Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

Prologue

101St Street

Ozone Park, Queens, Nyc

FOURTH OF JULY BLOCK PARTY

“Step right up! See the World’s Tiniest Woman with your own eyes! A freak of nature, right in this very tent!” The tiny wrinkled man was missing a few teeth, his black hair cut into a deep mullet, with a long braid extending down his back. He leaned down to the little girl watching him, a slow sneer spreading across his pockmarked face, the stench of his stale breath stinging her green eyes.

“She’s even smaller than you, little one!” His laugh was short and jagged like the thin, dirty finger he pointed at her nose. She recoiled in horror, stepping back into her mother’s skirt.

“Come along, Gabriella,” her mother grabbed her daughter’s hand and pulled her away from the man quickly and together they threaded through the crowd.

“Mama,” the girl asked, “why is the woman so small?”

“I don’t know, darling,” her mother replied. “Some people are just born that way.”

The girl wrinkled her brow, hoping she didn’t stay this size. She was already taller than most of the kids in her class, and she was still growing. But she hated being little. It was so unfair. There were so many things you couldn’t do. You couldn’t see over people’s shoulders, for one, so that meant she couldn’t see how far away they were from the Ferris wheel her mother had promised to take her on before the fireworks later.

“Oh, hello, Vicky,” her mother said, stopping abruptly. The girl ran into her mother’s soft skirt, and her mom pulled her hand away to shake Vicky’s. They stood talking forever, about whatever mom’s talk about. Vicky had apparently just had a new dishwasher delivered, and she rattled on and on about it as the crowd streamed past them.

The smell of cotton candy drifted through the air, seducing the girl like a siren’s song with the promise of pink fluffy heaven. Her feet began moving as if they had a mind all of their own, or rather, a nose of their own. Gabriella was just an eager participant, along for the ride, her mother long forgotten behind her, still nodding politely at Vicky’s unleashed stream of consciousness, completely oblivious to the fact that her daughter was wandering off without her.

Gabrielle weaved through the sea of thighs like a snake - quietly, smoothly, efficiently. Her sight was blocked, so she followed her nose, her mind focused on one thing only - the anticipation of the blissful first moment when that sticky cotton candy touched her tongue.

She’d fallen in love with it last year at the Fourth of July block party that Mr. Giannetti organized for the neighborhood every year. Each Fourth of July, he closed down the entire block of 101st Street outside of the Bugotti’s Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park. He had all these amazing carnival rides brought in that you could ride for free and turned the street into a real bona fide carnival, inviting the entire neighborhood. Everyone loved it, and everyone loved him.

Nobody seemed to mind where the money came from. As far as they were concerned, he was a saint. He kept the crime out of the neighborhood and he helped out the families when they needed it.

Gabrielle’s mom, especially, loved him. She’d never say that out loud, of course. But the girl saw the way her mother batted her eyes at him, the way her hand flew to her heart every time he said hello to her. She actually blushed and she didn’t do that around her dad.

The girl was a little embarrassed about it. He was her father’s boss, after all. But her dad didn’t seem to notice, so the girl kept it to herself. She liked Mr. Giannetti too, but only because he was responsible for the carnival. It was her favorite time of the year.

The cotton candy was just one of the reasons.

The sea of thighs parted and she found herself near a large tent. She followed around behind it, mostly because there weren’t a lot of people that she had to maneuver through. Her mission had not wavered. Cotton candy was the only thing she could think about.

Gabriella looked around for other people but didn’t see anyone. She walked around the tent and saw an open flap at the back. Voices rose from inside and she peeked in.

Her father was there, standing proudly in his impeccable signature black suit. He was yelling at a man she’d never seen before. That man wore a brown suit and a brown hat like the man at the grocery store that Gabriella’s father took her to get ice cream on Sundays. Chocolate, always chocolate.

“Leo, I’m sorry, please…” the man pleaded, as her father pointed a gun at his chest. Another man, who she recognized as her father’s friend Tiny, entered the tent from the front, huffing and puffing as if he’d been running for a while.

“Boss says we gotta do it, Leo,” Tiny said, shaking his head.

With wild, desperate eyes, the man begged her father again.

“Please, Leo, you can’t leave my boy an orphan. I got a family, Leo! My wife!” the man pleaded.

“I’m sorry, Paulie. The Boss says so, and you know what that means,” her father said, shaking his head.

“Leo, it’ll kill my Ma. Her heart can’t handle a thing like this, she’s so frail. Leo, please don’t!” the man kept pleaded.

“Daddy,” the girl whispered to herself, watching with wide eyes from her hiding place.

“Don’t beg, Paulie. Go quietly, while you still have your dignity,” Leo said.

“No!” The man screamed, and then took a step back, pulling a gun from his jacket.

Shots rang out and the girl ducked.

“Get down!” she heard a muffled voice just as arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her ten feet away. She landed on the ground under a shrub with a boy on top of her. Bullets whizzed by their heads as he covered her body with his.

When the bullets finally stopped, they looked up. A bullet had ripped through the tent exactly where she had been standing moments earlier. The flimsy door of the tent was flapping in the breeze and they could see the man in the brown suit lying there, his hat lying next to him, dripping with blood.

She turned her head and stared up into the darkest pair of eyes she’d ever seen. They were wide with fear and worry, scurrying over her body.

“Are you alright?” he whispered urgently. He couldn’t have been much older than her, she thought. His black hair was almost as dark as his eyes. His lashes were longer than hers and she stared up at him curiously.

“Yes, I think so,” she nodded. “Thank you. Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he replied, staring down into her big green eyes.

“We should get out of here,” he said.

“Gabriella!” Her mother’s voice broke the silence as they continued to stare into each other’s eyes, their gaze locked together. “Gabrieelllllaa!!”

Footsteps shuffled inside the tent, the sound of them disappearing out the front of the tent and fading away.

Are they going to come back? the boy wondered. He didn’t want to wait around to find out.

“Let’s go!” he said, pulling the girl to her feet.

“No, I can’t…” she shook her head, her eyes filled with fear as she looked back at the tent.

“It’s not safe here!” he insisted, attempting to pull her away with him. “Come with me!”

“Gabriella Loprinzi!” A man’s voice bellowed, startling them both with its closeness.

“Hide!” the girl yelled to the boy, pushing him away. “My father is coming!”

His brow wrinkled in confusion, but he followed his instincts and did as she said, hiding behind a dumpster just as the man rounded the corner.

“Daddy!” the girl cried, running to the man in the black suit who they had just watched hold a man at gunpoint.

“That’s your dad?” the boy whispered to himself, as goosebumps spread over his skin.

He watched the girl be led away, her tiny hand enclosed in the hand that had just taken a man’s life.

She looked back over her shoulder, their eyes colliding once again, neither of them knowing that their destinies had just been set into motion.

Gabriella

Loprinzi… That was a name he would never forget.

Gabby

I knew I shouldn’t have been here, but that rebellious streak was rushing through my veins even before I walked in, and I knew I couldn’t turn back now.

So, I didn’t even try.

I strutted directly into the eye of the storm with every intention to fully enjoy its wrath.

Thing is, I didn’t know what that truly meant at the time. Now, I do. Looking back, I see I had no clue what I was really in for.

I walked in that door with one thing on my mind, the self-assured cockiness that only comes with youth and blind faith in your own immortality wrapped around me like an invisible security blanket.

I was invincible, or so I thought.

And who could blame me? I’d been treated like a princess my whole life. Untouchable, because of my name. Because of my family. Because my family wasn’t just a family. We were The Family.