Sitting in the office at the Carlisi Mansion, I’m half aware of my brothers arguing back and forth. It’s been a year since Caterina—our Queen, our Donna—left, leaving me in charge as the interim Don of the Cosa Nostra.
“Luciano, mi stai ascoltando?”Are you listening to me?Stefano leans over, questioning me. “We have a situation,” he adds, his native tongue slipping out with his annoyance.
“Well, fucking deal with it.” I slam my fists on the large mahogany desk in front of me. I’m not in the mood today to be questioned.
“She made you Don, not me,” he bites back, his energy matching mine.
I’m quick to respond, “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, brother.”
Stefano is the oldest by four months, out of me and my four brothers, but I was trained to be Caterina’s underboss from a teenager. Caterina took me in first, and for a couple of years it was just the two of us. We aren’t Carlisi blood, but Caterina raised us as a family.
Stefano stares at me, biting back the words he desperately wants to say. “What’s the problem?” I demand before gulping the rest of my whiskey, and wait for his reply.
“Our men want to know who the next Don will be,” Stefano responds from his seat in front of me.
I can’t help the noise that escapes my lips as I run my hand through my hair, a mix of a grunt and sarcastic laugh.
“Why is he laughing?” Gabriele, my youngest brother, asks. He may be the smartest man in this room, especially when it comes to electronics and hacking, but reading social cues is not his forte. He’s more of a behind-the-scenes guy than down and dirty like the rest of us.
“See, that is the problem…” I walk over to the bar in the corner of my office and pour myself another drink. My brothers are all watching me curiously from their usual seats around the room.
“Why?” Carlo grunts. Carlo is a couple years younger than us, and was only brought into the family when he was in his early twenties. He’s our enforcer: when you need someone killed, he can make them disappear without a trace, and he loves nothing more than torturing information out of people, piece by piece, the sadistic fuck he is.
“Because she—” I pause. The irony in having another female leader, the other families must think we’ve gone crazy. “She doesn’t have a clue… that she’s the next Donna!” I chuckle to myself.
“She? She who?” Mattia pipes up a bit too excitedly. I give him a glare as if to saycalm the fuck down… He’s second youngest. We heard the soldiers talking one day about how a lowlife Italian family was killed and their son went on a killing rampage, shooting anyone who tried to take him into the system, which of course landed him in juvenile detention. So, Caterina made a deal: come live and work with us and his records will disappear. He is now our best assassin and trains all our soldiers.
“Charlotte O’Reilly… La figlia di Caterina.”Caterina’sdaughter.
My brothers’ faces all drop, seeming equally as shocked as I was when Caterina told me. The only people who knew about Charlotte were Caterina, her late father Marco, and our trusted lawyer, Joseph Milano. The memory of Caterina telling me five years ago floods my mind.
Strolling into the mansion after our successful shipment, I’m grinning ear to ear knowing my idea has worked. Caterina was skeptical at first to undermine our previous supplier, but if we can have the same firearms delivered for two-thirds of the price, it would be stupid not to accept. The deal may have involved some manipulation from our side, but you don’t become one of the largest mafia families by staying clean, much to Caterina’s dismay sometimes.
I’m halfway up the stairs when a crashing noise sounds from the office. I immediately run towards it, my pistol out in front of me ready to shoot. I barge through the door on high alert, but the sight before my eyes was not what I was expecting. Caterina, our fierce Donna, the woman who could stand before any man and make them quiver on the spot from fear, sits crumbled on the floor next to her desk, wine spilling over the edge from the knocked over bottle.
“Caterina.” I kneel in front of her, speaking softly, unsure how to handle the situation before my eyes. Caterina eventually looks up at me, her eyes red from crying, her face streaked with tears. “What’s wrong?”
She lifts her hand at me, trying to shoo me out of the room. “It’s nothing, Luciano. Go to bed.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing. You can tell me.”
“Today is her birthday,” she says, barely above a whisper. Her eyes look back down at her lap.
“Whose birthday, Caterina?” I urge her to continue, to open up about whatever is causing her this much grief.
“My sweet Charlotte.” She holds up a picture of a little baby girl, no more than six months old. My eyes widen in shock by her confession, and I’m momentarily speechless. For all the years I’ve lived with Caterina, being raised like a son to her, she has never mentioned having children.
“Where is she?” I ask, wondering if she’ll talk more about her daughter.
“Safe with her father.” She gently strokes the photo, the curled corners looking like they’ve seen better days. “Today is her twenty-first birthday.”
“She has your eyes.” I smile as Caterina nods in agreement.
I sit in silence beside Caterina for what feels like an eternity until she silently stands and walks out the room, leaving me sitting there alone, shock still written all over my face. Curiosity clings to me as I pick up the photo Caterina left on the floor. How do I find out more about her secret daughter, our Principessa? Or should I let it be and hope that Caterina will tell me more soon?
“Why did she never tell us?” and “A secret daughter?” they say in unison, breaking me away from my memory.
“Charlotte’s father didn’t want her around the Cosa Nostra,” I answer.
