One by one, my father’s captains welcomed me back into the family. They were less warm about welcoming me as acapo, but I’d take my wins where I could get them.
When I would have followed the men into the house, my father held me back.
“Ginevra,” he said, his voice gravelly with unspoken emotion. “This is not what I wanted for you.”
I repressed the rage that roared through me. Did he think I wanted this? “Papà, you have to tell me what’s going on. Why are your finances in such dire straits?”
He shook his head. “I made a bad investment, a luxury high rise, that’s been a disaster for the past three years.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Ten million dollars of bad investments?”
“More actually, but that’s what the Russians are asking for as return on their investment. I sunk our cash reserves—and theirs—into the building.”
Shit. Conflict roiled in my belly as I tried to reconcile the hard and uncompromising man who’d raised me with the tired old man who quietly confessed to putting his entire family in danger over fucking real estate.God, what a mess.
“And if you don’t pay?”
“It’s blackmail,piccolina. If I don’t pay, we die. To them, it’s just business. These upstarts don’t have the same sense of honor we do.”
I snorted. Upstarts or not, the power balance in this city was shifting. My skepticism must have shown on my face because my father laughed.
“Come, Ginevra, let’s toast your meteoric rise through the ranks of my men, the Russos’ first femalecapo. We have all the time in the world to ruminate over the choices I made while you were off enjoying your freedom.”
Later that morning,I stood in the kitchen in wide legged black slacks, a tucked-in black turtleneck, and kitten heels. My jewelry was understated, and I’d blown my long hair perfectly straight after washing out the ashes from my reinitiation ceremony.
My Aunt Iris handed me an espresso, looking at me over her cup as she sipped. “Pants? For mass?” she asked. I guess Iris disagreed with my assessment of my outfit.
Sofia walked in wearing a pastel dress and looking like a vision of spring in delicate pink floral and matching pumps. Of course, she was dressed perfectly appropriately. Iris was too, in a floral sheath dress and jacket, her hair perfectly coiffed and styled in an elegant chignon. My family wasn’t the trashy Jersey mafia folks saw on TV. No, we were old money, money flowing from Italy to mix with money from the United States over generations, and we looked it.
“ZiaIris, surely it’s too early in Ginevra’s visit to start criticizing her clothes,” my sister chided her.
“None of the othercaposwear dresses to church,” Luca added, as he walked into the room, looking quite dapper in his gray suit.
Iris laughed derisively, looking me up and down with skepticism. “Since when is Ginevra acapo?”
He looked at her, his eyes serious. “Since dawn.”
The surprise on our aunt’s face was well worth the news getting out early. I shrugged, sipping my coffee. “It’s too early in the season for a granita, isn’t it?” I asked my brother, changing the subject.
“What are you, eight?” he laughed.
The traditional Sicilian summer breakfast of espresso and a granita was something I hadn’t indulged in while in California.
Iris watched me silently, her eyes critical as she looked me up and down. I ignored her. “So how does this work?” I asked Luca.
He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into him for a sideways hug. “I drive you to church, we go to church, then we come home, and Mamma and the other women make a giant dinner for us to eat in the late afternoon.”
I whispered in his ear, “I have a brunch date.”
He looked down at me, smiling with those liquid brown eyes that I’d missed so much in the years I’d been gone. “Rian?”
I nodded.
Iris looked at us with suspicion. “Rian O’Conner? One night back and you’ve already got a date with the head of an Irish gang?” She continued to mutter to herself about young people and our lack of propriety as Luca drew me out of the kitchen.
4
CORMAC