Chapter 3

“No.”

It was my mother, Teresa.

Vito’s face darkened. “That precious daughter of yours has caused me plenty of trouble. She’s run off again. If you’re looking for her, don’t ask me.”

My mother was quiet for a moment. Vito ran out of patience. “If that’s all, I’m hanging up.”

She said quickly, “No, don’t hang up. I just called Antonia and she didn’t pick up.

“Her father is seriously ill. He’s lying in a hospital bed and he isn’t going to last. That’s why I’m trying to find her.

“If you can reach her, please tell her.”

Vito scoffed. “I can’t reach her either.”

I listened to them, grieving, and no tears would come. All that was left in me was bitterness.

When my father was young, he saved the life of Vito’s father. The old Don, Salvatore, took me as his goddaughter and arranged my engagement to Vito.

From then on I was raised in Vito’s house and treated like a princess.

But I never imagined a match that had seemed so secure could be disrupted by Vivian.

The Colombos and the Gambinos had been at odds for years, yet business interests kept them bound in an uneasy alliance.

I knew that as long as Vito carried the Gambino name, he could not afford to ignore a marriage alliance like this one.

Vivian had come to me once on her own. She played the Colombo card and told me I could never beat her.

I couldn’t stomach the humiliation and fired back at her, and she left in a huff.

The next day I went to Vito to push for a wedding date. I brought it up myself, hoping to see him look pleasantly surprised.

Instead he looked disgusted. He held up a voice recorder and demanded to know why a woman who had always been as gentle and well-mannered as I was would speak so viciously.

The recording had been edited. Vivian’s attacks on me were gone. Every hostile word I had said to her was still there.

Vito seemed to remember all of that. He said to my mother, “Ma’am, your daughter takes my indulgence for granted, and I’ve put up with it for a long time.

“She hurled insults at Vivian, who is my fiancée now. Where is the gentle, sweet girl she used to be?”

Vivian listened beside him with the smug smile of a winner, then quickly put her delicate face back on.

Vito heard a nurse’s voice on the other end of the line. “If you still can’t cover the medical bills, please stop taking up the bed.”

His expression turned knowing, and he said to my mother, “I heard that. You’re short on money, is that it? Is that what I am to your family, a cash machine?

“Let me tell all of you, I’m not giving you a cent. Stop sending her to me for money.”

With that, Vito hung up on her without mercy.

He sent me two more messages: [I assume you came to me for my money too. Don’t bother coming back.]

[The Gambino Family raised you all these years. We don’t owe your family anything.]

He put the phone away and took Vivian’s arm. “Come on, let’s go home. She isn’t coming.”

As they were leaving the hospital, one of Vito’s men was brought in with a gunshot wound.

Vito glanced at him and asked what had happened. One of the men escorting him said, “Don, someone hit our warehouse. We don’t know which Family yet. A few of ours are dead. We’re still looking into it.”

Vito swore, got into the car with Vivian, and rode with her to see her home.

They had just pulled out of the hospital gate when someone knocked on the rear window. Vito rolled it down, saw one of the men from inside, and asked impatiently, “What now?”