Velvet Lullabies

Prologue

She had a bruise on her arm.

That was the first sign that something was wrong. She had told him that she hit her arm on the side of the pool while swimming laps, and he believed her. But now, he wasn’t so sure.

She had been distant.

He knew his daughter, she was the life of the party. She spent her every moment he was home in his face since the second she was born. Test scores, photos, mundane stories, the girl shared every detail of her life with him. Lately, she regarded him with one word answers and stalked to her bedroom.

“She’s a teenager.” His wife told him with a shrug.

Yeah, that was true, but she had been a teenager for years now and this was the first time she’d ever kept her distance from him.

Something was wrong. He felt it in his bones, he was so sure of it.

He knew his daughter.

He called on an old friend.

“I’m going to need a favor.”

Chapter One

Adelina distinctly remembered being five years old and arguing with her mother. Eve wanted her to stay inside and play with the new Barbie dream house she had purchased, but Adelina had other plans. She wanted to follow after Theo and Vinny on one of their adventures. They were dressed to ride bikes and race through the mud and Adelina had every intention to ride her hot pink bicycle alongside them. Her parents had bought her the pink one, obviously, because she was a girl.

“Girls don’t play in the dirt!” Eve had told her, but her father chuckled behind them.

“Let her go Eve, she’s a girl not a porcelain doll.”

Eve sighed in frustration and stomped away.

Adelina smiled at her father. “Thank you, Daddy!” she screeched.

“Oh, mi bambina,” he pulled her in for a tight hug. “People in this world are going to tell you that you can’t do things because you’re a girl.” He gazed at her with a serious expression. “Prove them wrong every time.”

???

He wants to see you.

Now.

Adelina DeMarco had received quite a few annoying, borderline aggressive, texts from her brother in the years since their father died, but none of them scared quite as much as those six words.

She was late, which wasn’t unusual for her, and she could already hear the lecture Vinny was going to give. “Irresponsible!” he would shout, and she would sit there and take it like a good girl.

Good girl was a term she had become all too familiar with.

There were many versions of Adelina. There was the mafia “good girl”, a princess that wore red soled shoes, perfectly tailored dresses that didn’t show too much, light makeup and manicured nails. There was the college student who drank far too much Natty Light, burped in public, and was found wearing dirty white converse. Finally, there was just Adelina, the person who she truly wanted to be. The last version rarely came out to play.

She maneuvered her pearl white Lexus onto the highway moving from the East Side to Federal Hill. See, the city of Providence, Rhode Island extends over two big hills with a valley in between. On one end, you have the historic East Side home to Brown University, cozy family homes, well-groomed lawns, and your typical uppity people. On the other side sits Federal Hill, home to Providence’s own La Cosa Nostra.

There were three major U.S. Cities when it came to La Cosa Nostra. The first being, New York, clearly. Then, the outfit in Chicago. And finally, the small city of Providence, RI. Who would have guessed that a small city could do just as much damage as the big guys?

To an outsider, the city of Providence looked like a beautiful place to settle down, attend school, work, and live a normal life. To those familiar, they knew Providence for what it was: a Mafia town. Adelina was more than familiar with Providence’s underbelly. She had grown up in it.

Her childhood was spent tagging alongside her brother and Theo throughout the Federal Hill neighborhoods. As a teen, she sat in the back of Theo’s BMW while they made runs. And throughout the years, she watched la famiglia take the people she loved away from her.

Regardless, she was still expected to make dinner on time.

As Adelina sped down the highway, a small part of her wanted a speeding ticket so she would have a valid excuse as to why she was late. But she knew that wouldn’t appease the men in her life, they would still be disappointed in her. Especially Vinny. Her brother had nothing but disappointment for her lately.

At one point, Vinny was her go to person. He was the older of the two of them and had always protected her, but then the “incident” happened and he was no longer her sweet older brother. He was the front boss in training.

Adelina pulled her car in the Maranzano’s long driveway. Music drifted from the back yard along with the smell of grilled meats.

Mafia family parties were notoriously fun. She could picture the guys out back grilling and laughing with Cuban cigars hanging from their lips. Little Tony would have a toothpick instead as he recently quit smoking, something all the men would tease him for. Also, Little Tony was not little. Not little at all.

The younger guys would be hanging around the swimming pools watching the daughters of the older men lounge in skimpy bikinis and try not to be caught staring. Hooking up with a made man’s daughter was quite the offense. There was a process that needed to be followed, courting that had to take place. It was an ordeal. One Adelina was happy to not be a part of.

She took a deep breath to steady herself, plastered on a fake smile, and let herself in through the gate.

Massimo Maranzano’s backyard was extravagant, mostly due to the expensive taste of his wife. There was a deck with pillars on all four corners adorned with sleek black patio furniture. A giant kidney shaped in-ground pool with lavish lounge chairs on the sides. Flowers of all kinds bordered the property, decorating the tall dark wood privacy fence. And in the back-right corner, surrounded by his men, was Massimo Maranzano.

Massimo’s eyes scanned Adelina head to toe. She was wearing a pair of torn white short shorts, a red and white striped blouse that exposed her sto

mach, and a pair of red canvas shoes. She instinctively covered her stomach, which in turn made Massimo chuckle. She didn’t have time to change into the correct version of herself when she was ordered over here. She kept tight barriers between her different lives, never letting one slide into the other, but today, she messed up.

He took a long puff from his cigar. “This is how the girls dress these days?”

Silence.

“Thank god I don’t have a daughter.” The men laughed with him, Adelina kept her arms wrapped around herself.

“You called for me, Uncle?” she asked quietly. Massimo was not her Uncle, but it was a title that he insisted she call him. Women didn't call the boss as such, and Adelina was far too important to him and close to the family to call him by name, so instead she grew up calling her almost future father-in-law Uncle.

Massimo made a show of checking his Rolex. “I did, though I think that was a while ago, hmm?”

“I’m sorry, I was on campus.” Adelina averted her eyes from the man. “I got distracted.”

“With what?”

“School work.” She responded sheepishly.

He nodded for a moment. “Still art something or other?”

“Literary Arts, yes.”

He considered this for a moment. “A waste, if you ask me.”

She had never asked him. Still, time and time again he thought it appropriate to tell her what he thought of her major.