Violet
"How could I, sweetheart? I know you kids indulged in fantasies about your father. What kid in your situation wouldn't? How could I destroy that and tell you he wasn't a hero, but a monster?"
I feel like crying at my mom's words; I think of all the times I pushed her, and I feel guilty, so, so guilty.
But I keep myself still, I don't want to wake Mark.
Precious Mark, I didn't realize how much I missed my nephew until they walked in.
He's the sweetest baby, and I swear he could sleep through a hurricane of noise, but one wrong move while someone is holding him and all hell breaks loose.
"Oh, Mom." Elaine is closer to her than I am and hugs her. I hate seeing my mom so upset.
"How did he find us now?" Sebastian asks.
Mom looks at Marcello, but he wouldn't have done this.
He didn't even know. I didn't know. And then it hits me.
Guilt strikes like a hot, searing sword right through my abdomen, going straight for my heart.
The pain of it burns hotter than fire. I rip my hand from Marcello's grip, forgetting about Mark.
I jump off the couch, and he instantly starts to fuss, but I'm too distracted to calm down. "Oh no!"
"Violet?" Marcello looks at me, questioning, ready to catch me, because I'm so close to falling.
So, so close. Marcello's wasn't the only basement I climbed down into, was it?
I opened another door, too. One mom told me not to open.
Elaine's eyes are worried for me as she holds out her arms to take Mark.
I place him into her embrace before I begin to pace the floor.
"This is my fault," I lament, "All my fault."
Marcello is instantly at my side, pulling me into his arms, "Whatever it is, tesoro, I promise we'll work it out."
"What did you do?" Mom cries.
"Vi?" Sebastian sounds so confused. My little brother. Oh no. Oh no, no, no! I was so selfish. Just like my mom always counseled me not to be. When you do something, Violet, you need to think of the consequences.
I flee Marcello's embrace and run to my mother. "Oh, Mom, I'm so sorry. So sorry." Tears are running down my face. "I wasn't thinking."
"It's alright, baby girl, it's okay. We'll figure it out. What did you do?" Her voice is so soothing. Fueling my already churning guilt.
"I…" A sob cracks my voice, and then Marcello is at my side, pulling me up, away from my mom and into his chest.
"Whatever it is, cara mia, it's nothing we can't fix." He assures me, and I want to believe him. So badly.
"I did a DNA test," I confess. "I found… I found… cousins…"
"Oh my God, who?" Mom asks, her face turning paler by the second. This is all my fault. Mine. I'm the most rotten person in the entire world. I put us all in danger. And yesterday… yesterday? "They were after me, because of… me? Not for you?" I turn to Marcello.
His nod is as heavy as his expression. My legs give out, but he has me. He always has me. Grateful, I lean into him, but the weight of what I did still bears down on me.
"Marcello, I'm so sorry."
He tilts my chin up, stormy gray eyes boring into mine, "You have nothing to be sorry about. Do you hear me?"
"But I… I ordered the test. If I hadn't done that… they wouldn't have known… they wouldn't have found us." And then, even heavier, "They could have killed you, Marcello, because of me."
All the while, I've been running from him because I thought he would put me in danger. Seems like I managed that very well on my own.
"Violet," his voice is strong and forceful, "look at me. This is not your fault."
"But I—"
"Not your fault." His eyes pull from mine to my mother. He can't hold her responsible for this, can he? Mom fled an impossible situation. "You would have never done the test if she had told you the truth. You had a right to be curious. You have a right to be curious," he insists.
I hear his words and understand what he is saying, but neither my mind nor my heart can accept them. There is only room for my raging guilt. "And now you are in danger because of me." I look at Marcello.
He breaks out into loud laughter. "Ah, tesoro, have a little faith in me. I can handle a little gang like your father's." He bends lower, so that only I can hear him. "As it stands, this might work in my favor."
I have no idea what he's talking about, and I don't have the energy to even try to understand it.
"Look, sis, I was thinking about doing it too," Sebastian says.
"Me too," Elaine nods carefully, having successfully soothed Mark back to sleep.
"Good grief, I've warned you kids." Mom shakes her head. "Didn't I warn you to stay away from social media and databases?"
"Yes, but you also never told us why." Elaine surprises me. She's always been more rebellious than I have, but I've never seen or heard her talk to Mom this way. Not even when she brought the bad boyfriend home.
"An explanation would have been nice," Sebastian agrees. "Are you going to tell us now who he is?"
Mom closes her eyes and tilts her head up like she's praying.
A single tear flows down her cheek, and my heart goes out to her.
She's hurting because of me. Marcello's arms around me tighten as if he knows what I'm thinking.
His chest rumbles when mom remains quiet, and he says, "His name is Enzo Carbone.
He used to be an enforcer for the Manetti family, but now he is one of their capos. "
A capo, my mind digests. That's like a VP of a large firm. Exactly what the papers said Marcello is, or will be soon, at least. Alarmed, I look at him. "Don't worry, Violet. He can't start a war in New York. They're based out of Vegas."
A war? Oh my God, what in the name of all that's holy have I done?
"Breathe, cara mia, breathe," Marcello coaxes.
"So what's going to happen now?" Lee asserts, probably fed up with the family drama. He sounds more confident than I've ever heard him.
Marcello gives him a speculative look before he pulls me back to our couch, where we sit down, holding hands once again. "I," he stresses, "am going to have a chat with Enzo, see if we can get this whole thing straightened out."
"There is no talking to that man. You can't believe a word he says," Mom warns.
Marcello stiffens. I'm getting the impression he doesn't like my mom, which will be a problem. Later. I don't have the bandwidth to deal with that right now on top of everything else.
"Oh my God, is that a mouse?" Elaine snickers.
Sure enough, one of the mice Alejandro brought last night scurries across the floor. Felix, who has been rubbing Luciano's leg, scampers after it.
"Get it, big boy," Sebastian laughs.
"Can we please focus?" Mom demands, exasperated. "This is not a laughing matter. Enzo wanted us dead then, and I've no doubt he will try again now."
"Why did he want us dead?" Elaine asks the same question that just popped into my head.
With a fury I've never seen in her before, Mom turns on Elaine. "Because he had a mistress. A woman he wanted to marry and start a new family with. A woman younger than me."
For some reason, I have a hard time believing that our father would have wanted his children dead.
Mom, maybe, because isn't that the mafia way?
Oh, the way you want to marry into? I snark at myself.
But my head is too busy trying to puzzle all this out to start an argument with myself over the fact that Marcello would never hurt me.
Oh, isn't that what your mom must have thought of your dad?
I have no memories of my dad, yet, somehow, I know he would have never hurt us, never hurt me. Uhm, excuse me, wasn't it his men shooting at you?
Guilt churns my gut. I can't judge my mom for taking her children and running if her husband wanted to kill her. She did what she had to do.
"Oh, what will we do?" Mom laments.
"Like I said, I'll handle it, Bianca," Marcello's voice is tight.
Mom visibly tenses. Then a sigh escapes her. "I haven't heard that name in a long time."
It takes me a moment to digest that Marcello just called her by what has to be her real name. Sebastian is already a step ahead of me when he asks, "What's my real name?"
Mom leans over and lovingly strokes his hair. "You've always been Sebastian, sweetheart."
This shouldn't be important, not at all, but I want to know, "And mine?"
"I didn't change any of your given names. It would have been too confusing for you. I only changed mine and our last name, so that Enzo couldn't find us."
Love for her wells inside me. I can't even imagine all the things she went through for us. She is the strongest woman I know.
"There was no fire, was there?" Elaine wants to know.
"No," Mom shakes her head. "I had to leave in the middle of the night, with nothing but you and your sister."
"Hmm, false paper, a false identity, that must have cost quite a bit…" Lee suggests.
"Eleven million dollars can buy good papers," Marcello replies.
Mom glares at him.
"What are you talking about?" Elaine laughs dryly. "Mom didn't have eleven million dollars to buy…" she trails off, looking at me for support.
Marcello squeezes my hand again, reminding me to trust him, which I do.
Now more than ever. He knew that the men who attacked us were after me, not him, and he came anyway—well, maybe he didn't know it at the time—I amend.
But he must have found out at some point, I remember him telling me we needed to talk the moment…
when he returned from… a small shiver runs down my spine.
I knew where he went last night, after the attack.
I didn't want to think about it—like always, Vi, like always—but I knew he went to interrogate the men who had attacked us.
That's when he found out they were after me—and then he asked you to marry him.
To protect me. Not from a threat against him, but from my own father.
My heart thumps hard against my ribs, and my affection for him grows stronger.
I lean against him, waiting for the next bomb to drop.