but I don’t. I never cry. And I never go out to parties. I rarely hook up with people.
Waiting for you.
He knew who I was. Did he plan our engagement before or after our night together? I try to process the information, prodding at it like I can find a solution, but I’m coming up blank.
His pants are sleek and crisp, like he ran an iron over them. For some reason, that detail terrifies me—does he want to make a good impression?
Maybe if I throw up on his shoes, he’ll leave.
This is just to humiliate me. No one in their right mind would marry an Aceto.
This isn’t really about me. It’s about Dad—it’s some weird, convoluted way of showing him how even his daughter is dirt under Don Salvatore’s and Nico Matassa’s shoes.
After, Stefano will hit me for being a whore and ruining my chances.
Maybe our hookup was a good thing. The men in my world don’t like easy women, and someone like Nico—rich, handsome, and powerful—could have any woman he chooses.
He won’t choose me.
Hope sparks in my chest.
Nico slips warm fingers along the underside of my jaw, and I can’t help but think about how he rubbed his thumb against my cheek as I sucked his dick.
I school my expression, wiping my mind clean of that night. I won’t react. I’ll be so boring, he won’t waste time toying with me.
I’m completely blank as he raises my face toward his.
He’s got a cruel smirk playing at his mouth—I kissed those full lips. He was a good kisser. Exceptional.
His gaze ticks over my face, my lips, my body, my hands, and finally back to my eyes. I don’t move a muscle, staring evenly at him without a flicker of recognition, even though I’m holding my breath like I’m underwater.
Amusement flickers across his face. His thumb rubs against my bottom lip.
My chest tightens. I need air.
He drops my jaw and addresses the room to no one in particular, in a lazy, self-assured way. “She’s perfect.”