Chapter 2
ROSALIA
PLAYLIST: MOUNT EVEREST – LAbrINTH
“Rosalia,” says Kat when I answer her call.
“What is it, Kiddo?” I ask her. Kat will forever have a special place in my heart. The heart that many believe I do not have. But I do. It is cold and reserved, but existent.
Kat has been the closest I have to my own child after my son was killed; she has been the one I call family.
While I never wished to have children, I have been forced to have one at the hands of my father’s will and his business partner’s execution.
Bred for political reasons, for expanding the family influence.
And the reason why I became the person I am today.
Men are disgusting pieces of shit, and they deserve whatever they get.
Kat is like me, which is why she became family—one I’d protect with my life and also hold in the highest regard for all she has done since I took her under my wings fifteen years ago.
“Rome, Fiumicino Airport. A young woman just checked through customs. Her name is Sophie Brooks. Twenty-four years old. Our flags went up because she had a plush sloth with her.”
I feel my body tense immediately.
“You think it’s her?” I ask.
“Could be. I ran it through our system with an ageing estimate of the photo from back then; it’s a 55% match.”
I know Kat and her wife have built an international information network, but I never thought it would be so good that it would pick up a sloth from a photo from more than a decade ago.
“Sounds reasonable enough,” I say. “Send it to the server.”
“Done,” she says. “Do you want me to verify her for you?”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Kiddo. I can set someone on it.”
“You never trouble me,” she says, efficient as usual. “I’m on my way, ETA in seven, I’ll let you know.”
“Kat,” I say. “If it comes to it, take first and ask questions later.”
“I know, Rose,” she says with an audible smirk, because who am I telling that to? She has learned everything from me.
She hangs up, and I am left with the information that we might have finally found her. The girl who took my son. The girl who has the money. While I do not care about the money, I do care about principles. Rules. Honor.
The first principle I live by is loyalty. Blood makes you related, but loyalty is what makes you family. It is the highest value I carry.
The second, family. Family always comes first, whatever it is. Kat is my family, and she lives by that principle every day, as does everyone who is or has become family over the fifty years I have had the privilege of being on this planet.
And the third is honesty. A word is a word, and every betrayal will be punished.
Antonio has violated all three of them. He stole from me, lied to me, and caused harm to my family. His debt has not been discharged by his death. And so doesn’t his daughter’s. She has taken my everything from me, and I will take her everything.
But before I do, I want to know how Antonio managed to betray me and where the money went, because there might be more people I need to go after. There are only two people who know what he has done: His wife and his daughter.
“We have a lead,” I say and turn to Adria, who is, aside from Kat, my most trusted and closest family.
She is part of the inner circle and my protection.
Adria kills without question and regrets nothing.
As far as I know, she has neither heart nor soul, not since what happened to her.
Because Adria is Giuseppe’s daughter. The one he raped countless times and tried to murder on at least seven occasions.
“Yes?” she says.
“Kat is bringing her. Let us have the catacombs ready.”
“Can I have some fun with her?” asks Adria. She likes to play with her food.
“If it’s her, she’s mine. But I have something else for you,” I say, and get up from my armchair to get myself a drink. I pour my favourite whiskey in a glass, and only after I take a sip, I say to Adria, “On the counter.”
Adria, who has been spinning on a chair at the table like a bored child, gets up, jumps onto the counter and sits down there with her feet bumping into the counter. She opens the envelope.
“Who is the motherfucker?” she asks, skimming through the photos.
“The man your father employs to get the kids out and into the States,” I say. “He’s clearing the shipping in the Port of Baltimore.”
“Can I have him?” she asks, her eyes lighting.
“He’s yours,” I say. “I don’t care what you do with him. He’s currently in Monaco with one of his underage girlfriends. The last photo.”
She looks at it, hops off the counter and gets her things.
“Adria,” I say. “Make it slow. He’s done this for years now.”
She cocks an eyebrow. It was an unnecessary reminder, I know. Adria never kills fast, which is why I like her that much.
After Adria leaves, I walk outside onto the balcony of my Palermo villa to smoke a cigarette.
I cannot say that I am calm. I feel some sort of anticipation, even excitement, knowing that I will finally get my revenge for Antonio’s betrayal.
If it’s her. Fifty-five per cent is not the most promising number.
The sun's heat meets my wide black blouse. I always wear black; it is the colour that makes me feel alive. I am a creature of the night, a lover of the hours of the dark when the world is asleep.
I watch the street outside as I light the cigarette. I blow the smoke out of my mouth as I lean onto the railing of the small balcony, one of the many the villa has.
I enjoy being in the centre of Palermo, while I also enjoy the freedom of my residence in the countryside.
Today, I will stay here. Because the villa here has some very special perks, aside from its one-of-a-kind courtyard with palms and handmade tiles from a Sicilian artist, the historic brickstone piers, and the minutely carved sandstone arches.
The best of it is the underground catacombs.
The ones I use to torture those with debts and misdeeds. I take what they took, with interest.
They usually scream and beg, but a debt does not vanish from spoken words. It vanishes from payment—and I collect that payment.
Although we are in the middle of Palermo, no one will ever hear their screams, I made sure of that.
I kill the cigarette and push myself off the railing. It did not help. A certain degree of restlessness spreads through me—something I am not used to.
I decide to take a walk through the lonely alleyways.
I can walk the streets without fright. Those who know me do not dare touch me. And those who fear me do not know what I look like.
My heels resound on the mix of pavement and cobblestones. I am used to walking the rough ground, literally and figuratively.
A ball runs past my feet.
I stop it with my foot, pick it up and throw it back through an arch into a courtyard.
The children nod a thanks. I nod back. I am known here.
Not by name, however. I am the woman in black, the one no one knows about, and it scares them.
I am silent and distant; the only time we meet is at church.
Otherwise, I am a nobody, whilst I am everybody.
I was born here, daughter of the most feared man in the entire country and beyond. My father killed, trafficked and dealt in everything underground. He controlled the ports and major shipping routes and had businesses worldwide.
When I was a girl, he always taught me my job was to do nothing, appear pleasant, and be nice. I learned to do what the men requested. His friends. Powerful friends.
When they used me, I planned. I watched in silence, learned in solitude, and organised in the shadows.
And then, I killed them all.
My father begged me, offering me his empire—something that would never have worked. A woman as the head of a powerful organisation, such as my father’s, would never have been allowed or accepted. So I became a shadow. And I came for them in the darkness.
First in Sicily. Then in Europe. And later in the Americas.
Now, I own families, organisations, people, routes, and assets.
I own them.
I rule them.
I use them, so no man will ever go unpunished.