Paolo knew him better than anyone. They had been adversaries themselves in childhood, scrapping constantly. Two strong-willed, alpha-natured boys of similar ages would. It had culminated in a fistfight of epic proportions when they were twelve, not far from here, on the property Vito’s family still owned, high in the hills overlooking the lake. They had been beating each other with serious intent, their superficial argument transitioning into a far more serious drive for dominance over the other. Neither was the type to give up. Ever.
Paolo’s father had stopped them. He’d been a man of strength and drive and purpose, the conservative head of the bank that had been the family’s livelihood for generations. He was a loving man, a devoted uncle, a pillar of strength for all of them.
And he’d nearly cried when he’d pulled the boys apart.
You can’t do this, his uncle had said. No more. You’re family.
Vito didn’t like upsetting his favorite uncle, but he had had nameless frustrations swirling inside him. He was claimed to be part of their clan, but he wasn’t. Something was off and he knew it. He loved his parents. His mother doted on him. His father showed great pride in every one of Vito’s accomplishments, but he didn’t feel close to them. He was different. Not quite like them, not the same in temperament or looks as his sisters. He felt more kinship toward Paolo’s father than his own. When they all came together for these sorts of big, family occasions, he caught watchful looks from some of the older aunts and uncles. It made him tense. Meanwhile, Paolo was so very confident in his own position, Vito was compelled to knock his cousin out of it.
So the angry accusation had come out. Am I? Family?
The way Paolo had looked to his father for that same answer, as if he too suspected Vito was not quite one of them, had been the most devastating blow of all.
Paolo’s father had stood there with his hand on his hair, like he’d come across a bomb blast and was suffering a kind of shell shock himself, unable to make sense of the broken landscape.
Then, very decisively, he had nodded. Fine. I’ll tell you. Both of you.
Vito had never questioned such huge news coming from his uncle, rather than his father. It was a Donatelli matter, after all. He was a Donatelli. Legally he was a Donatelli-Gallo. Women kept their maiden name when they married in Italy. He and his sisters used a hyphenated version of their parents’ names, but he had always felt more drawn to the Donatelli side of his family and used that name to this day.
Because he had no Gallo in him, he had learned, sitting on a retaining wall overlooking the lake, hearing his uncle explain to him that his mother, his real mother, was the youngest Donatelli sibling, Zia Antoinietta. The aunt who had died and was rarely mentioned because her loss made everyone so sad. Vito would later look at her photographs and see more of himself in her than in her older sister, the woman who had called herself his mother all his life.
Your father was a dangerous man, Vito. Dangerous to us as a family, to the bank and very dangerous to your mother. I pulled her away from him so many times, but she kept going back. She was pregnant. She thought she loved him. I’ll never forgive myself for not finding a way... She finally realized what was in store for both of you when he knocked her around and put her into labor. She called me to come to her where she was hiding from him. She died having you. I held her, waiting for the damned ambulance, and she begged me to keep you away from him, to keep you from turning into a mafioso like him. He wanted an heir to his empire, but it’s a kingdom built on blood and suffering. We would have called you Paolo’s brother, but well, you know the story we tell instead.
Vito did. His adoptive mother, the middle sister, often told the story of how she had thought she had miscarried, but Vito had miraculously survived. In reality, she and her husband had spirited her sister’s newborn to the family home at the lake and waited out a suitable time before presenting Vito as their son. His birthday was off by four months.
I paid a fortune to the doctors to write out a certificate that you had died with her. And threatened your father with murder charges if the affair ever came out. I’m certain he would come for you if he knew you survived, Paolo’s father had warned.
Vito could only imagine the fortune Paolo’s father had paid to keep the liaison from becoming public knowledge and destroying the bank as it was. If online scandal rags had existed then, the affair wouldn’t have suppressed as easily, he was sure.
Your mother was too precious to me, you are too precious to me, for me to watch you two beating each other senseless. Turning to Paolo, he had lifted his shirt, showing a long scar that had always been blamed on surgery, but not today. Did I take this knife trying to bring home my sister so my own son could kill hers? Save your strength for the fights that matter, then fight them together. Understand?