Prologue #3
Kindness isn’t most people’s first instinct when it comes to being different.
What they don’t understand, they fear. And what they fear, they punish.
Marcello learned quickly how to weaponize that fear.
Better to be feared than ruled by it, I suppose.
I, on the other hand, folded beneath it, which only made the other kids hate me more.
“Will you be going to college?” Raffaele asks, eyes still fixed on the screen.
I nod, though it’s too far away for me to really picture it, much less be certain of my answer.
“Let me guess. You’re going to go to the one closest to home?” He winks again, this time nudging his shoulder against mine.
“Probably.”
“Lame,” he laughs. “You should go somewhere else. Somewhere far away from Chicago. How else are you supposed to figure out who you are if you never leave?”
I wasn’t expecting to engage in such a serious conversation while playing video games, especially with a boy I had just met, one who belongs to a rival famiglia, but here we are.
“My parents would worry if I went to a school too far away.”
“So let them.”
I frown. “I couldn’t do that to them.”
“Sure you could, dolce angelo,” he goads teasingly, borrowing the endearment from my mother. “Don’t you have angel wings to match that pretty face of yours? I say you use them and fly as far away as you can the first chance you get.”
“But I love my family. I’d miss them too much.”
“Really?” he asks, surprised, flicking his gaze to me for a second before turning back to the TV. “I wouldn’t miss mine,” he says quietly, a shadow passing over his face. “The minute I can ditch New York, the better. Everything about it sucks.”
“Wouldn’t you miss your mom? Your dad and brothers?”
“Maybe my mom,” he admits, though sadness coats his voice. “Everyone else… not so much.”
I want to ask him what he means by that, but I don’t. I’m not half as brave with my questions as he is with his.
Raffaele doesn’t give the moment time to settle and jumps right onto his next invasive question. “Let’s talk about something else. You got a boyfriend?”
“I… I…”
“Well, that’s a no,” he chuckles, swerving his car on the screen to prevent a crash.
I chew on my lower lip, then say something I’ve never admitted out loud before, “I don’t have many friends. Actually… I don’t have any friends.” I shrug in embarrassment. “Boyfriends kind of require being friends first, don’t they?”
“Yeah. I get that,” he says, his shoulders slumping. “I don’t have many either. Friends, I mean. It’s kind of hard to make friends when everyone’s scared of your family, right?”
“Yes. It is,” I mutter softly, thankful for his understanding when most people don’t.
Raffaele then pauses the game and turns to look at me, pure resolve now marring his handsome features. “We could be friends.”
I blink at him, my mouth falling open. “You mean… you and me?”
“Why not?” he says easily. “If anyone understands what we have to live with, it’s us. Makes sense we’d be friends, don’t you think?”
A friend. My heart warms at the idea of having someone who isn’t bound to me by blood. Someone who understands what it’s like to be not only the youngest sibling, but also what it means to be born into a criminal empire.
“I would like that. I would like that very much.”
“Damn, girl. Are you always this formal?” He laughs, eyes bright with mirth. “I’ll have to remember to loosen you up.”
Raffaele’s laughter is warm and inviting. I can’t remember the last time I felt so comfortable around anyone who wasn’t directly related to me. It’s nice. It’s more than nice. Something inside me feels a little less hollow.
Being a Romano is lonely most of the time.
I have my books and my piano, but sometimes it feels like something is missing.
Human connection. My family does an incredible job of making me feel loved and protected, but sometimes a girl just needs a friend.
And by some miracle, I may have found one in Raffaele.
“So what should I call you, friend?” he teases, all long lashes and bright smiles. “Annamaria feels like a mouthful.”
“And Raffaele is easier?” I counter, breaking his name into careful pieces. “Rah. Fah. Eh. Leh.”
“Oh, she’s got jokes?” He chuckles lightly. “Call me Rafe, angel. Everyone does.”
“Okay, Rafe. You can call me Anna.”
Once we settle on our names, time begins to slip by in easy camaraderie as we struggle to complete missions in GTA. I fumble with the controller most of the time, while Raffaele fills the room with noise, jokes, and commentary that jump from subject to subject like a pebble skipping across water.
I mostly just listen, smiling and nodding along. I don’t say much, being the introvert that I am, but he never seems to mind. He fills the silence easily with gentle nudges of his shoulder against mine or a slight tap on my knee.
It all feels so easy. And easy is something that doesn’t happen to me a lot. I haven’t been this happy in a long time. So when his brother Matteo bursts into the den with a thunderous, nearly murderous expression, the jolt back to reality almost gives me whiplash.
“Get your shit! We’re leaving,” Matteo snaps, his venomous gaze landing on me.
“What? Why? What happened?” Raffaele rushes to ask, quickly placing the remote to the side before Matteo has a chance to slap it out of his hands.
“I said, get up! Now!” Matteo growls through clenched teeth, lunging at Raffaele.
I’m usually well behaved. I keep my head down and only talk when spoken to. Between my siblings and me, I’m the quiet one. Shy as a mouse, never one to seek out confrontation.
So it comes as much of a surprise to me as it does to everyone else in the room when I step in, placing myself in the eye of Matteo Donato’s storm. The way Matteo grabs Raffaele by the arm and practically yanks him off the couch lights a fury in me I’ve never felt before.
“You’re hurting him!” I shout, grabbing Matteo’s arm and wrenching his grip free of Raffaele.
Both boys stare at me as if I’d grown a second head, but I hold my ground. I won’t tolerate people manhandling those they see as weaker than themselves, especially in my house. The difference between them is obvious, written plainly in Matteo’s size and Raffaele’s lack of it.
“It speaks,” Matteo sneers, eyeing me with disgust.
It? Did he really just refer to me as a thing?
I swallow the lump in my throat and force myself to stand up straight, keeping eye contact with him, even when his cold, dark eyes send a chill racing down my spine.
I see death there. Destruction. Devastation.
Absolute ruin. But beneath it all, I see pain too.
An enormous amount of pain. Suffocating whatever humanity this boy before me still holds.
“Anna… don’t,” Raffaele whispers cautiously behind me, but I keep myself steady, refusing to blink while my gaze stays locked with the devil.
“You don’t scare me.”
Matteo lets out a sardonic chuckle. “You’re either very brave or very stupid.”
Stupid, I think to myself. Definitely stupid.
This boy… I mean, this man could snap my neck like a flimsy twig. And by the murderous look in his eyes, he’s clearly considering it. Yet, here I am, unflinching.
It’s almost as if something has possessed me. Some inner power I didn’t know I had. Not until I faced true evil in the eye.
“Anna!” I hear Stella call my name before rushing into the den. “What’s going on here?” she demands, authority clearly ringing in her voice.
I’ve never been an envious person, but right now I envy my sister. Both boys look at her and recognize the immediate threat she embodies. One wrong word in my direction, one sudden move, and she would rain hellfire down on them without hesitation.
I want to tell her she has nothing to fear from Raffaele.
It’s Matteo who is the villain here. But something stops me—the flicker behind his eyes, the one he tries so hard to hide.
It leaves me tongue-tied. They reflect so much pain.
I almost choke on it when I see it so clearly in his eyes.
But Stella doesn’t see what I do. All she sees is his hatred.
Hatred of me. Of her. Of all of us who carry the Romano name.
“Nothing’s happening,” Raffaele says quickly, cutting in before anyone can escalate things. “I was just saying goodbye to Anna. That’s all.”
Two steps are all it takes before he’s at my side, pulling me into an embrace as if we were two old friends who’ve known each other all our lives.
“Don’t move,” he whispers into my ear as I feel his hand slip into my dress pocket. He pulls away, leaving something heavy behind. I slide my hand inside and find what feels like a phone. “I’ll call you.”
I keep my expression blank as he releases me from his hug, quietly mouthing the word friends before turning away.
I watch him leave while Matteo lingers just long enough to shoot Stella a scathing look before his eyes return to me. There’s no pain in them anymore. Only hatred. Nothing but unadulterated contempt and loathing.
I made a friend and an enemy on the same day. I don’t know which one excites me more.