Forbidden Mafia Prince (The Corello Crime Family)

Chapter 1

FRANKIE

Igaze down at my mother in her hospital bed, hoping for some glimmer of recognition. She’s still alive, but her breathing has become shallow. The room is full of people, but I still feel alone.

My Uncle Giovanni stands right beside the door as if waiting for someone to burst in. While my father paces between the hospital bed and the window, two other men, my father’s soldiers, talk to him about business.

I want to shout that this isn’t the time or the place to be talking about bookmakers and gambling debts, but force of habit keeps me from saying anything. Even now, when my mother is so close to death, I can’t bring myself to challenge my father.

I reach for her hand. There are tubes and needles crisscrossing her skin. She looks nothing like the vibrant woman I remember. Cancer does that, I suppose.

A doctor walks in to check on her and immediately my father breaks away from his men.

He storms up to the man, a rage in his eyes I’ve seen only rarely.

I can tell he’s ready to rip the doctor apart with his bare hands, but I can’t seem to summon any sympathy.

The doctor should be able to cure my mother.

Of course, he can’t, but that doesn’t stop me from being angry at him.

“I just need to check her vitals,” the doctor says, trying to get around my father.

Giovanni and my dad move in on the man, as if they’re communicating telepathically. They surround him, blocking off his exits. Uncle Gio takes one arm and my father takes the other. They pull him out into the hallway where I assume they’re going to hurt him.

I’m left alone with Mom and the two soldiers. I don’t know what they’re doing here, or why they stayed. They didn’t know Mom, and they don’t care that she’s dying.

“Get out,” I yell.

They look at each other, mildly annoyed and not the least bit afraid. But they do what they’re told. Finally, I’m left alone with the woman who brought me into the world. She looks like a shadow of her former self, a wax figure draped in white cloth.

I’m not ready to let her go.

The next few hours are the hardest. My father comes back in, his knuckles bloody. A different doctor arrives a few minutes later, looking nervous. He checks Mom’s vital signs all the while not saying a word. I know he’s scared to give my dad bad news, but there’s no hiding my mom’s condition.

Finally, I see my mother relax. It isn’t something dramatic, just a quiet surrender. The monitors blare and nurses come running in.

I go quiet, but my father starts to rage. He swipes all the flowers off the bedside table, punches one of the computer screens, and throws a lamp across the room. I cringe when I hear glass breaking, but I’m not surprised.

My father is a man of few words but with deep feelings. I know he loved my mother and that he’s scared of life without her. But the nurses aren’t as familiar with his temper as I am. Uncle Gio evaluates the situation calmly and leads everyone who isn’t family out into the hall.

Our eyes meet and I nod to him, grateful for his interference. This isn’t the first time he’s stepped up in a clutch, and it won’t be the last.

Years later

My family gathers at a loud Italian restaurant to celebrate my success. Uncle Gio is here, seated right beside me. He’s stoic as always, yet whenever I look at him, he smiles. My father has had a few drinks already. He’s being loud and boisterous, clapping me on the back with every other word.

My stepmother, Marlena, is sitting across from us, stone-cold sober.

I wonder briefly why she isn’t drinking, but it’s none of my business.

It’s not like anyone has to be the designated driver; we have a chauffeur.

Maybe she just doesn’t feel like drinking today, or maybe she has a big day tomorrow.

Either way, it’s up to her, and her choice of beverage doesn’t affect me much.

We’re celebrating my graduation from law school.

After my mother passed away, I floundered for years.

I tried everything I could think of to help the family out, short of starting a life of crime.

I’ve never been interested in getting into fights or threatening people for money.

When I was a kid, all my father wanted was for me to follow in his footsteps, but around ten or eleven, he gave up.

I’m just not him. And I don’t want to be.

Finally, I decided to study law. I figured my father needed lawyers, and that was something I could do that didn’t involve hurting anyone.

It took me a lot of hard work to get through all the required classes, but with a bit of luck and a healthy dose of one-on-one tutoring from my now stepmother, I passed.

I only have to sit for the bar exam, and then I’ll officially be a lawyer. I have almost two months to study, and I’m ready to get started. But my father insisted on celebrating prematurely. I would have postponed the festivities, but you don’t just say no to my father.

So here we all are, tucked away in a booth in a family restaurant. My dad and Uncle Gio are telling stories about me growing up.

“He couldn’t run, this one,” Dad says, hooking a hand around my neck. He’s rough, even when he’s being friendly.

“Hey, Dad,” I say, hoping to calm him down a bit. “You don’t have to give Marlena the play by play.”

“I took him to little league one time,” Dad continues, ignoring my protest. “He’s running the bases, and I can see that he’s leaning into his heels a bit too much.”

“Dad,” I complain.

“So I go to the coach, and I say, ‘Hey, what about my kid? Can’t you teach him how to run?’” Dad says, giving me a wide smile.

I give up and lean into the joke. He’s trying to tell me he loves me in the only way he can, by pointing out my faults.

That’s something I realized not too long ago.

When I was growing up, I thought there was no way I could please him.

Now I understand that when he’s being the most critical, that’s also the time when he’s the proudest of me.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say, raising my glass.

He looks at me strangely, as if he doesn’t quite realize what he’s doing. It’s probably the same way his father treated him. I don’t mind so much now that I understand. I glance over at Marlena, and I can see she gets it. She knows we share an unbreakable bond.

She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand.

Only Uncle Gio isn’t amused. He’s like my father in that he has a hard time expressing his affection.

I know he cares. Sometimes he’s easier to talk to than my father.

But they both grew up together in the same house, so they have some of the same hangups when it comes to communicating their actual feelings.

Hopefully, now that I know what it looks like, I can avoid that kind of thing when I become a father.

If I ever become a dad. At the moment, I don’t have any prospects, and it doesn’t seem likely I’ll fall in love any time soon.

My family is a lot to handle, and I wouldn’t want to introduce a woman to them without first explaining the family business.

“I haven’t even passed the bar yet,” I say.

“You will,” my father assures me.

I like his attitude. He doesn’t see anything as off-limits or outside of his control.

Whatever he wants, he gets, and that’s a big difference between us.

I saw Marlena first. It’s a little strange that she ended up marrying my father, since she’s really just a few years older than me.

We’re more friends than we are stepmother and stepson, but we make it work.

This whole dinner thing could be awkward, but it feels comfortable. We’re all joking and drinking, having a good time, even though there’s a lot going on. I tell myself that I need to enjoy this, because who knows when life will slow down enough for us all to get together again.

The food arrives and we dig in. My father decides to tell one of his stories about his grandmother. “She had the perfect way of making pasta,” he says.

I’ve heard this story before, but I don’t interrupt him.

You never interrupt my father, the Don, no matter what he’s talking about.

We take a journey to the old country, where he compares the food he grew up eating with what’s being served today.

There’s always something that’s not quite right, whether it’s the amount of salt or the ripeness of the tomatoes.

“I think it tastes good,” I say.

My father shrugs. “To each his own.”

Marlena gives me a smile, and I can tell that she’s not going to weigh in with her opinion.

Uncle Gio pours himself another drink, and we finish the meal in silence.

By the time we’re ready to leave the restaurant, I’m grateful for the chauffeur.

Not only will we stay legal, but nobody has to concentrate on the road.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by me that Marlena hasn’t been drinking, but I forget about it soon enough.

I just feel lucky to have a family who cares about me, and grateful that my law school days are behind me.

Now all I have to do is study my ass off and hopefully pass the test that will allow me to practice in a courtroom.

If I can do that, then I can really offer something to the family beyond my good looks.