Chapter 2
Matteo
Twenty years old
I take another swig of the bitter whiskey in my hand, welcoming the burn as it pushes back the revulsion clawing up my throat at the spectacle before me.
Crystal chandeliers cast warm light over the grand reception hall, reflecting off marble floors and towering floral arrangements.
Laughter swells and crashes like waves, mingling with the clink of champagne flutes and the steady hum of an orchestra playing something far too cheerful for such a lamentable display.
Everyone is smiling, dancing, and drinking, making jokes… at my mother’s expense. At my brothers’. At mine.
This wedding is a sham, and yet we’re forced to participate in it. To smile and nod. To be grateful.
Niccolò stands beside me, his expression just as venomous as I feel, his nostrils flaring whenever anyone dares look our way.
“Smile, Nico,” I murmur when I feel his body go even more rigid as the word bastardi rings out somewhere in the hall. “Don’t let them see it affect you.”
Niccolò doesn’t smile, but at least he tries his hardest not to scowl either.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can stand it,” he mutters when another happy song starts, his jaw ticking like it might crack.
“As long as we have to,” I reply coldly. “Let them drink. Let them feast. Let them ridicule us. One day, Nico. One day our time will come.”
Niccolò lets out a pent-up breath. “Carlo thought so too, and look where that got him.”
I frown at the reminder.
It’s true. My older brother, who was more of a father figure to me than my own father ever could have been, believed he could change the tide for the Cosa Nostra. But he fucked up by trusting the wrong people. He never should have gotten into bed with the Bratva.
Mikhail Petrov acted like he had no idea what his underboss was doing, but what is his word worth, really? Oh, that’s right. Enough to sign my brother’s death sentence, apparently.
No. I won’t be as foolish. Where Carlo was reckless in his eagerness to get out from under the Outfit’s thumb, I have patience. So much patience. I’ll play the lapdog. I’ll endure the shame while secretly plotting their demise.
I just need a plan. One that will allow us to break free from the chains binding us to Chicago. And there are many chains. More so now because of Carlo’s betrayal.
Where before we only had to tolerate the Outfit’s superiority, now we have to bend the fucking knee.
Report every detail of our business to them like an errant child reporting to a parent.
Not only that, but we have to accept the Irish mob in our territory as watchdogs, making sure we don’t step out of line.
In all the centuries of tradition and honor the Cosa Nostra claims to have, we’ve become nothing more than Chicago’s bitch in the last two decades.
That will not stand for long. I will make sure of it.
“Fuck. Here comes Mom,” Niccolò alerts, pulling my attention from the other made men in the room to the woman who gave me life.
Once a whore in one of my father’s brothels, she now looks like a queen walking toward us in her white bridal dress. While the world will only ever see Paolina Ricci for her past, her sons only see her tender heart.
“My boys,” she says, eyeing us with so much love and affection it physically hurts to look at her.
Fuck. She’s having a lucid day. Out of all the days for her mind to be clear, why did it have to be this one?
Still, all my worries disappear the instant she places a gentle palm on my cheek, followed by another on Niccolò’s, studying us closely. “You both look so regal today. How lucky can one woman be to have such formidable sons?”
My heart breaks further at the sincerity in her voice.
I take her hand and press a gentle kiss to her knuckles. “You look lovely, Mom.”
“Really?” she asks, insecurity beginning to creep into her voice. “I wasn’t sure if white would be appropriate, considering—”
“You look beautiful, Mom,” Niccolò cuts in quickly before she can finish.
She smiles at him lovingly, a faint blush warming her cheeks as she turns slightly away from the onlookers, as though embarrassed they might have overheard us giving her such a compliment.
Fuckers the lot of them. Half the men in this room don’t deserve to breathe the same air as her, let alone look down at my mother.
Still, it doesn’t matter what I think of them, or how hard Niccolò scowls across the room. Everyone here knows where she came from. Where we came from. We are nothing but byproducts of our father’s infidelity to his first wife. Bastards, all of us.
We were constantly reminded of our illegitimacy while growing up, like a scarlet letter stitched into our skin. But now that Carlo Jr. is dead, our origins no longer matter. Only that we are the ones who, by blood, can inherit what was once a grand dynasty.
Hence, this ridiculous wedding. A pathetic attempt by our father to legitimize us and protect his legacy from anyone who dares try to claim it for themselves.
That was always his plan after all. My father has no love for my mother. As far as he’s concerned, she was only a vessel to carry his seed, while we were nothing more than his insurance policy in case something ever happened to Carlo Jr.
When it became clear that his first wife, Ginevra, could no longer have children after Carlo’s birth, my father saw the writing on the wall and made other plans to secure his legacy.
One heir wasn’t enough. In our world, death is a constant companion, and to have only one son felt like tempting fate.
He couldn’t divorce Ginevra since the Cosa Nostra doesn’t believe in such things, but he could find a woman strong enough to carry out his backup plan.
That’s all we ever were to him. And he never misses an opportunity to remind us.
Considering the circumstances, you would expect a father to show his sons some measure of human decency. But ours never did. He has always loathed our very existence, even though he is the one responsible for it.
Yet, for all his hatred, we still bore his last name, and he made sure that we were raised as Donatos.
From the moment we were born, he tore us from our mother’s arms and placed us in his home with Ginevra—a dreadful, evil woman whose heart was even blacker than my father’s.
My brother, Carlo, was the only one in that house who protected us. The only one who loved us like his own.
But now he’s gone. Gone because our father was too much of a coward to stand up to Romano. God, how I hate him for it.
For all the sins he’s committed in our lives, it was allowing Carlo to die in such a gruesome spectacle for all to see that finally sealed his fate.
One day, my father will die. And I will be the one to kill him.
I want to see him on his knees, just as Romano forced my brother onto his. And when he’s powerless and broken, I’ll make sure that, in his final breath, he knows it was me sealing his fate. That his end comes at the hand of the son he never truly wanted in the first place.
“You look upset, Matteo,” my mother says softly, drawing me back to the present, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Are you not happy for me?”
My heart tightens in my chest. “I am happy, Mom. Seeing you happy makes me happy.”
Her steel-blue eyes shine, and she lets out a small breath of relief.
Though she’s having a good day, I doubt my poor mother fully grasps what’s happening around her.
She’s always been… unmoored, for lack of a better word.
Yes, her beauty is beyond comparison, but the life she lived on the streets before finding her way into one of my father’s brothels must have been filled with horrors—so many that her mind couldn’t bear them all, much less process them.
Somewhere along the way, something in her mind fractured, retreating into a fragile kind of innocence. And now that pure heart will have to spend her life beside the monster who used her body as nothing more than a breeding vessel.
At least she’ll be living with us now. Niccolò and I will keep a vigilant eye on her and protect her. There’s a silver lining there somewhere.
“I’d like to dance,” she says, her eyes drifting toward the dance floor where guests continue to laugh and sway. “Everyone is dancing. I would really like to dance.”
My mother has been instructed not to mingle.
It’s one thing for my father to marry a beautiful woman.
It’s another for his men to believe he married someone whose mind is not always there.
My father’s ego couldn’t survive that kind of ridicule.
He’s perfectly fine with his own flesh and blood being the butt of every joke, just not himself.
“I’ll dance with you, Mom,” Niccolò offers as he takes her hand, leading her toward the dance floor.
My mother practically skips with excitement, while my brother offers her the only smile he’ll probably give anyone tonight.
My jaw clenches when I feel the weight of every gaze in the room fall on them as they begin to dance. No one bothers to hide their mocking smirks or quiet their snarky whispers. Niccolò senses it too, but for my mother’s sake, he focuses on his steps and pretends to be enjoying himself.
While he focuses on giving her one moment of joy, I memorize the faces of everyone who even looks at them funny. One day, I will make them regret every sneer, every cruel thought they ever directed at my family.
Still, as my eyes scan the room, I notice that not everyone is amused. A few heads of family watch with open disdain, their contempt aimed not at my mother or my brother, but at my father, who laughs too loudly as he downs glass after glass of champagne.
Interesting.