79. Rose
ROSE
After the conversation with Angelo and Dante, all I want to do is be alone with my thoughts. Am I really about to do this? Am I really cut out to lead some big organization that is being handed to me just because of my DNA?
I am led upstairs to the top level of the large brownstone and into a beautiful bedroom.
Angelo mentioned this was Liliana’s room when she would stay here.
After her death, he refused to change anything about it and only allowed staff to clean it once a week to ensure it didn’t become dusty.
It feels eerie being in a space of someone I have never met but share a connection with.
She has...had a record player on a shelf against one wall, and the shelf below is overflowing with vinyl records.
We definitely have that in common. She even has some of my favorites.
Brushing my index finger along the spines of the albums, I come across a Pearl Jam jacket that is for a single of theirs titled “Daughter.” As if drawn to it by some cosmic force, I slowly pull it out from the shelf and reach inside to pull out the record.
However, with the record also comes a piece of notebook paper with frayed edges, as if it were hastily torn from a spiral notebook before being folded and stuffed inside this record's cardboard jacket.
I carefully place the vinyl down and unfold the piece of paper, which seems to have been preserved in time by being protected inside the vinyl.
My dearest Violetta,
If you are reading this letter, then unfortunately I have failed at the one thing I vowed to do in this life, and that is to protect you.
For that, I am sorry. You are the best thing to ever happen to me.
The hardest decision I ever made was to give you up.
Please don’t be angry with me. You have to understand the life I grew up in was not the life I wanted for my beautiful baby girl, and as I held you in my arms for the first time after you were born and I looked into your beautiful eyes that matched your father's, I knew I had to do something to ensure you would never know of the life you were meant to inherit.
Your grandfather doesn’t know about you, but I will leave him a letter as well in case something happens to me.
He will find you and keep you safe in his own way, but be patient with him.
I hope you will never have to read this letter, though.
I am going to find a way for your father and me to get out of this life, and we will come for you.
I left a rose with you as a symbol of my love and protection.
My mom’s name (your grandmother) was Rose, and she was the fiercest woman I have ever met.
Even though she is gone, I know she is watching over you and will keep you safe until I can find my way back to you.
I named you Violetta, not only to continue the family tradition of floral symbolism, but because lilies and violets together represent deep and pure affection, devotion, and faithfulness.
I love you with every breath; never doubt that what I did was for you and out of my pure love and devotion to you.
Yours, Mom
I didn’t think my heart was capable of breaking any further, and I definitely didn’t think I had more tears to cry, but I am proven wrong once again. She was coming back for me? And my eyes? I got them from my dad? I always wondered who I got them from since they are so rare.
God, what a different childhood I would’ve had with her as my mother.
With an actual family who loved and protected me.
But then she died. No, then she was murdered.
And whoever took her life also took mine in the process.
And they have never paid the price. But that is about to change if I have anything to say about it.
I’m done running from the life I was born into.
I’m tired of men always being the ones with all the power, calling all the shots and keeping all the secrets.
It’s time for a new era of the Nicoletti family to step into the light and take what is rightfully mine.
And the first order of business is hunting down the people responsible for Luc’s and Liliana’s deaths.
My mother’s death. A woman who sacrificed her life for mine.
I am no longer Rose, a princess kept in the dark, but Violetta, a queen stepping into the light, and it’s time for a new reign.
Roses might be Royal, but they will soon find out that Violets are Vicious.