“Language, darling,” Mom murmurs. “We’re at the dinner table.”
I grip the windowsill. “No one would dare lay a finger on me. Damiano would kill him.”
“Sure, you could cry to your brother,” Ariana says with a cruel smile. “But what good will it do? You’ll belong to your husband.”
My stomach clenches. Damiano won’t let that happen. He can’t.
But every year that passes, I’m more afraid that Dad will arrange my marriage before Damiano has the power to stop it.
“Damiano would never take any side but mine,” I say, but my voice wavers, because what if Ariana’s right? What if when it comes down to it, Damiano chooses the family over me? He says he loves me, but does he love me enough?
Ariana is enjoying herself now—and smiling from ear to ear. “Once you’re married, you won’t be Damiano’s problem anymore. He’s probably counting down the days.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I whisper, because my chest is suddenly too tight to draw breath. Maybeshe’s right. Damiano barely looks at me anymore. I hate that Ariana’s cruel words are hitting their mark.
“I wonder who you’ll marry,” Ariana muses out loud. “Someone Dad chooses, of course. As a woman, getting married is the only useful thing you can do for this family.” Ariana’s smile turns bitter, and I realize that the truth is painful for her.
Mom looks meaningfully at my empty chair. “Know your place, Lucy.”
She didn’t refute anything Ariana said. She didn’t promise to come to my defense if my future husband beats me. She just sipped her wine and gazed at me with resentful eyes. She’s never loved me. The only person in the whole world who loves me is Damiano.
“I’m aware of my place in this house,” I mutter, staying where I am.
“I said. Sit.Down.”
I resume my seat, my eyes lowered so she can’t see how hurt and angry I am. What Ariana described can’t really be my future, can it? I don’t want to get married and have some stranger pawing at my body and suffocating me with his kisses and demands.
“We are Barone women,” Mom says, addressing both me and Ariana, but mostly me. “It is our duty to support the men in our life with love and affection. We soothe their worries. We make a beautiful home for them to return to. Knowing more than we should is dangerous for us and for them.”
I blink innocently at Mom and smile a fake smile. “But why? What’s so dangerous about Dad working in real estate?”
Behind her beautifully painted lips, Mom grits her teeth. To this day, no one has admitted out loud to me that Dad is Don Carlucci, head of the Barone crime family. I’m supposed to pretend I don’t know. Not hear the whispers. Not notice the guns and looks of fearful respect Dad draws wherever he goes.
“Lucy, you don’t need to know why something is dangerous. It’s enough that we tell you that it is, and you should listen and obey.”
Listen and obey. Always listen and obey, and keep my mouth shut. Never complain when I’m excluded from everything my brother is allowed to know. I miss him. I love him. I’m so freakingjealousof him.
“Just say why it’s dangerous being us,” I snap. “Because we’re in the mafia.”
Mom’s eyes flash. “Go to your room. I won’t look at you for another second. And don’t you dare try and eavesdrop on your father and brother. Mrs. Monti? Escort her, please.”
Mrs. Monti has returned from the kitchen, and she moves to my side with reproachful eyes. Angry tears cluster in my throat as I stand up, and Mrs. Monti walks me from the room.
As we climb the stairs, Mrs. Monti says, softly but urgently, “You shouldn’t provoke your mother, miss. I don’t know what you think you’ll get out of angering her.”
I don’t know either, but the truth would be nice. Not that we’re in the mafia, because that’s blindingly obvious, and it’s laughable that we’re not even allowed to say it out loud in our own home. What I’m hoping for is that she’ll snap and tell me that she and Dad never wanted to adopt me in the first place, and that Damiano talked them into it. I’m hoping for a knife in my own heart, but I can’t help it. Pretending that I’m welcome here is tearing me apart.
From my bedroom window, I watch Damiano’s car leave the garage, red taillights glowing in the darkness and vanishing out of the gates as he turns up the street. Loneliness expands inside me, making it painful to breathe. I remember another set of taillights disappearing into the distance. Running after them. Screaming and crying as I begged not to be left behind.
I can’t keep waiting. I can’t keep being patient while Damiano asks me to trust him. Four years of secret glances and whisperedI love youswhen no one can hear. Four years of nightmares where he holds me and then sends me away. Four years of promises that nothing has changed.
I need to prove I can be his partner now. Not someday when he’s don.Now.
Because if I don’t prove my worth, if I can’t show him I’m strong enough to stand beside him, what if he decides it’s easier to let me go?
My heart pounding, I change out of my dress, heels, and jewelry, and put on black pants, a black sweater, and a black jacket. I take my gun out of a drawer, the gun that no one knows I have, and I put it into my jacket pocket.
Careful not to be seen by anyone, I slip through the house, into the garage, and get into my dark blue sports car. Damiano’s too far away to tail him, but I think I know where he’s gone. I plug “Norris Street” into my navigation app, and I follow the directions.
