He doesn’t press the subject but angles himself my way, arm crooked on the back of the couch. His hand slides into his hair, propping his head up. A mixture of blond and brown feather-like wisps grip my attention.
“How’s your first week of school going?”
“Not the way I expected, but the classes are fun.”
“Fun,” he snorts. “To some, I suppose.”
I laugh, feelinggoodto find some amusement out of tonight. A smile after an evening of misery, tears, and cursing. “Fun isn’t what I’m here for. The degree is. Being able to do whatever I want when finished.”
“Which is still unknown.” He comments are slightly teasing, telling me he recalls our conversation the other night. “It’s admirable, to forge your own path. Reminds me of someone I know.” Who he’s speaking about is obvious even without naming her. “Would you have wanted to be raised as a Mancini daughter, or are you happy with the choices made?”
No one’s ever asked so outright. Then again, no one in my past has been as direct as Lev. At first, I hesitate responding, considering I don’t know him very well, but on my next exhale,the truth starts seeping. Maybe it’s his calming demeanour, but he makes me want to discuss this.
But only with him, no one else.
“Those questions are too different to give only one answer. Happy with the choices made—no, even if I get where Zeno’s father was coming from. Who’d want to raise a bastard? Worse, the bastard of the man who kidnapped and raped your wife?”
I hadn’t meant to say it like that. This is more Madre and Zeno’s history; I’m merely the result. Because of that, no one’s ever asked how I feel about it. Those questions are saved for Zeno, who witnessed his family torn apart, and Madre, who lived the horrors of Ursin Volkov’s kidnapping. Never me, who was born as a physical reminder of that, of her husband casting me aside before my birth because I wasn’t his blood.
Lev makes a noise in the back of his throat, almost like a cough. “Don’t call yourself a bastard. You’re much more than that.”
“But it’s true,” I reply on a near-whisper, emotion filling me to the brim. Tears threaten to appear again. “It’s something I’ve known and accepted a while ago. Sometimes, I’m happy being raised outside the Cosa Nostra, but other times, I look at my brother and imagine living in the mansion, attending mob events, having my life mapped out. Expectations would be for me to follow what they demand. Instead, freedom has trapped me in unknown ways. I feel expected todoso much more, to live the fullest I can, knowing I’m the lucky one. But sometimes, I wonder what it’d be like to have that life. If I was a proper Cosa Nostra daughter—a princess, as you like to call me—maybe I wouldn’t be such a burden on everyone.”
“A burden?”His tone his chilly when his head jerks up from his hand, the very hand that lowers across the back of the couch before a finger starts tapping. “Who the fuck calls you that?”
“No one.” My quick response seems to calm his flaring rage. “It’s how I feel, though. Think about it…if I was a Mancini woman in the traditional sense, there’d be expectations. People couldn’t be disappointed because my role would be defined, like Zeno, Nero, even you. You all know your place while I flounder to discover mine. It’s one of many reasons I’m here, getting a degree, so I can find a job and make money that’s all mine and not from the organization—not that I don’t appreciate Zeno funding my life, especially now. Still, it’ll be done on my terms. Since my birth, Madre’s been living in Ostia, away from everything she held dear,for me. Moving away repays her; it lets her be the woman she used to be. I’ve known for years, at the earliest chance, I wanted out. Not to get away from her, but to stop being a burden on them.”
Madre’s never treated me as anything less than the best person in her life, so saying this aloud, outside my own troubled thoughts, makes my stomach knot, the pressure a heavy cloud settling over me.
When dark thoughts consume, theydevour.
It feels like an endless length of time passes while Lev is staring silently. Enough that my skin prickles, and I readjust off my arm. It’s strange to unload all that on him without any extra thought. There’s something about him that makes him easy to talk to. Which is funny, since he’s also very closed off. Maybe that’s why I kept rambling—to see at what point he’d shut me up.
His tapping slows. “You’re very far from being a burden, Fina.”
“Thanks, but hard to believe the guy I basically begged to be here. Now you’re not sleeping, doing all your work on a laptop; when you could be helping your organization, you’re attending class. So yeah, I’m a burden to you as well.”
“You’renota burden,” he repeats, eyes flashing. “You’re doing what you believe you need to, but I guarantee, yourbrother never viewed you as such. Your mother chose to live in Ostia for herself as well. There was nothing restricting her from staying inside Rome. As for me, I came here of my own doing. The choice Zeno’s father made…well, fuck him if he didn’t want someone as amazing as you in his life. He missed out.”
“Bold to say when you’ve only known me a short time. A matter of days? Besides, these are all what-ifs. What if I was raised inside the Cosa Nostra?”
“You wouldn’t be you. And I, for one, happen to like who you are.”
My heart thumps a bit faster. I’d like to point out—again—that he’s known me for too short a time to claim that. “You really speak your mind, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You hold nothing back.”
“Is that a bad thing?” His brow furrows.
“It’s a thing. Most people do.”
He shrugs and readjusts his legs, stretching them out. “I’m not most people.”
That, he isn’t.
“Thanks.”
