Revenge.
I'm familiar with it. You have to be when you're the firstborn son of a notorious mafia leader. Death and vengeance have been the very foundations of my life.
So who in their fucking mind would be stupid enough to cross me?
My brother and...
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The door to my study swings open without warning. I take off my headphones and eye my father, who charges in. He's usually the type to respect my privacy.
"Everything okay?" I ask even though I already know the answer. My father is a calm and level man. For him to be this rattled has to mean something really bad has happened.
He takes my hands in his and offers a tight smile. "Principessa, I will be gone for a short while. Your sister is in her room and the cook will prepare dinner. I hope to be home late tonight but business could hold me up until the morning, sì?"
I nod, his words not assuring me in the least. "Did something happen?"
"Business," he answers vaguely.
He prefers to keep both his daughters in the dark about anything related to the Familia. Knowing our world and the kind of "business" they get into, Alessa and I prefer it that way too.
"Okay." I give him what I hope is a sincere smile. "You'll be safe?"
"Always." He leans down to kiss my forehead, cupping my face gently.
I feel my stomach sink when he leaves the room. My father is consigliere of the mafia which means every time he leaves the house, there's no guarantee he'll come back. It's bad enough we lost my mother four years ago to a heart attack. Every second of my life is spent worrying over the only parent I have left.
I hear him bark orders at his soldiers downstairs. I head down the hall and peer over the stairs just as I catch a whole fleet of them following my father out the door. They're all heavily armed and the air around them is tinged with panic.
I frown, knowing I have no place to get involved. This is men's work, chauvinistic as it is. Alessa and I are lucky enough that our father lets us study and make our own careers. Women in our world get married off as soon as they are of age. I went to school with so many girls who found themselves married and pregnant at eighteen by force. I'm twenty-four and unmarried, working as a nurse. It's unheard of—a woman my age to be single and without child and an actual stable career to support herself. But my father always afforded my sister and I the chance to make our own destiny and fought anyone who challenged him from doing so.
I go to her now, knocking on her door in warning before opening it. Her nose is buried in her textbooks so close she may as well be attached to them. She's in her last year of high school and super serious about her studies.
"Hey." I lean against her door frame. She mumbles something incoherent back. "Studying?"
"Will be the death of me," she finishes my sentence with a groan. "What's all the commotion outside?"
"Not sure. Father said something about business."
"Ugh. Don't elaborate. I like pretending he's like any other lame dad and doesn't kill people for a lifestyle."
