There it was. Exactly what I knew was coming. I’d understood this for years now. In another life, I would’ve wanted to be any of those things. Wanted to help people and earn good money at the same time. I wanted to get as far away from my past and poverty as I could.
I would not live in poverty working for the Catalanos, that much was for sure. It was the reason I had enough money to buy a car, take Isabella out for ice cream, save up for the ring I bought for her.
There would be grandeur in my future. Wealth. But there would be violence too. The Don would want to bring me into the fold, make sure I was committed. I was under no illusions as to what that meant. I would have to hurt people. Eventually, likely, I would have to take a life.
That did not bother me. There was something inside of me that understood I would’ve never made it as a fucking doctor or a lawyer anyway. My upbringing lacked love, kindness. That had bred something in me. Killed something in me.
If I hadn’t met Isabella so young, I would be an entirely different person. Anger and resentment would’ve taken me over. I would’ve given in to the need to destroy things. People. No way in fuck I would’ve been graduating with straight A’s. No, she saved me, of that much I was sure.
“I don’t plan on taking her anywhere, sir,” I replied jutting my chin up, keeping his eyes so he could see the truth in my words. “I have no aspirations beyond being a man worthy of her.”
He continued to regard me. “That, my son, is the right answer.” He clasped his hands together. “Now we need to get my daughter a ring. And we need to get you a gun.”
There it was.
I was part of the family now.
It was that easy.
The hard things would come later.
The blood, much sooner than anyone expected.
Isabella
Present Day
My father came into my room as I was getting ready for my birthday party, eyes glistening, all of his hard edges melted.
Cristian had talked to him.
He was not angry. There was no blood on his hands, no bruises on his knuckles, not that I expected there to be. I knew my father was known to be ruthless, I’d heard the whispers. I didn’t doubt that my gentle, loving Papa was capable of many of those terrible things that people thought I didn’t hear, but I also knew he would never hurt Cristian.
Because my Papa knew me. He and I had had a connection since before I could remember. I was his first child. While Lorenzo was his boy, the person who would eventually take over the family business when he came of age, I was his luce dei mie occhi—the light of his eyes.
My father did not dismiss me as a daughter, little more than useless in the business where the men had all the power, passed down from father to son.
No, he spent time with me, first attending my many tea parties in my younger years, daintily sipping from plastic cups of air. Then it was horse riding with me after buying me my first pony, Cinnamon. It was holding me when Cinnamon died. After school, I’d sit in his office, on his sofa, doing my homework in silence while he worked on his computer.
He took me out for milkshakes when I was sad, when he sensed I was lonely within the sprawling mansion I grew up in.
He was the first person I told when I met Cristian. There was no tightening to his jaw, no clenching of his fists or any of the other male forms of fury one might expect a mob boss to have when his thirteen-year-old daughter announced she had a boyfriend.
My father asked questions, gently, with genuine interest, treated my feelings for Cristian as if they were legitimate instead of some teenage infatuation as many parents might’ve.
After he’d heard me gush about this boy for many, many minutes, he nodded once and declared he must meet him. Again, at dinner the following night, with Cristian dressed in a shirt and tie, scrubbed clean, willing to venture into the lion’s den for me, my father was respectful, placid. There was no shotgun, proverbial or otherwise. Though my uncles Marco and Dominic had also attended the dinner, and I was very aware that they were both armed. Both men had been around since before I was born. Marco had tied my shoes for me, had helped me with scraped knees and on occasion had attended tea parties with my father. Dominic did not attend any tea parties. He did not dry my tears when I scraped a knee. He was a dark shadow that followed me through the years. I’d always been afraid of him. His eyes were hard, dead, and he never smiled.