Chapter 1 #3
“Get out of my sight.”
I drag myself upright. My legs barely hold me, but I force them to. I limp toward the door, vision swimming, each step agonizing. I’m halfway down the hallway when I see someone coming.
It’s Mom. She pulls up short and stares at me, standing perfectly still. A dark bruise blooms across her temple and her lip is swollen. Her hollow, sunken eyes flick to the study door behind me, and she tenses, her hand reaching out to tremble against the wallpaper.
She sees the way I’m holding myself, the blood on my cheek where the belt caught me, and the red marks on my arms.
“Mom…” I say, my voice cracking. I take a painful step toward her.
Her face goes blank. Empty as a closed door.
She averts her eyes and walks past me. Like I’m furniture. Like I’m nothing.
I stand there breathing raggedly through clenched teeth. I can feel the tears coming, hot and shameful, and I hate them. I hate myself for being so weak. I hate that I let him hurt me. I hate that she won’t even look at me.
The nearest door opens into the back garden. I fling myself through it, and take a dozen blind, angry steps through the grass and into the bushes.
I slap my own face. Hard. The sting cuts through the tears.
I slap myself again even harder. The pain grounds me and makes the tears stop. It makes me feel something other than the hollow ache of being utterly, completely alone.
Boys don’t cry. Stop it. Stop being weak. Stop—
“Cristiano!”
Mina. Seven years old, sitting cross-legged in the grass with a book open in her lap, as pretty as a picture.
She’s the housekeeper’s daughter and lives in a room high in the house where I’m not allowed to go.
I’m not supposed to speak to her either, but we play together, and she’s always smiling and laughing, like there’s a vast, unending lake of happiness inside her.
But she’s not smiling now. Dappled sunlight catches in her dark hair, turning it warm and gold-lit. She’s wearing a dress too big for her, a hand-me-down from her sister, and she’s gazing up at me with wide, startled eyes.
I try to walk past her. I have to. If I stop and let her see me like this, I’ll shatter completely.
But she’s already on her feet, the book forgotten, tumbling into the grass.
“Stop.” She runs to me, small hands reaching for mine. “Stop, what’s wrong? What happened?”
I can’t answer. My throat is locked tight. If I try to speak, the tears will come back, and I can’t let that happen. I can’t be weak in front of her too.
But she takes my hand anyway. Her fingers are warm and careful, as she tugs me toward the place she was sitting.
“Come here.” She tugs me down onto the grass. “Come on. It’s okay.”
And I let her. I don’t know why. Maybe because she’s looking at me like I’m a person instead of a mistake. I drop to my knees and pain radiates through my back and my ribs. I can’t stop the tears this time, and my body convulses in a singular sob.
“It’s all right,” she whispers. Her voice is so gentle. “It’s all right, Cristiano.”
I’m shaking. I can’t stop shaking.
My eyes fix on her lap and the folds of her too-big dress. The pale fabric worn soft from washing. I have nothing left. No pride. No strength. Nothing but this desperate, aching need for someone to stay.
I sink down and rest my cheek on her lap. I press my face into her dress like I’m trying to hide from the whole world.
Her hand finds my hair, soft and careful. Her fingers thread gently through my curls. I feel the warmth of her hand as she hums something familiar.
My breathing slows. The shaking stops. The pain recedes to something distant and bearable.
My arms wrap around her. My hands curl into her waist.
Stay.
Don’t leave me.
The words fill every hollow space inside me.
Stay with me. Don’t leave me. Please.
She has her mother. Her sister. A whole life that doesn’t need me in it. But I need her more than any of them do. Her mother is always working, exhausted, pulled in a dozen directions. Rosa has her own friends, her own world. They don’t need Mina the way I need her.
No one needs her like I do.
I want to live in this moment forever. I want to crawl inside it and never come out. I can’t lose this moment. This girl who makes the world bearable.
I memorize everything about her. The weight of her hand. The sound of her voice. The way she smells like safety and home and everything good I’ve never had.
This moment is mine.
Mina is mine.
She belongs to me and no one else.
I hear a cough behind me, and I turn to see Tommaso in the doorway. The memory releases me, and I drop my hand from the scar in the bookcase and turn to him with a suppressed sigh.
He enters with his usual gravitas, gray hair slicked back, his face carved from stone.
Andreas is at his heels, his eyes lit with excitement.
My cousin appeared almost out of nowhere the moment I landed in America, and he’s tried to make himself indispensable these past weeks.
He’s hovering at my elbow, offering advice I didn’t ask for, angling for power he hasn’t earned.
He’s ambitious, I’ll give him that. He wasn’t raised in the mafia but he wants in, and his overeagerness means he sometimes puts his fucking foot in it.
“Tommaso wants to speak with us,” Andreas says, flashing his too-white smile. I notice with a spurt of annoyance that he’s started styling his hair like mine. “He says it’s important.”
Everything is important to Tommaso. The old guard capo has opinions about how I dress, how I speak, who I meet with, what I eat for fucking breakfast. He was my father’s man through and through, and he watches me with barely concealed contempt, waiting for me to fail.
I go and sit behind my father’s desk, using the massive mahogany expanse to keep him in his place.
“The Barones have reached out to us,” Tommaso says without preamble. “Don Carlucci proposes a marriage alliance. His daughter Ariana for you. His daughter Lucy for Andreas.”
My eyes catch on a divot in the wood, and I reach out and run my finger over it.
The brass paperweight, hurled at my head.
Dad was so furious that his aim was off, and it crashed into the desk instead and left a scar.
The next throw hit its mark, and my heart was pounding so hard when I ran from this room.
Cristiano, get back here. Cristiano, I swear to God, when I get my hands on you—
“Are you listening to me, Don Cristiano?”
I lift my gaze to Tommaso’s irritated face. “What do you want?”
Andreas can no longer control his excitement, and bursts out, “He’s talking about brides, for us. The Barone girls.”
Brides? Marriage? What the fuck are they talking about? I lean back in my chair. “No.”
“You haven’t heard the terms—” Andreas begins.
“I don’t need to hear the terms. I’m not interested in marriage.”
Tommaso shifts his weight, but he contains his frustration. “Don Cristiano, with respect, this is a significant opportunity.”
“I said no.”
Tommaso’s expression doesn’t flicker. He’s been dealing with Montoni tempers for decades.
“Don Carlucci is your most powerful potential ally, and he’s a traditional family man.
He won’t respect or trust you if you don’t put down roots in this city.
For all anyone knows, you may disappear back to Italy in a few weeks.
A Malus bride would show that you intend to stay.
” He pauses. “Do you want Don Carlucci getting close to Don Vincenzo instead?”
I snort at the mention of my sister’s husband. “That dirty, sneaking bastard? A Barone would never stoop so low. Don’t make me laugh.”
“Don Vincenzo is a legitimate ally for Don Carlucci, and he’s a married man.
” Tommaso leans forward, his voice dropping.
“Listen to me. I know what I’m talking about.
I’ve been navigating these waters since before you were born.
If you marry one of Don Carlucci’s daughters, you’ll consolidate your power in Malus. This is why you returned, is it not?”
I stare out at the rain.
He’s not wrong, and I hate that he’s not wrong.
I have no real allies in this city. The other dons tolerate me because they fear the Montoni name, but fear isn’t loyalty.
The Dervishis have been testing our borders, probing for weakness.
The Sokolis ambushed a restaurant where I was meeting with Damiano Barone, Don Vincenzo, and Rafiel Lucania, and sent a message in Molotov cocktails and blood.
The thought of my sister’s husband gaining influence over Don Carlucci makes my jaw clench. The Vici symbol is a raven, and ravens are carrion birds. I don’t trust men who pick at carcasses.
“One dinner,” Tommaso presses. “Meet the girl. See what you think. That’s all I’m asking.”
Andreas is practically vibrating with anticipation. He wants this match and the Barone connection. He wants the prestige of marrying a don’s daughter, and he wants Lucy Barone in his bed. His eagerness is unseemly, but I suppose I can use it. Keep him happy, keep him manageable.
I tap my finger against the desk.
One dinner is not a commitment. It’s reconnaissance.
“Fine,” I say. “One dinner.”
Tommaso nods, satisfied. Andreas grins.
I turn back to the window and watch the rain pattering against the glass.
I’m not thinking about her. I’m not imagining her somewhere in this city, under this same gray sky, watching the same rain fall.
I’m not wondering if she knows I’m back.
The Barone mansion is all cold light and old money. Don Carlucci greets me at the door like a long-lost son, his handshake firm, his smile wide and welcoming. His wife flutters beside him, perfumed and pearled, already looking at me like I’m the answer to her prayers.
The daughters are presented like offerings.