Chapter 4
Giulia
SONG: BAD DECISIONS BY BAD OMENS
The formal announcement came three days later at Sunday dinner.
Sunday dinners at the Rossi house were mandatory.
Not in the polite "we'd love to see you" way but in the "show up or explain yourself to the Don" way.
Aunts and uncles and cousins packed into our dining room every week.
Mamma cooked enough food to feed a small army.
Papa presided over it all like a benevolent king.
Usually, I loved these dinners. The noise. The laughter. The way Uncle Tony told the same stories every week and everyone pretended to hear them for the first time.
Today I wanted to hide in my room.
I sat between Mamma and my cousin Isabella while platters of pasta and chicken and vegetables made their way around the table. Isabella talked about her new job at a gallery in SoHo. I nodded in what I hoped were the right places and pushed food around my plate.
Papa stood and tapped his wine glass with his knife.
The table fell silent.
"Family," he said. "I have news. Good news. Our Giulia is getting married."
The eruption was immediate. Congratulations. Questions. Aunt Alessia wanted to know who the lucky man was. Uncle Tony asked if I'd been hiding a boyfriend.
Isabella squeezed my hand and whispered, "Finally!" like I'd been holding out on her.
I smiled. Nodded. Let the chaos wash over me.
Then Papa dropped the bomb. "She's marrying Dimitri Morozov. The new Pakhan of the Bratva."
You could have heard a pin drop.
Aunt Alessia’s fork clattered against her plate. Uncle Tony stopped laughing. Isabella's hand went slack in mine.
Then everyone started talking at once.
"The Russians?"
"Giuseppe, have you lost your mind?"
"An alliance? With them?"
Papa raised his hand and silence fell again. Almost. Everyone except Geraldo.
My cousin stood at the far end of the table. His face had gone red and his hands were clenched into fists. "No," he said.
Papa's expression didn't change. "Sit down, Geraldo."
"No." Geraldo's voice got louder. "You can't do this. You can't make peace with those animals."
"Geraldo…" Uncle Matteo reached for his son but Geraldo shook him off.
"They killed Marco!" He slammed his hand on the table. Glasses jumped. Wine sloshed. "They put a bullet in his head and left him in the street like garbage. And now you want to, what? Hand Giulia to them on a silver platter? Make them family?"
The name hit me like cold water. Marco Benedetti. I remembered him vaguely. One of Geraldo's friends from the neighborhood. They'd grown up together. Run the streets together. Then one day Marco was just...gone.
That had been three years ago. Maybe four. I'd still been at college. I remembered Geraldo at the funeral. The way he'd stood so still while everyone else cried. Like something inside him had frozen solid.
"Marco's death was a tragedy," Papa said quietly, voice dangerously low. "But Dimitri Morozov is not his father."
"He's Bratva!" Geraldo shouted. "They're all the same. Murderers. Thieves. They take and take and we're supposed to just smile and hand them our daughters?"
Every eye in the room turned to me.
I felt my face heat. My throat tightened. I wanted to disappear into the floor.
"Enough." Papa's voice cracked like a whip. "You will sit down. You will be quiet. Or you will leave my house."
"Your house?" Geraldo laughed but there was nothing funny in it. "This family's house. We all bleed for it. We all sacrifice for it. And you're sacrificing Giulia to make friends with the people who killed Marco."
"I said enough!"
But Geraldo wasn't done. He looked right at me, and I saw something wild in his eyes. Something desperate. "Giulia, tell him you won't do it. Tell him you won't marry some Russian killer."
The entire room waited.
I thought about Marco Benedetti. About the funeral where Geraldo had stood frozen. About the old Pakhan who Papa said was different from his son. About walls that wouldn't hold and fighting anyway.
"It's already done," I said quietly. "I've agreed."
Geraldo stared at me like I'd slapped him. "You agreed? To marry them? After everything they've done?"
"After everything the old Pakhan did," I corrected. My voice sounded steadier than I felt. "This is a new alliance. A new start."
"There are no new starts with the Bratva." Geraldo shook his head. "They'll turn on us the first chance they get. And you'll be right there in the middle of it. Does that not scare you?"
Yes, I wanted to say. It terrifies me. Every single part of this terrifies me.
But I couldn't say that. Not here. Not with everyone watching.
"I trust Papa's judgment," I said instead.
Geraldo laughed again. That same harsh sound. "Then you're a fool."
Papa stood so fast his chair scraped against the floor. "Get out."
"Gladly." Geraldo threw his napkin on the table. "Enjoy your alliance, Zio. I hope it's worth it when the Russians show their true colors."
He stormed out. The front door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows.
Nobody spoke.
Then Aunt Alessia started crying quietly, Uncle Marco apologized to Papa, and Mamma tried to salvage dinner by passing around more food. The noise slowly returned. Conversations restarted. But everything felt fragile now. Like we were all walking on glass.
I excused myself and went to the bathroom. Locked the door, sat on the edge of the tub, and put my head in my hands.
Marco Benedetti. I'd forgotten about him. Or maybe I'd just never really known him. He'd been Geraldo's friend. Just another face in the neighborhood. Then he'd been dead and life had moved on.
Except for Geraldo. For him life had stopped the day Marco died.
I understood that better now. How one moment could freeze you in place. How you could be going about your normal life and then suddenly everything changed and you couldn't find your way back to before.
Three days ago I'd been worried about my future thesis. Now I was engaged to a man who might be exactly like the monster who'd killed Marco Benedetti.
Or he might not be.
Papa said he was different. That he wanted peace. That he'd come with respect.
But what did Papa really know? He'd spent three hours with Dimitri Morozov. Three hours and then he'd promised me to him.
A knock on the door.
"Giulia?" Isabella's voice. "You okay?"
I opened the door. She slipped inside and closed it behind her.
"That was intense," she said.
"That's one word for it."
Isabella studied me. She was two years older and worked in an art gallery and always knew exactly what to say. Right now though she just looked worried.
"Are you really okay with this? The marriage?"
"Does it matter?"
"Of course it matters. You're my cousin. I love you. If you don't want this—"
"Papa needs this alliance." I sat back down on the tub. "Carlo is dead. More will die if we don't have the Bratva backing us up. The math is simple."
"The math." Isabella shook her head. "You sound like Papa."
"Maybe that's not such a bad thing."
She sat down next to me. Our knees touched. The bathroom was barely big enough for one person let alone two, but somehow we made it work.
"Geraldo's not wrong about Marco," she said quietly. "The Bratva did kill him. It was brutal. They left him in an alley behind the restaurant on Mulberry Street. Geraldo found him."
My stomach turned. "He found him?"
"Yeah. He and Marco were supposed to meet up that night. When Marco didn't show, Geraldo went looking." Isabella picked at her nail polish. "I heard he held Marco while he died. That Marco's blood was all over his clothes. Uncle Marco had to burn them because Geraldo wouldn't let anyone wash them."
I closed my eyes. Tried not to imagine it. Geraldo, twenty-two years old, holding his best friend while his life drained out.
"Why?" I asked. "Why did they kill him?"
"Wrong place wrong time according to Papa. Marco was walking through Bratva territory after dark. They thought he was someone else. Or maybe they didn't care who he was." Isabella shrugged. "The old Pakhan didn't apologize. Didn't explain. Just said these things happen."
These things happen.
Like murder was weather. Like violence was inevitable as rain.
"Dimitri Morozov isn't his father," I said. But I didn't know if I believed it.
"Maybe not." Isabella put her arm around me. "But he's still Bratva. And Geraldo's not going to forgive that."
We sat in silence for a while. I could hear the dinner continuing without us. Voices and laughter and the clink of dishes. Life moving forward whether we were ready or not.
"Isabella," I said finally, "what if Geraldo's right? What if I'm making a huge mistake?"
"Then you come home. Papa promised you that."
"And if I can't? If coming home means the alliance breaks and people die because of it?"
Isabella didn't have an answer for that.
Neither did I.
I left the dinner early, claiming a headache. Not entirely untrue. My skull felt like someone was squeezing it in a vice.
Mamma tucked me in and made me promise to call if I needed anything. Papa walked me to my bedroom door and kissed my forehead.
"Geraldo will come around," he said.
"Will he?"
Papa hesitated, just for a second, but I caught it. "He's young, angry. He loved Marco like a brother. But he's family. He'll do what's right for the family."
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe Geraldo would swallow his hatred and accept this alliance. That Marco's death could be left in the past where it belonged.
But the look in Geraldo's eyes when he'd called me a fool...
That wasn't going away. Not in a month. Maybe not ever.
I sat in my room, contemplating what the future could hold. I looked around the large, chaotic space. Books everywhere. Clothes everywhere. My whole life crammed into 350 square feet.
In one month, I won’t live here anymore.
I'd live wherever Dimitri Morozov decided I should live. I'd be whoever he decided I should be.
The thought made my chest tight.
I changed into pajamas and crawled into bed with my phone. Opening Instagram, I scrolled through photos of people living normal lives. Going to parties. Getting coffee. Complaining about finals.
My last post was from two weeks ago. A photo of the library with some caption about caffeine and deadlines. The comments were all from friends asking when I'd be free to hang out. Making plans for spring break. Talking about summer internships.
I started to type a response. Then I deleted it. What was I supposed to say? Sorry can't hang out getting married to the head of the Russian mob in a month?
I closed Instagram and opened my texts instead. I found the group chat with my college friends, Maria, Sophie, and James. The last message was from yesterday. Maria asking if I wanted to see a movie this weekend.
I should tell them. They'd find out eventually anyway. Better if it came from me.
But the words wouldn't come.
Instead, I put my phone down and stared at the ceiling. Somewhere in the city Dimitri Morozov was going about his life. Making deals. Giving orders. Being a Pakhan. And in one month I'd be his wife.
A wife he'd never asked for. To a girl he'd never met.
All because his father had been a monster and my father needed peace.
I thought about Geraldo again. About the way he'd looked at me like I'd betrayed him. Betrayed Marco's memory. Betrayed everything our family was supposed to stand for.
Maybe I had.
Or maybe this was just what survival looked like. Messy. Complicated. Built on compromises that left everyone feeling vaguely sick.
I pulled my blanket up and closed my eyes and tried not to think about Marco Benedetti bleeding out in an alley while Geraldo held him.
Tried not to wonder if the man I was marrying had blood on his hands too.
Tried not to care that in one month I'd find out either way.