Empire

by Rachel Van Dyken

  Did not know the circumstances of their birth.

  Or how much they were loved, despite what they might think.

  Grecco? I had not given Sal permission to use that name. Granted, all of my dealings with New York had been less than hostile.

  The minute Luca took over the Nicolasi family.

  All hell broke loose in mine.

  Leaving me to pick up the pieces.

  A divide had occurred between the ranks. Several of my cousins decided that their loyalty would be better served with the Nicolasis, while others were appalled at what I had done to my own brother — basically selling him to another crime family. Never mind that he was successful, or that it was because my father wished it.

  I did what I had thought best.

  I had been young.

  Stupid.

  Completely hell-bent on following through with my father’s wishes, unaware that by following through with his instructions, I’d break one of the strongest crime families that ever existed, allowing the Abandonatos to take their rightful place.

  Not that I was bitter.

  The Abandonatos were better being the leaders of the Cosa Nostra in the United States.

  Just like the Campisis were best at running things overseas, and making sure every family was kept in check.

  I patted the inside of my jacket, my old fingers fumbling with the letter from Luca, his dying wishes.

  For me to find his children.

  And establish them within the Family.

  But I had to wonder.

  By doing what he asked — would I push my family further away? Because a dead man’s wish… was a fickle thing. A slippery slope.

  And if things went correctly….

  I sighed again as I eyed the black Mercedes waiting.

  Sergio.

  The first chess pieces had already been moved.

  Now.

  I would wait.

  “Oh, Luca,” I whispered. “I wish you were here. I do need your guidance, more than ever.”

  The breeze picked up, whipping a newspaper around my legs. I kicked it off and made my way over to the waiting car.

  Sergio looked up.

  His face was pale.

  He was a good actor, making his friends and family believe that he was doing fine. That his wife’s death was making him a better man — and in a way, it was.

  But he was also mourning.

  He was more than devastated.

  He was lost.

  I knew the look well.

  For it was in my own lonely reflection every day.

  Dear God, don’t let him turn out like me.

  I clutched the silver chained cross in my pocket and said a prayer to the saints, a prayer to Mary.

  And hoped.

  That was all I could do.

  Pray.

  And hope.

  “It’s their move.” I said once I was inside the car, the door slammed after me. “I have established my presence. We will see how they accept us this evening.”

  Sergio frowned. “This evening?”

  “A party.” I slapped him on the thigh. “So try not to look like your wife just died. Even though I know she did. Whatever it takes. We get the job done, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” he snapped, his eyes focusing for the first time in hours. Sergio did well under pressure, under orders, control. The kid didn’t need a hug, he needed a good ass kicking.

  I was just the man to do it.

  I’d like to think Luca knew that.

  Which is why, if Dante and Val wanted nothing to do with us, it would be Sergio taking my place.

  Sergio leading my family.

  I needed him strong.

  My gut clenched as my past unfolded in my head… Funny, I had said that exact same statement over thirty years ago, as justification, of what I did to Luca, forcing him away from the only woman he had ever loved, faking his death.

  Keeping them apart.

  “Hey, you all right?” Sergio elbowed me. “You look like you may be sick.”

  “Eh.” I waved him off. “I’m old. I’m always in pain.”

  He rolled his eyes and let out a small laugh.

  I tried to join in.

  But my chest pained me.

  For regardless of what people assumed, I did still possess my heart. And when I thought upon my sins, the direct result was a physical pain that refused to leave me.

  A pain that reminded me.

  I wasn’t just playing with lives.

  But shaping destinies.

  And I was the least worthy of them all to be doing such a thing.

  If the shadows have offended think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here, While these visions did appear, And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream. –A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  Valentina

  “JUST TRY TO be nice,” Sal encouraged in a stern voice. “We bought a dress!”

  “Yes,” I said dryly. “I can see that.”

  It was a pink monstrosity that had puffed sleeves and ruffles around the middle; it looked like something a first grader would wear and, even then, she’d probably still get made fun of. I half expected to see ankle socks with hearts and little black shoes. My first heels! Yay!

  “Val.” Gio yawned and motioned to the dress with his cane. “We thought you would want to feel special on your special day.”

  It was sweet.

  They had great intentions.

  Wrong intentions.

  But their hearts were in the right place.

  I gritted my teeth and pointed to the dress. “Thank you, but I actually, I um… Dante.” I fabricated the lie as quickly as my mind would work. “He actually helped me pick out a dress, and you know how Dante gets when he doesn’t get his way.”

  The uncles nodded gravely.

  Dante’s temper was infamous.

  Though, for the life of me, I had no idea where he got all the anger. After all, my uncles were the tamest men I knew.

  As if to prove my point, Gio yawned loudly while Sal reached into his pocket and pulled out a hanky.

  I rolled my eyes. If a spider crawled across the floor, they’d most likely rescue it and wave a tearful goodbye as it crawled down the front steps of our brownstone.

  Papi leaned heavily on his cane as he entered the room. “There is not enough room for the pig.”

  “Pig?” I repeated, dumbstruck. I’d left work with the three of them in tow and marched into my brownstone ready to call every last person who had been invited to the party, only to discover it was going to be nearly impossible to cancel on over forty people.

  Forty.

  People.

  So the only choice left was a public shaming of Nico. Either that or going through with the party and letting him down easy afterwards.

  “I told you!” Sal shook his head as his furry eyebrows crinkled toward his nose. “We only need one pig! But no,” He slapped his hand against his thigh and stood. “’Two pigs, Sal, they will not go hungry under this roof!’”

  “Well,” I shrugged. “At least they won’t…”

  All eyes fell to me.

  I sighed. “You know what? Why don’t you three go deal with the food situation while I get ready.”

  “Yes.” Gio ushered them out like a mother hen and hesitated at the door.

  Frowning, I walked over to him and placed my hand on his arm. “Gio? What’s wrong?”

  His eyes filled with tears. “You are my life, my little Val.”

  With a grin, I tugged my lower lip between my teeth as warmth spread through my chest. “I know, Gio.”

  “I am sorry for the trouble tonight. I only meant to protect you from—” he hesitated and finished. “The world.”

  I laughed. “And Nico is the man to do it? What? With his cologne?”

  Gio thumped me lightly on the foot with his cane. “He is a big strong man!”

  “According to Dante he wears velvet suits.”

&n
bsp; “Dante talks too much,” Gio grumbled. “I worry.” His eyes filled with tears. “About your future.”

  It was my turn to get emotional as I pulled him in for a tight hug, he smelled like cigars and wine. “Gio, I love you. And I promise, you have nothing to worry about. I have the best uncles in the world taking care of me. What could possibly go wrong?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Instead he paled and broke eye contact. “Oh, Val, a great many things.” He sighed as if the weight of the world had just been placed on his shoulders. “But first, I check the pig,” he mumbled in Italian while I frowned after him. Why was he suddenly so worried about my safety?

  I worked in a flower shop.

  And my best friend was my twin brother.

  Hardly the troublemaker, the worst thing I’d ever done was lie to them once and go to the safety deposit box, which they didn’t even know about.

  My pocket felt suddenly weighted down with that lie. The door creaked as I quickly shut it. My room was on the second level of the brownstone so I didn’t have to worry about anyone peeking through the window.

  With shaking hands, I pulled the heavy envelope from my pocket and sat on my bed.

  Valentina.

  My name was printed across the letter with wide black block letters as if the person took great care in drawing each letter out.

  The envelope wasn’t sealed.

  I tugged the sheets of paper out.

  It had been thick because the paper was thick.

  Expensive.

  And it smelled…

  Like a boy.

  No, that wasn’t right. Boys didn’t smell like a mixture of cedar and peppermint. A man, it smelled like a man.

  I lifted the thick paper to my nose and inhaled as the scent of paper and a thick, sensual, spicy cologne swirled around me.

  Yelling erupted downstairs. The words “pig” and “bastard” were tossed around like a volleyball while I continued sniffing the letter like a crazy person.

  Finally, I opened it up completely and stared down at the beautiful cursive writing. Funny, it smelled masculine but the writing was too neat to be by a man.

  He was so beautiful. The type of beautiful that made a woman ache, in all the best ways. To find a flaw in the prince would take an eternity and the princess would spend an eternity trying to discover that flaw, because the excitement was in the discovery. Never begrudge the journey, Valentina, for it is the journey that makes the ending happy.

  Read a page a day. That is all I ask. One page. Every day. You’ll know what to do when there are no longer any pages.

  The truth is around you.

  Love, after all, is eternal.

  All my love,

  R.

  With trembling hands I set the pages on my bed. I didn’t count them, I was afraid that if I pulled each individual sheet apart, I’d ruin the surprise and gorge myself by reading every last one.

  As a reader, I’d never had self-control. I wasn’t so horrible a person as to read the ending before the beginning, but I rarely started a book and finished it a week later. I absorbed the words like they were my lifeline, as if the lives I were reading about truly existed.

  I repeated the words in my head… about the flawless prince, wishing for once it was true. Wishing that my current reality wasn’t putting on a velvet suit in hopes of marrying me while forty of our closest family and friends watched on.

  Was it so wrong to wish for a flawless prince over Nico? Did that make me selfish? Reading gave me high expectations. Sometimes that was depressing, and sometimes it was the only thing that got me through boring days at the flower shop where I’d watch handsome men buy flowers, where they’d write cards that gushed about love and beauty.

  Maybe that was what had attracted me to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The poetry, the sheer beauty of everything around the faeries.

  An abrupt knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. I didn’t have time to answer before Dante came strolling in.

  “Hey!” I quickly hid the sheets under one of my pillows. “I could have been naked!”

  He gave me a knowing look. “After being walked in on by the uncles, you asked for a changing screen, I would have seen shadows.”

  I eyed the flimsy screen across the room. I’d found it at a garage sale and begged Gio to buy it for me. He’d blushed a billion shades of red, mumbled out a sorry, since he’d been the last to walk in on me before dinner, and quickly handed the woman a hundred dollar bill.

  She responded by trying to give him more stuff, which he took, because we were Italians, and gifts were like food; you accepted, you always accepted, even if you were full, you accepted.

  Dante snapped his fingers in front of my face. “What? Huh? Did you say something?”

  “No, but you did just spend the last thirty seconds gazing into thin air with your mouth wide open. Not a great look, Val.”

  “Shut up.” I stood and shoved my hands against his bulky chest. “I really do need to change. Did you need something?”

  “The pig.” Dante’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “It is not big enough! We will run out of food!” He mimicked Gio’s voice perfectly. “I’ve been sent to get another.”

  “Nooo!” I wailed. “He said only forty people.”

  Dante snickered. “He lies, he always claims the family dinner will be small. Remember last week when he said he was inviting a few colleagues over?”

  I shuddered. We’d had more than twenty men in suits dine with us. I hadn’t liked it. Papi had said they were old friends.

  But none of them had looked friendly to me.

  They seemed too… polished.

  A few of them were young.

  Too young.

  Young enough to be my age, which was silly because, well, who was that successful at nineteen?

  Their accents were funny as well.

  Not quite Italian, not quite American… yet.

  Not New York.

  A mix of Chicago and Sicilian, I assumed.

  “You’re doing it again,” Dante said in a bored voice. “I just wanted to warn you that this party’s about to get a little bigger. Oh…” He grinned and let out a low laugh. “Also, Nico just arrived, and he asked about his fiancé.”

  I growled.

  “Just think of all the tiny cologne babies you can have, I bet we can even find a few miniature suits. They’ll look just like their papa.”

  “Out!” I shoved against his chest with a laugh. “And thanks for the warning.”

  “Any time,” he called behind him as laughter erupted from downstairs. The party wasn’t even supposed to start for another half hour, but that’s how Italians were. They didn’t just come to the party on time, they came early to help. Meaning, they came early to drink wine, they came early to buy more wine, and they came early because they almost always brought enough food to feed a small country. Just a little something they cooked up just in case.

  Just in case anyone starved.

  It really was a miracle nobody had to push me around in a cart because of my inability to walk — I did enjoy my cannoli.

  With one last look at the door, I rushed over to the pillow and tugged the papers out, slid them back into the envelop, then shoved them under my mattress, taking special care to cover the side of the bed with a blanket.

  Nobody would look there.

  Because I was little Val.

  I didn’t take chances.

  I didn’t hide things.

  And I certainly didn’t live on the wild side.

  “Valentina!” Sal called from downstairs. His yell was followed by loud laughter.

  Sighing, I reached for my simple black dress and closed my eyes. I should have been thinking about rejecting Nico.

  Instead.

  My thoughts lingered on the pieces of paper.

  And the mysterious prince.

  Who had no flaws.

  Yeah. Right.

  Lord, what fools these mortals be! —A Midsummer Night�
�s Dream

  Sergio

  I WAS SUPPOSED to look like Frank’s grandson.

  Anyone would see through the lie in seconds. How stupid were his cousins? That’s what I wanted to know.

  Ever since Andi’s death, I’d been working out harder, and had somehow managed to put on a few more pounds of muscle. Maybe it was because every night when I laid my head on the pillow… I still smelled her.

  And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to remember her.

  It was more this need to… actually sleep. Frank still commented on the dark circles as if I wasn’t painfully aware I resembled a zombie more than a human being.

  My dark jeans hugged my legs as I tucked in the last of my white button-up and pulled my jacket tight around my body. My blue and black scarf wrapped twice around my neck, giving me a false sense of comfort. I hoped I looked approachable enough, because the only warning Frank had given me was that we were going to a party.

  I asked if it was the type where we used guns.

  And he only winced.

  Which really couldn’t be a good sign.

  “How long has it been?” I asked once we parked across the street, our black Mercedes blended in quite well with the rest of the Lincolns and Audis.

  Frank frowned. “A while.”

  “Well, that’s descriptive, thanks.”

  He let out a low chuckle. “Just, don’t pull your gun. They’ll be offended.”

  My eyes widened. “No shit? So if I pull a gun, I’m going to offend them, but they’re more than welcome to pull a gun on me?”

  “You’ve been shot before.” He shrugged. “Just duck.”

  “Wow.” I let out a low whistle. “For a loving grandfather, you kind of suck with the sentimental stuff.”

  He chuckled as I got out of the car and then abruptly pulled me into his arms for a hug, slapping the shit out of my back at least three times before kissing both of my cheeks.

  “What the hell was that?” I whispered, not sure if I was more amused or uncomfortable.

  “That—” he pointed back at the house “—was for the men that I know without a doubt are watching us. They need not know of your identity just yet… but mine? They will know me. They do not need to know your name. Listen very carefully. Here you are not Abandonato. Here you are a business man.”