by Bree Porter
My husband made a show of finding him, swinging him back around. When he put him back on the ground, Enzo whined.
“Lay the table and then I’ll swing you around some more,” Alessandro instructed.
Enzo ran off to me, searching for the plates.
“Morning, Daddy,” Caterina said.
Alessandro greeted our two eldest children, ruffling Dante’s hair and giving Caterina a kiss on her forehead. “Good job for helping your mother,” he told them both.
Both of them brightened at his approval.
I rolled my eyes but let Alessandro take me into his arms, kissing him softly on the lips.
“You didn’t wake me,” he said.
“I was trying to let you sleep in, but unfortunately, your children had other plans.”
Alessandro’s eyes gleamed. “Speaking of my children, I am missing one.”
Like she knew we were talking about her, Pia came giggling into the kitchen. She had on one shoe.
“Daddy!”
Alessandro scooped her up. “Oh, my girl! Why do you have on a shoe? Are you going somewhere?”
She laughed.
“Come on. Let’s help your brother lay the table.”
Soon, I was placing pancakes down into the middle of the dining table. All my children instantly dug in; their grabby fingers stretched out.
“There is enough for everybody,” I said when Enzo tried to take an entire pint of orange juice. “Don’t be greedy.”
When Enzo didn’t stop, Alessandro said his name warningly. Instantly, our four-year old froze.
“Incredible,” I muttered, taking my seat.
“What do you kids say?” Alessandro asked.
Instantly, all of them were saying, “Thank you, Mama.” Pia even blew me a kiss, making me laugh.
“Thank you, my babies. Now, what does everyone have planned for today?”
Dante looked to Alessandro. “Dad’s taking Raffaele, Adriano and I to the circuit.”
My husband nodded. “Until lunchtime.”
Then Alessandro had to go to work. There was a drug shipment coming in at 2, which Alessandro had to oversee. It was from a new supplier of ours, so my husband was being extra critical.
“Daddy,” Cat piped up, “can I go with Nonno to Evanston?”
Alessandro met my eyes across the table, eyebrows raised. I nodded. “That’s fine, darling.”
She brightened. “Thank you, Daddy.”
His features softened. Alessandro had a soft spot for both his daughters, especially his first daughter. Whereas I was a bit softer on the boys, Alessandro had always been more lenient on the girls. I don’t know why it had turned out that way, but it had.
“What are you and your grandfather going to do in Evanston?” he asked.
“Evanston mall is the only mall in Illinois that currently has a complete Oxford Dictionary,” she said casually, like we all knew what that was.
Alessandro nodded. “Ah.”
At our blank looks, she added, “It has every English word ever recorded in it.”
We all nodded.
“That sounds awesome, baby,” I said. “You might have to bring a wagon to carry it home.”
Caterina smiled slightly. “Yeah, maybe.”
“What about you, Mr Enzo?” I asked.
Enzo was currently trying to smush all his strawberry into his pancake. He grinned up at me, knowing he was breaking the rules by playing with his food. Did he care? No.
“I’m gonna eat pancakes,” he told me.
“Very good. Anything else?”
“Nope!” He licked his spoon.
“What about you, Pia?”
My daughter wasn’t listening. She had spotted Polpetto and her eyes had narrowed. “Petto!”
Alessandro looked over his shoulder, spotting the dog. “Leave him alone, Pia.”
“Puppy!” she shouted.
Like it was a code word, all the children straightened in their chairs.
“Can we get a dog?” Caterina asked.
“A cool one,” Dante added. “Like a mastiff.”
Enzo nodded. “One we can ride!”
“Puppy!” Pia finished.
“No more pets,” Alessandro warned. “If you want to play with a dog, you head on over to your great-grandmother’s house.”
That was usually what we did, just sent them off for a few hours with Nicoletta to play with the dogs. I didn’t think Alessandro noticed that it only made them want another pet more.
“Noo,” Enzo whined.
“Nonna Nicoletta doesn’t even know my name,” Dante said.
“Don’t be rude,” I told him. “She knows your name; she just doesn’t know your face.”
He cut me a smile, identical to Alessandro’s.
When breakfast was over, I relaxed at the table while Alessandro and the children put the dishes away. Caterina even bought me a coffee, trying very hard not to spill it.
I watched them as they worked, my entire heart separated into five individual souls. They giggled and fought, throwing soap and bubbles at each other. When Enzo got jam in Caterina’s hair, Alessandro shut the whole game down.
“You went too far and now no fun,” he told them, but his eyes gleamed.
I heard the front door open, then, “Hello?”
“In here, darling!”
Adriano Rocchetti came into the kitchen, his dark brown eyes bright. “Hi, Auntie Sophia.”
“Hi, Adriano. There is leftover pancake, if you want some.”
My daughter piped up, “Uh, no, there isn’t.” I turned to see Caterina with Enzo. Enzo had thrown the leftover pancakes into the bin like a frisbee.
I shot him a warning look, but said to Adriano, “You can have some fruit.”
“It’s okay, Auntie Sophia,” he said, shoving at his dark hair. “I already had breakfast.”
“Okay, then.”
“We’ll leave in a minute, Adriano,” Alessandro told him.
Adriano straightened. “Yes, sir.” To Pia, he said, “Aurelia is outside.”
“Relly!” Pia chirped.
Dante cringed.
Aurelia di Traglia was the first girl born into the di Traglia family, meaning she was betrothed to Dante. They were both so little and chubby-cheeked at the moment, but one day they would be wed. Aurelia was a bit too young to understand but Dante knew.
“You should go say hi, Dante,” I told him.
He did not look like he wanted to do that.
Not a few moments later, my father-in-law came striding into our house like it was his own. Raffaele walked by his side, dodging his father’s playful strikes.
“Where is my granddaughter?” Toto the Terrible called as he walked inside.
Caterina waved. “Hi, Nonna.”
“Ready to go and buy some big ass book?”
“Language,” Alessandro warned.
Toto winked at his granddaughter. To his son, he said, “Say hi to your brother and Sophia.”
Raffaele greeted us, and I offered him some fruit, which he politely declined.
Getting the boys out of the house proved difficult, but soon I was standing on the driveway, Pia and Enzo by my feet. Alessandro took the three older boys, while Toto carried Caterina on his shoulders across the street, listening to something she was telling him.
As he went to go, Alessandro gave me a deep kiss, ignoring the disgusted cries of our children.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too. Drive safe.”
He nodded, leaving me with a smile.
Our marriage had been good, powerful, for the past ten years. We were happy, still devoted to each other. How strange to think so after what I had expected when I was much younger and a newly-minted wife.
I spotted Beatrice on her lawn, her two children, Elisabetta and Stefano, chasing each other. Sergio waved at Alessandro as he passed, holding his daughter, Rosanna Ossani, on his hip. Aurelia di Traglia ran pass, chased by her father, their laught
er lifting up into the clouds.
So domestic, so suburban, but home to some of the world’s fiercest gangsters.
Over the ten years that had passed since I had married Alessandro ‘The Godless’ Rocchetti, so much had happened. People had fallen in and out of love, children had been born and blessed, marriages arranged.
The Outfit had shifted, the Rocchettis had shifted. Mafias outside of Chicago had changed. More stories than I could ever tell had passed, tales filled with pain and loyalty, blood and duty.
I looked down at my children, staring into their dark eyes.
And so many more stories would come to pass.
“Miss Sophia, your father wishes to see you.”
I looked up from the dough I had been kneading. Dita stood by the doorway to the kitchen, moving foot to foot.
“Tell him I will be there in just a moment.”
“He was quite…insistent, Miss Sophia,” Dita said. She looked over her shoulder, like she was afraid of something.
I wiped my hands. “I will go right away. Would you mind…”
“Of course not.” Dita took over my spot in the kitchen, working the dough with an expert’s hand.
I washed my hands and hung up my apron. Papa would not be pleased if I walked flour into his office.
Papa’s office was the most important room in the house, I had always thought. It was where our uncles and cousins went in after dinner, smoking heavily and discussing Outfit business. Whenever the mahogany doors were closed, we knew to give the room a wide berth. Being summoned to the office was equivalent to being sent to the principal’s office.
If Papa was a king, then his office would be the seat of his power.
The doors were cracked slightly open, but I still knocked. “Papa?”
“Come in, bambolina.”
I slid into the room, closing the door softly behind me.
The office was dimly lit, the only source of light was the sun rays spilling under the curtains. If you peered through the smoky air, you could make out the old books with their unopened spines and paintings of Sicilian battles lined up against the walls. In the middle of the room, the large desk sat, with my father at it, overseeing the room like a 17th century monarch.
Papa gestured to me. “Sit down, bambolina.”
I sat down obediently, the leather chair sinking under my weight. “Is everything okay, Papa?”
My father didn’t look happy—not that he was a man known for his positive outlook on life. But usually, I got a thin smile.
“I have some news,” he said.
News? What sort of news? Good news or bad news? “Oh?”
Papa linked his fingers in front of him. “The Don has approached me with a very…very generous offer. More generous than we deserve.”
The Don? My stomach tensed. I was not going to like where this conversation went.
“He has offered for you to marry one of his grandsons.”
All thoughts eddied from my head, then came crashing back in a single anxious wave. Don? Marriage? Grandson? I could hardly form a coherent thought—could hardly believe what I was hearing.
“You will become a Rocchetti. It is a good match, all things considered,” he said.
I parted my lips, but no words came out.
“I had hoped for someone softer for you,” Papa said apologetically. “But…there are no more men equivalent to your status and you’re nearly twenty-five, my dear. Much too old not to be married.”
“I’m only twenty-one” was all I could say.
His words were still repeating through my head, not truly sinking in.
“You will be twenty-two by the time you are married,” he said.
Papa looked at the photos lined up along his desk. Photos of my sister and I. His countless wives had never made the cut of being presented on the desk, so I use to feel a strange sort of accomplishment over it. Now, they were a reminder that I had once had a sister and I did not have one any longer.
I looked over to the chair beside me. Two leather chairs were in front of my dad’s desk. I had always taken the one on the left and Cat had always taken the seat on the right.
The empty chair mocked me silently.
“Sophia?” Papa prompted.
I looked to him.
In his defense, Papa did not seem very happy with the offer. But I knew he would get power and money out of allying me to someone, even if he, himself was terrified of my new groom and his family.
“I am getting old, Sophia,” Papa tried. “This is the only way I will know you are cared for. I will not be alive forever to care for you.”
“Of course not.” I smiled tightly at him. I did not have a lot of family left, and speaking about my father’s death did not make me feel better. “But…the Rocchettis?”
Even saying their name made the air in the room feel colder.
“You will be treated well,” he said. Then added, “Just do not give him a reason to punish you and you will be safe.”
I had lived my life that way. Avoiding punishment, whether it be punishment of violence or disappointment. Whether just by behaving or acting stupid enough to get away with a bit of rebellion. Either way, I knew what was expected of me. I knew my father would only punish me if I broke his rules…but what about my husband-to-be?
He might just punish for me for fun.
Nausea rose up in me.
Papa was getting impatient with me. I could see it in his eyes. “You should be very happy, Sophia. There are many younger women that have been offered to the Rocchettis, and yet it was you who was chosen. They are a very powerful family and any marriage to one of them will guarantee luxury and safety.”
Those young women’s families would be upset they did not make the match, but the young women themselves would be relieved.
I straightened. “I know, Papa. Forgive me…I was just afraid. There are rumors about women…”
“You will do yourself good by ignoring those,” Papa said. But his tone and the position of his body told me he believed them himself. “I know you are afraid, my dear. But you are a good girl and will be a good wife. What do you have to fear?”
His words fell flat.
I tried to smile. If it was any other man, I might have been grateful. Though my desire for marriage had lessened after my sister’s death, I understood that I was growing older and marrying so fast after a death in the family was seen as quite inappropriate. A large part of me just wanted to stay with my father, but he would die soon enough, as morbid as that was, and then what would I do?
But to marry into the Rocchettis…
“Which Rocchetti?” I managed to ask.
Papa looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Alessandro Rocchetti.”
My blood went cold. “What.”
“You do not say what, Sophia. That is bad manners.”
I was flabbergasted. “But—but he’s horrible! He’s a monster! You don’t even like to talk to him at events, Papa, because he’s so terrifying!”
Papa suddenly looked furious and I knew I had gone too far. “You do not speak like that to me, Sophia Antonia. Marrying into the Rocchetti family will bring you a life of luxury.”
And my father a lot of money and business deals.
“I’m sorry, Papa.” I slumped back into my chair.
Alessandro Rocchetti…was a man to be reckoned with. They called him The Godless, a not so subtle hint about all the unholy atrocities he had completed over the years. I was not privy to Outfit business, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t overheard the gruesome tales that followed the youngest Rocchetti brother.
I gripped the chair, steadying myself.
Papa apparently had no comfort left in him and stood. He loomed over his desk and down at me. The huge overbearing figure in my life who I had gone from resenting to loving back to resenting in one day. Sometimes even multiple times a day.
You shouldn’t hate your father, I told myself.
And I didn’t, not truly. Cat had hated him, ha
ted our stepmothers. Even the housekeepers, she had resented. But I had never found it in myself to hate them—after all, they were just doing what they had been trained and taught to do. Especially our Capo father.
Even if he has sold me off to a monster, with little care of my wellbeing.
“You’re very lucky the Rocchettis have decided to let you marry their son, Sophia. I know they are looking for someone very different for Salvatore.” Which meant they wanted someone younger and who wasn’t in a time of mourning.
I looked over at the empty chair beside me. Cat would’ve said something. She had never been prone to doing anything she didn’t want to do.
“I know he is a hard man,” Papa said, trying to sound soft but failing miserably. “But you are a good girl, when you’re quiet, and your good behavior will let you remain unpunished.” As it had always done with him. “I had hoped to marry you to someone…different. But we cannot look a gifted horse in the mouth.”
His wording surprised me. There was a strange resignation to them as if Papa hadn’t been totally on board with my marriage into the Rocchetti clan, despite the connections and business deals he would surely receive from it.
I didn’t point it out. He would deny it.
Papa walked around his desk and put a heavy hand to my shoulder. “I do not wish to cause you any more grief, Sophia, but the fact is I will not live forever, and I would like to assurance that my daughter is well-looked after when I’m gone. By your husband and then your son.”
With the way the Rocchettis went through women, I doubted I would live to see my son.
“When is the wedding?” I squeaked.
“It is planned for the 25th of January.”
That wasn’t even six months away. Engagements took place over years—decades, even! But not even half a year? That was not how things were done.
“You will have to get a dress soon,” he said. “Take some of your cousins and go pick one out. You will enjoy that.”
I nodded, not really listening. “When…when is the engagement party?”
“There is not enough time to plan an engagement party and a wedding,” Papa said. “You will just have to make do without one. But Alessandro will be over to present your ring to you. I expect you to be on your best behavior.”
Best behavior? I felt like screaming, like pulling down the wallpaper with my fingernails. I felt like lunging at my father and hurting him. I wanted to howl and scream and hurt—
