Fatalé (18+)

Chapter nineteen

Ilaria

Being a girl in Cosa Nostra was tough. No one admitted that because if anyone did, people will judge you for being ungrateful.

Fathers in Cosa Nostra treated their women like queens and their daughters like gold but the reality of it was that, one minute you're a princess, the next, you're just a piece of meat for the unmarried men. Yes, the unmarried men who crave young Italian good girls. Most of them were old and divorced, some of them were young and forced to marry. But either way, you're expected to be a good little Italian girl and marry whoever your parents want you to. That's what you call a good little Italian girl.

Most parents do this to maintain a healthy reputation because nothing else mattered but a Lombardi was different. Mamma hated that stupid tradition and papà never even thought about marriage for me because he never wanted me to go near a man until I was thirty. I laugh whenever I reminisce the day papà found out I had my first boyfriend. I was barely thirteen, had a huge crush with one of papà's associates son, he was a cute Italian boy, a year older than me. The moment papà found out, he immediately cut ties with them, no matter how important their association was. But that never stopped me from seeing my boyfriend because he went to the same school as me. Papà was mad, always but eventually, with time, his anger frizzled out just like my relationship with the Italian boy.

The days leading up to the day I turned eighteen, there was a lot of tension. I asked mamma why because our home didn't feel like home, with Papà and his associates always meeting there, arguing and having late night meet ups in his office. Mamma told me not to worry about it and Papà always returned to us with a smile on his face like nothing was bothering him. The day before I turned eighteen, Papà kissed me and told me how much he loves me but a week later, I was gone. And that was the last time I've heard him say that to me.

During a conversation Papà had with Zio Fabio, I overhead most of it. The reason why he was so agitated during the days leading up to my eighteenth was because people wanted me. I was a young Lombardi Italian, coming from a wealthy family and had power that these people did not have. One person in particular wanted me but I couldn't decipher who as Papà was being too discreet, even in his conversation with Zio but what I could make out was that he was a Russian rival.

When Ricardo found me, he told me that I was better off without the Lombardi's because they were going to get me married to an old rich Italian man and it confused me more but I believed what I was told then because of my emotional state. The problem here was, there was never an old Italian rich man, it was a Russian associate that became obsessed with the Lombardi's and wanted a hand in marriage, it seems like. This was not common knowledge, Papà never let anyone know this because it fucked with him. My suspicions on Ricardo grows days by day because he was never supposed to know about the Russians, so my question still remains, how does he know about the Russians?

With the spoon half way in my mouth, I glare at the window and watch the pavement in front of 505 Wall Street, the same location Niccolò told me to meet him at. Right now, I was in the small cafe opposite the building, watching like a hawk. Though he told me to meet him, I thought I'd meet him only but as I sit on this rusty chair and watch every being enter that building, I feel my blood rush to my brain. I watch the mafia don walk into the building casually, a tight shirt wrapped around his perfect body, curving out his huge bicep. He wore a blazer too but he took it off and held it in his hand. But what annoyed me was the leeching motherfucker that followed him in the building and the wife. Stefano and his wife follows Niccolò. For as long as I could remember, I didn't agree to meet with Stefano and his bitch, and if I agreed to work with Niccolò, I certainly did not agree to work with Stefano because for some reason, I have a grudge against him.