“I’m sorry about the Amex,” I blurt out suddenly, unable to take the silence.
Papa groans and rubs his face. “You’re pathetic. You couldn’t hold out for ten seconds.”
“I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have taken it. There was a sale—”
“I don’t care about the credit card or the dresses.” He gives me a sharp look. “Under other circumstances, I’d be upset.”
“I won’t do it again.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will, but that won’t be my problem soon enough.”
My heart starts to race. So Nico really wasn’t kidding. Papa’s finally gone and found me a husband after threatening to do just that for the last few years, and my days of lounging around Villa Bruno sketching with charcoal and swimming and being happy and carefree are finally over. My life as I know it will change, and change drastically, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, no matter how badly I want things to keep going on like this. I’m the youngest and the daughter, and it’s my duty to marry, procreate, and be a good, happy mafia bride.
I knew it wouldn’t last forever. Papa’s been saying since I was a little girl that one day I’d marry a man for the Famiglia. My brothers would give their lives to the business, and I’d do the same, only different. I used to think it was glamorous and imagined my husband as a dashing but dangerous man that doted on me wonderfully.
But then I grew up and met more and more men in the business and realized I didn’t want to be married to a single one of them or a man remotely like them.
“Who is he?” I ask quietly, almost too scared to say the words.
Papa sighs and gently shakes his head. “His name is Jasha. He’s from a good family out in Texas—”
“Bygood familydo you mean he’s a filthy gangster like the rest of you?”
Papa’s eyes go wide with amusement. He stares at me in surprise and I have to put my hands over my mouth to keep myself from saying more. I’m so stupidly angry and it just burst out of my dumb face, and now I can’t take the words back even if I wanted to. I sit there terrified and I know Papa’s going to yell, but he only rubs his temple and is quiet for a real long time before speaking.
“Karah, you’re twenty-two. You’ve lived in my house, under my roof, for a long, long time. I’ve been easy on you—don’t argue, we both know it’s true. But it can’t go on forever. Jasha Novalov is a good man, and his family is strong—”
“Papa, he’s Russian? You’re selling me off to some strange Russian? You couldn’t have picked someone Italian?” Panic rises in my chest. “I don’t want to go. You can’t force me to marry someone against my will.” I jump out of the chair and back away.
“Karah.” His voice is hard, sharper than the slate rock that dots the desert landscape. He stands and glares at me, my big, strong Papa. He’s gone gentler in his old age, but he’ll always be a massive mountain of a man, covered in thick dark hair and muscle, and with an undercurrent of vicious, deadly violence rippling below every move he makes. My name is like a rumble in his chest, like an earthquake. “You will do as you are told. You can’t be a child forever, girl.”
“What if I find someone else to marry?” It’s desperate, I know, but the thought of going off to some faraway place to marry a total stranger is more terrifying than anything I can imagine. I like my life, I like my home, my brothers, my little desert world. I like it here, and I don’t want to give it up for anything.
“There’s nobody else. You know as well as I do—”
“Someone in the Famiglia.” Desperate, so desperate. Papa can see right through me.
His lips quirk. “I thought we’re all a bunch of filthy gangsters.”
“You are, but I’d rather marry someone I know than a stranger. Please, Papa. You want to marry me off? Let me choose.”
“Karah—”
“I’ll choose soon. I swear it. Give me a week, and I’ll pick someone from the Famiglia. Someone good. Someone you’ll be happy with.”
This is absurd. I know it’s crazy. The whole point of marrying me off is to make an alliance with another mafia family. Letting me pick my future husband from among our business won’t strengthen anything at all.
But I’m so desperate, I’m willing to try anything at this point.
“You know I can’t,” he says quietly, shaking his head.
“Please, Papa.” I take a step closer. I feel a stone in my throat the size of a softball and I think I might throw up. “I’m asking for a favor. One final favor, and after this I’ll never ask anything from you again. I know you’ve been soft on me, and I’m begging you to give me this one final chance.”
He closes his eyes. “Karah. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Please, Papa.”
He sighs and rubs his face. For one long, silent moment, I picture my life somewhere far away, tethered to a strange man I barely know, rotting in a family that doesn’t love me and views me as little more than expedient currency. It’s a nightmare, one I’ve always known might be my fate, and now that it’s here, all I can think about is escape.