Knowing her, she’d come from the dead and haunt me for the rest of her life if she knew she’d stupidly cleared the path for me to ascend in the ranks and become a mafia princess.
I glance around the crowd again.
Although carefully concealed, the guns tucked in holsters inside the men’s jackets keep everybody on their best behavior and add a film of civility to the otherwise dark crowd.
My eyes move over the women’s legs.
Sleek high heels rise from the concrete like polished vines blossoming into rhinestone-studded bands wrapped around their ankles.
Statement jewelry the size of my hand gives heist artists something to dream about, while stunning designer bags add a pinch of frivolity to their looks.
Hats trimmed with dark voile cast a kernel of doubt over their expressions, obscuring that hint of frantic glee that could clue people in on the true story behind Bianca’s stormy life and unexpected death.
The men’s expressions are carved in stone,as always,too stoic to reveal anything about the rampant gossip surrounding my mother’s premature passing.
The men standing around the casket look dangerous––because they are–– despite their subdued behavior and gloved hands conveniently hiding their tattooed knuckles.
With that being said, their blank expressions hardly conceal the viciousness dripping in their blood.
These men routinely put more people into the ground than the gravediggers do in this cemetery.
My eyes hover over the crowd again.
Many people have shown up today, but let’snot fool ourselves.
Despite being the first in line to inherit the Gallo empire, no one has truly liked Bianca.
They like her more now that she’s dead than they liked her when she was alive.
Notorious for stealing the women’s husbands, lovers, boyfriends, even their exes, and then discarding them like they were trash, she hasn’t made any real friends throughout her life.
She did what she did out of vengeance, with no regard for anyone, not even her family.
Not even me.
Things appeared to have cooled off after she marriedhim, her third husband, but that didn’t last, did it?
She’s in the ground now, perhaps smiling at the world she’s left behind, taking her darkest secrets with her, cloaked in our collective hate, and forever burdened by the regret of being rejected by him.
By her own husband.
The only man she couldn’t have.
Or so I like to believe.
I’ve heard rumors.
But even without the rumors, I know his ignoring her drove her up the wall and pushed her into Xavier’s arms, her now deceased lover.
The man she cheated on her husband with is not buried here for obvious reasons.
My family––their wishes trump everyone else’s––wanted him cremated, his ashes spread into the wind, and his memory forever erased from our collective memory.
So, he’s gone.
No one is talking about him.
They’re all concerned with who might be lowered into the ground or taken to the crematory next.
