He wants to marry you off again.
He’s sending you to a convent.
He wants to make you the head of the family.
Those are just some of the answers we’ve come up with.The one that gave me the worst of the stomachache is the first.But he wouldn’t set up another engagement for me.How?With who?Gianna the Cursed is the least eligible Mafia Princess in the whole world, I’m sure.
It’s almost noon and I’ve already done so much pacing across the apartment that my feet and calves actually ache.I still haven’t told my sisters about Matteo.He’s also the reason why I’m so worried that my dad did in fact find another sucker who’ll try to marry me.Now that my father doesn’t have a direct descendant anymore, the lure of getting married to me, his eldest daughter, might be stronger than superstition.I hope not.
At ten to twelve I decide it’s close enough, tell my sisters I’m going, barely hear them wishing me luck, and enter my parents’ apartment through the connecting door.The room beyond is clean, cold, and empty, as the rest of the apartment seems to be.Mom’s been out all morning, which I saw as a bad sign regarding my meeting with Dad.And upsetting because she would’ve given me some clue as to what it’s about, I’m sure.
I smell lilies as I walk down the hall to my dad’s office, but don’t actually see any anywhere.Funeral flowers.Death flowers.Another bad omen of what I’ll find on the other side of my father’s study door.
I listen through the thick wood for a few moments and when I can’t hear a thing on the other side, I knock.Sheepishly and quietly at first, but then I follow it up with a proper knock.Because I promised myself a long time ago that I would face my future—such as it is, such as other people like my dad will create for me—with my head held high.
“Come in,” Dad calls and I open the door so fast the doorknob slips from my sweaty palm sending the door crashing against the wall.
He winces and looks annoyed.
“You wanted to see me?”I ask instead of apologizing.
“Yes.Not for you to break my door, though.”
“Sorry.I’ll be more careful next time.”
And there I go, assuming the role of the dutiful eldest daughter once again.How many times since my brother died did Dad wish I was born a boy and not a girl?How many times even before then?He loves me, I know that.But I would’ve been more useful to him as a male, there’s no doubt about that.
“You’re spending a lot of time with that new guard, Matteo Rovina,” dad says.“It’s not seemly.”
“Seemly?”I scoff.“How about you let me go out by myself?Then I wouldn’t have to drag my bodyguards to dinner with me.”
His eyes cloud over, dark rage gathering.But I need to deflect this accusation he’s making.The last thing I need is him driving Matteo away because he thinks there’s something going on between us.Not now that I’ve finally managed to crack open his dark, hard shell a little.
“Or we could go… the whole family I mean,” I add, since I don’t want him raging at me either.“We never do that anymore.That restaurant I went to last night… I’ve wanted to try it for ages.”
His eyes cloud over again, this time with something much lighter and much more terrible.Like twilight mists falling over a lake, making it eerie and oh, so sad.
He clears his throat and shakes his head, probably trying to dispel the pain.I doubt it works.
“This is a very bad time for any of us to be out and about, including me and your mother,” he says.“But we’ll go out to dinner soon.As a family.”
His voice cracks a little on the last word and the pain of missing my brother is like a red-hot knife through my heart.Probably still not as painful as what he feels over losing his only son.
We never talk about Antonio.But I’m sure we all think about him a lot.A year is not a long time at all.More like a minute in terms of making the grief more bearable.
“I’d like that.”I smile and sit in one of the black leather chairs facing Dad’s desk.
“Me too,” he says and returns the smile.But it’s a very sad smile.Like he’s thinking about losing me too.And all the rest of us.Why did I have to go down this road?
“Why aren’t we safe to go out, though?”I ask.I’m not sure if this is any better in terms of what we could talk about, but I really want to know.
“Something’s brewing,” he says, which is more than I expected him to tell me.He never talks about the business with us girls.“All thefamigliasare noticing more attacks.Like the way you were attacked in that night club.”
The fact that all the top mafia families in New York are facing attacks is the last thing I wanted to hear.It means more strict protection, if nothing else.Bad enough I’m already forced to spend my life locked in a high tower, now I can’t even go out a little, or what?The leather of the seat it sticking to my bare thighs, uncomfortably hot all of a sudden.I want to run out of this office, this apartment, this building, run all the way to the beach, to the mountains, somewhere so far away from here I can forget all about it.
He must read the shock on my face because he smiles again, more reassuringly this time.“We will deal with it and then everything will go back to normal,” he says.“But for the moment, we have to be careful.Please convey that to your sisters too.They listen to you.”
Yeah, not really.They used to, when they were younger, but not anymore.I won’t tell him that though.He’s got enough to worry about.
