Eight “I don’t think you should go.” Laura’s response to being invited to a party surprised me. Normally, Laura was always the one that was trying to get me to do something rash. The two of us sat on the couch, eating the remains of the brownies we’d baked the night before. I glared at her. “Come on. You’re the one that is always telling me that I need to get out more.” Laura sighed. “I know. But that was before.” “Before what?” she’d been acting weird since her fathers visit yesterday. After the lecture he’d given my class, apparently, he’d showed up at the apartment and told her some family news. Since then, Laura had been strangely quiet. When I got home from class, she’d begrudgingly joined me to bake. I tried getting her to talk but mostly she just hummed along to the music I played in the background. Laura made a face. “I just…I mean…” she shoved the rest of her brownie into her mouth. I squinted. “You are h
Nine My phone wouldn’t stop vibrating. That was unusual for me. I only had a few friends and my first thought was that maybe Gemma had been worried about where I was. I got up from where I had fallen asleep on my couch, my head in Laura’s lap. She had fallen asleep using the sofa armrest as a pillow.“What the hell?” I stared at my phone.The first few messages were from my cousin, Nero. The second was Gemma. And the third was my uncle, Titus. I also had a bunch of pictures from Instagram that I couldn’t understand. I barely posted on there.The first message from Nero said FUCKING CALL ME.If my older cousin, who was twenty-one, and lived in New York was calling me, I was in deep shit. He was an extension of my uncle. He handled the family business in the U.S. When I got into trouble freshman year, he was the one who helped me hide everything. He convinced my uncle to let me come to Italy and take care of the situation I had found myself in.I called him. “Nero, what’s wrong?”“Are
TenA lot of the people I tutored were usually athletes. At the moment, I was sitting at a café, with one of the quarterbacks. A shadow fell over me. “Another conquest, Emmi?” I looked up and standing there was Nero.He was tall with jet black hair and had a scar over his eye. I sighed and glanced up at Carter, the blond football player I’d been helping. “Hey, how about I call you later and we can try this again?” I said.Carter raised an eyebrow. “Boyfriend?”I made a face. “Gross. Cousin.”“Ah. Family business.” Carter stood up and packed his things. “No worries, teach. I’ll see you later. Let me know when you’re free.”He left and Nero slid into the seat that Carter had been sitting in.“Tell me that’s not someone else you’re fucking,” Nero said.I shook my head. “No. I’m not fucking anyone. I’m not even fucking Cesare. I told you; I’ve been good.”“Then why is Cesare Luna suddenly posting pictures about you?” Nero asked.I sighed. “He’s obsessed and delusional. I’ve never done any
ElevenAfter I talked with Nero, I didn’t go to the apartment. Instead, I took a bus home and texted Laura that I would be staying with my mom. When I got there, I told mom everything. She hugged me, pulled me inside, and then made me some Ribollita. I sat with her on my old bed and cried into her arms.“You know, your father wouldn’t have wanted this,” said Mama, “you going after that boy…”“I know,” I said, “I shouldn’t have done it…I shouldn’t have been with him. But I was so angry after he died…nothing made sense anymore. That accident took away the last part of my senior year. It should have gone so differently. When I saw Cesare at that welcome back party, all I could think about was revenge.”“So, you let him take your virginity as what? A consolation prize?” Mama said.I glared at her. “I didn’t plan on getting pregnant. I’ve been on the pill since I was a teenager because of my acne. Tori just…happened.”Mama sighed. “I know. I love my granddaughter too, don’t for one second
TwelveI stayed at my mothers for a few days. When she went to work, I studied, and did work online. I cleaned up a little. I cooked and made her dinner when she came home. It had been almost a week and I hadn’t answered any calls or messages from anyone. Finally, one afternoon, there was a knock on the brownstone’s door.I flinched at the sound of it. “Shit.” I went to the door and I peaked through the hole. I opened the door and realized that it was actually Nero. “What are you doing here?”“You wouldn’t answer,” he said, “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for days.”I gripped the door tightly. “I’m sorry. I wanted to stay away from the drama. I thought that it was better that I not be around the two of them right now.”“Call Laura,” he told me.I blinked. “Um…okay. Why?”“Because she’s worried about you, and just because her brother is an asshole, that doesn’t mean that you should be pushing her away. She’s good people.”I glared accusatorily had him. “Did you do something
ThirteenI was in a moving car. That was the first thing I noticed when I woke up. I looked out the window, trying to figure out where I was. I heard music playing on the radio, a song I didn’t recognize. I glanced over to the side and my heart pounded against my chest when I realized that I was with Cesare.“Hello, Emmilia.”I shivered. “Cesare…” I blinked. “What happened?”Cesare smiled. The kind of smile that made him look like the devil come to collect. “You’re running away from me, Emmilia. I can’t let that happened.”I groaned. “I already told you…I don’t want you.”He laughed. “You’re lying.”“I’m not,” I insisted.He reached out and traced my arm. I shivered again. Fuck. He smiled even wider. “I barely did anything that time. Imagine all of the noises that I could have you making if you let me.”“Where are you taking me?” I asked.“I’ve already taken you there.”“What are you talking about?”“I wanted alone time with you to talk. So, I took you to my family’s house in The Hamp
FourteenThe car had been a dream.Or a nightmare. I wasn’t sure anymore. Laura took me back to our dorm, with Billy and Giovani driving us. Mama said she would give me time to think about what I wanted to do. When I was alone with Laura at home, she asked, “Did my brother hurt you when you two were together?”I glanced at her. “What? Why would you think that?”She sighed. “Nero stopped by. He wouldn’t tell me everything that happened, but I knew it had something to do with that damned picture Cesare posted. He thinks because he’s named after an Emperor that he rules the world… he hasn’t yet learned that he doesn’t. It’s only that most girls when they see Cesare, they want him to fall in love with him. He’s totally helpless when it comes to you but you don’t seem to want anything to do with him.”“It’s not him,” I admitted, “It’s the underworld. You know what it’s like. You had to change your whole life because your family gets death threats…if you had it your way, would you even be h
Fifteen“I want you to come with me,” said Donatello.I couldn’t wrap my mind around the news that he had told me. How had he been my father this whole time? I suppose it explained why I could never seem to escape the underground. I was exactly like Laura. A mafia princess. I didn’t like thinking about that idea.At least, when I had thought The Fixer was my father, he had been someone from the outside.“But…the man that I thought was my father…”“He’s your uncle,” Donatello said, “he stopped working for the mob a long time ago. He went freelance because he didn’t want to be associated with our family. I cleaned up the business a lot. It took time and he was part of that.”“What about the woman I thought was my mother?” I asked.Donatello walked over to the kitchen table and sat down without being asked. He gestured for me to sit down next to him. I did as told, the same way I always did for as long as he had been in my life. He was the kind of figure that you simply didn’t say no to.