My brothers will have the privilege of inheriting the mafia after he dies. Although I do wonder if it’s a blessing or a curse. My bet is on the latter.
It’s obvious that I’m not a fan of my famiglia. They may be my blood, but they don’t treat me like family. My brothers treat me the same as our father does. When it comes to my mother, she barely looks at me. I think that’s because she’s too ashamed of the fact she doesn’t stand up to my father. But who would dare to speak up to Signore DiGiovanni? Any person who does is immediately shot down, and no, that isn’t a metaphor or an exaggeration.
I hate the way that I’m treated but I’ll take every minute of agony if it means that my little sister, Alessandra, doesn’t have to endure the same horrors. Sometimes when I lay awake in the middle of the night all I can occupy my time with is wondering about when my father will force her to make the same sacrifices I do.
I’m in New York right now at my friend Angelina’s apartment on the Upper East Side. Her father owns a massive cybersecurity company, but also caters to the famiglia’s physical needs as well. She’s the apple of her father’s eye, his absolute pride and joy. Growing up I had always looked at their relationship with jealousy, or maybe it was a longing feeling. Either way, I craved the sort of affection that I had witnessed Angelina get when we were children. Even now, well into our mid-twenties, her father showers her with love. I’ve accepted that I’ll never have anything close to it with my own.
All I want to do is get up and leave, to abandon my family and the things that tie me to it. The only thing that they bring me is misery, or more specifically my father does. My brothers are close behind him on that train, though. I’m only here to protect Alessandra, and that’s it. I want her to come with me, to leave this place, to go anywhere. The only way we could ever escape my father’s clutches is if we disappear to someplace that no one knows us. My only problem is that she doesn’t see him in the same light that I do. That’s only because she’s a naïve seventeen-year-old girl who hasn’t been thrown into the bloodied trenches.
The only reason she’s escaped is that I’ve protected her, and she doesn’t even see it. She wants to believe that our father is a good man and while I want to allow her to keep that innocence— I can’t let her believe in a fairytale. Our father is not a good person. There was a time that I had been like her and believed it, but those years have gone and past. I see him for what he is now.
He did something horrific to me that has made me view him in an entirely different light. Alessandra has no idea of the atrocities he is guilty of, and I’m not talking about the deaths or his bad dealings. I don’t care about any of that. The only thing I care about is what he’s done to me and will do to my dear sister, and what he’s already done to my daughter. I haven’t seen her in over five years. She was ripped from my hands the day she was born and given straight to her father— Rafael Ramirez. It wasn’t a tale of love for Rafael and I. No, I was a gift given to him after my father and he had struck a deal. It’s always the same. My father tosses me to his associates as a reward. He acts as if my body isn’t my own and it belongs to the famiglia. It doesn’t, and I won’t ever allow it to.
“When are you and Alessandra leaving?” Angelina asks, eyes peering up in a concerned gaze.
I sigh because I haven’t uttered a word of it to my sister. I’m simply taking her in a rush and hoping we get far enough away to where my father won’t find us. “Tomorrow.”
“Is your plan solid?”
I nod. “As solid as it can be. I have new passports for us with brand new names, had the photos altered so our hair colors are different. You know our deal,” I remind her, smiling. “I can’t tell you anything because we know he’ll ask you what I’m doing and where I am. He’ll try to use you as a way to get to me and it’s safer for everyone involved if I don’t say anything.”
Angelina shrugs. “I know. I just wish things were different. I wish my best friend wasn’t carting herself and her sister off to God knows where. I just . . . wish I could know something.”
I start to open my mouth but am cut off by Angelina. “But I can’t.”
I nod, looking down at the floor. This breaks my heart into a million pieces, leaving the only person who has ever known me for who I am. The only person who really gives a damn on what happens to me. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”
“You have to leave. Your father made an arrangement with Sergei Kolosov. There is no choice in the matter. I will not allow you to stay here and marry this monster, who does nothing but hurt the women he is with. I told you what he did to his last wife.” Bella had told me a week ago, when my “engagement” to Sergei was announced, of the rumors. Apparently, he had forced an abortion on his last wife, a woman who he had been trying to have a child with for years.
I will not be married to Sergei, and I’ll say that to him straight to his face if he ever meets me. I will not bear children for him. I already have a child, a daughter named Piper and as soon as I am in Ireland and settled, I plan on taking her from her father.
I don’t know how but I will get my daughter back.
1
A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.
~ Virginia Wolf
Caprice
“What on earth is going on? Why haven’t you told me anything?” Alessandra screams at me while we’re on our way to the shipping yards. I haven’t told her as much as I should have already and I’ll admit that, but I knew how much she would fight with me regardless. If I need anything from her, it’s for her to not fight with me. I’m already mentally exhausted, thinking of how to accomplish this for the last few months and there are so many opportunities for error. We could even be caught before we’re on the ship, but we won’t know until that happens.
I quickly glance over to her, silently pleading for her to stop, just for her to trust me but it’s no use. She’s always asked questions since the day she was born. “You just have to trust me, Alessandra. Please, just trust me as your sister that what I’m doing for us is right, that it will help us. Please.” Tears well in my eyes as I beg her and for the first time in a very long time, she doesn’t ask me a question, she simply nods her head.
“I know this has something to do with Father. It’s obviously drawn across your face. I’m not a stupid girl, Caprice. I know that your relationship with him isn’t good, but why are you dragging me into this?”
I think of the ways that I should reply to her, of how I can sugar coat it and try to protect her memory of him as much as possible. While I love my sister, I hate my father and I’d love nothing more than to rip the love she has for him away but that would be selfish of me. “I’m taking us far away from Father. Far enough away to where hopefully he will never find us or do the things to you that he’s done to me. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to have to experience the same pain and struggle that I have at his hand. You deserve more than that, Alessandra. We both do. We deserve so much more.”
We are dropped off at the shipping yard in no time and thankfully through a friend of a friend we are able to board a shipping container and make our grand venture across the Atlantic. It will take days, but it was the only way to get us out of the country without some sort of record. It will simply look like we vanished— and that’s the only thing that will ensure our safety.
The accommodations in the container aren’t the most luxurious, but we don’t need anything fancy. We just need to stay alive, far away from our Father.
We’ve been on this boat for a week, a week worth of headaches and seasickness and today is the day that we should arrive in Dublin, Ireland— our new home. Alessandra hasn’t asked too many questions. It’s obvious that she sees the emotion and stress this is taking on my body. I haven’t acted like myself in a few days. I’m sure once we dock and get off the boat, I’ll start feeling better.
“Will you tell me what the plan is? I mean, I don’t want to bother you by asking you, but I need to know what’s
going on.”
I take a deep breath, pulling my cardigan closer to my body. “We’re going to dock within the next couple of hours hopefully, and from that point, you and I will go to a studio apartment that I have secured for us in downtown Dublin. We’ll rest and then I need to find a job. I think I’ll walk around town and see what I can get as a bartender or waitress job, something that won’t mind paying in cash.” I get up and walk over to where our few duffel bags are, unzipping one and pull out passports and cash. “We have enough to get us through the first month and a half at least but I need to find work if we’re going to stay ahead of everything.”
Alessandra closes her eyes and inhales deeply. “I don’t understand what is happening, Caprice, and for the life of me, I am trying to understand. I know you asked me to not ask you questions but I need to know. Please tell me what it is that we’re doing, why we’ve smuggled our way out of the United States to Ireland.”
“Father arranged a marriage for me to Sergei Kolosov. He’s a Russian arms dealer, one who is notorious for harming his wives. He is an animal who slaughters people for the hell of it, just because he can. The moment I am with this Sergei, you’d be put in my place, doing what I have done for years.”
Her brows furrow in confusion as she tries to put the pieces together. I raise my hand, signaling her not to speak.
“I know you aren’t a stupid girl, and you know there are reasons that Father and I do not see eye to eye. We both know of what his business dealings are. We are the Mafia, after all. What you have never been privy to is that Father loves to offer my body up as an appreciation gift to the men he does business with.” Alessandra’s eyes go wide as I tell her the ugly truth. “I am not his daughter. I am a tool for him, as are you.”
“Why would he do such a thing?”
I’ve asked myself the same question for years. The answer is a simple one. “Because he can. Because his business and the mafia are more important than we are to him. Sadly, that is not the worst thing that he’s done to me.”
“Part of me doesn’t want to know what else he could have done . . . but I need to know. I don’t understand why Father would do this to you . . . I don’t understand. He’s a good person, he’s our Father!” she says as tears flood over her cheeks, spilling down her neck.
“Little sister, I love you to death but you and I will never agree that our father is a decent man or a good person. A good person doesn’t rip your daughter from your arms an hour after she’s born and hand her over to her sperm donor of a father, the one who was only able to get me pregnant in the first place because our father pointed him in my direction.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember when Father sent me away to University?” I ask. It was a few years ago so she was younger. I wonder if she remembers it. She nods. “I wasn’t actually at University. He put me up in another one of our homes while my daughter was growing inside of me because Rafael made it a point that he wanted my daughter. I didn’t know any of this back then. I didn’t know that she would be taken from my arms. I thought that I’d have her . . . that I’d be able to hold her and be her mother, but it didn’t work out that way.” I mumble the last bit, the strong feelings of guilt and pain hit me as forcefully as a sledgehammer would.
“Couldn’t you have said no?” Her tone is laced with venom, acting like I wanted what my father was doing. I think about sugar-coating it, but I won’t. I can’t fucking sugar coat this because it’s making me so angry at this point. I’m telling her things that I’ve kept bottled up for years and she wants to act accusatory toward me.
It’s time to tell her the painful truth of it all, trying to not let my emotions show in my voice. “It didn’t matter if I said no. It would still happen, and it did. It happened many times.”
2
If the mafia replaced the government we’d probably have half the corruption and twice the fun.
~ LibertyManiacs
Liam
“Liam, your father needs to speak with you immediately,” Maeve informs me. She’s an enigma, many different things mixed into one. She’s the boss bitch, manages the entire household staff, gardeners, and much more. She’s well into her nineties and has worked for the Mackenzie family since she was a young girl. When I was a wee tyke she was my nanny, cooked my meals and did practically everything for me after my mother died. That is until my father re-married, but that took a turn for the worst.
“Can you tell him I’ll be down in five minutes? I need to finish typing up this email.” I ask her. I look up after a few moments to see her standing in the doorway of my office, her arms crossed and glaring down at me like I’m about to get a talking to.
I straighten up in my chair, lean back and stare at her. “Well, say whatever it is that’s on your mind, you old bat.”
She smirks for a split second and then her expression contorts into a stern scowl. “I would just love to know why you two insist on sending me up and down these godforsaken stairs. These bones aren’t as young and strong as they used to be, Mr. Mackenzie. Use your damned cell phones and stop making me cross oceans for you bloody bastards!”
I chuckle in response. “I have no problem texting him. He’s the one who’s stuck in his old ways. Maybe you should have a chat with him about that, Maeve.”
“His father even used the damn intercom system. Old bastard won’t even do that!”
“You tell him!” I suggest, chuckling into my hand.
“I sure will.” She turns and starts to exit my doorway, but then stops. I already know what she’s about to ask because we’ve been doing this for far too long.
“Whatever you’re cooking tonight is fine, Maeve. Thank you.”
“Alright, Mr. Mackenzie.” Maeve walks from my doorway into the hallway and out of my sight.
It’s an average summer day here in Ireland, one where the rain is tumbling down upon us. We’re so used to it at this point. I’m just hoping that it’ll let up so I can enjoy walking around the city tomorrow. It’s frowned upon for me to walk around the city, or rather my father isn’t supportive of my “carelessness” as he prefers to call it. Dublin is my home, and whomever the motherfucker is that attempts to harm me will be sorely disappointed when a bullet ends up being put between their eyes.
I finish typing my email and send it then get up and go down to my father’s office. Our home is a bit different than most, massive bedrooms span over the estate. We actually have a bedroom upstairs converted into an office for me. Typically, my father would be handling all of the business transactions, however, we know that the reins will be passed down to me within the next few years and rather than going in blind, he’s preparing me for the brunt of work now. I grew up watching him, sitting in the corner of his office assessing the way he spoke to people and conducted himself.
“You sent the wolfhound at me, hmm?” he jokes as I approach him and take a seat on the leather chair across from his desk.
“You just had to go and rile her up. If you ask me, you did it to yourself. You can just text me and tell me to meet you down here, or use the intercom system. No reason to be making her go up and down the stairs. Anyway, what was it you needed to discuss with me so suddenly?”
He crosses his arms and stares at me. “There are rumors that the DiGiovanni girls have gone missing.” DiGiovannis are the Italian Mafia. For them to go missing doesn’t just happen.
“How?” I ask.
“They’ve vanished. Been missing for the last week. His oldest, Caprice, is engaged to Sergei Kolosov.”
I twist my face in disgust at hearing that foul creature’s name. “You know that isn’t a marriage made of love.”
“None of his marriages ever are. It was purely a business decision. That I can guarantee.”
“Is their foul play involved?” I ask, curious to know what my father does.
“I don’t believe so. Knowing what I do of Gabriele, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was their choice. He treats his sons and daugh
ters very differently. I would never treat your sisters that way . . . and if I did, you’d need to kill me.” My sisters, a very sore subject in our household. I haven’t seen them since they were about six months old if they were even that old in the first place. For over twenty-five years we have been apart, solely for their protection.
My father and the Russians have had a longstanding war, and Valentin Volkolv has made it a point to state the moment my sisters circle back around he will be killing them. It’s his way of taking an eye for an eye.
The story is a long and detailed one but to sum it up their mother was engaged to Valentin, but at the time Russia had been in multiple wars and Valentin didn’t want her to stay in Moscow. He felt that it was too dangerous for her and indeed it was. My father ended up falling in love with her, marrying the woman who was betrothed to his best friend. Valentin couldn’t accept the fact that she had wanted my father instead of him, and after my sisters were born my step-mother was shot in the head. She’s still alive— if that’s what we can call it. Hooked up to machines upstairs in her bedroom. Valentin has harmed my family enough but he doesn’t see it. He wants more revenge and because of it, I have never been able to see my sisters, hug them, or even get to know them. I miss them tremendously and hope that one day we will be able to reunite.
“What is it that you want me to do?” He has to want me to keep an eye out or something. Otherwise, I don’t know why he’d tell me.
“Oh, nothing. I was just notifying you of what’s been going around. If you hear anything, I am sure you will tell me.”
“I will,” I confirm.
3
To escape fear, you have to go through it, not around it.
Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection Page 47
