Page 1 of Princess of the Mafia

PROLOGUE

CORLEONE, SICILY, ITALY.

ORIETTA

Funerals. She loved them. There was nothing like a funeral to bring out the drama. No one did them better than Italians, better than Sicilians, than in the Cosa Nostra.

They all sat in neatly lined foldable plastic chairs in a cluster of smart, black elegance. The women sat stiff in their chairs in their black dresses with the lace veils lifted off their faces. Dresses that were kept especially for funerals because God forbid, you tainted another occasion by wearing them. But the men, as usual, were the exceptions. They wore their typical attire: black suits, white shirts, and black ties, even as sweat spilled down their backs on the unusually hot spring day. They sat on their chairs, exuding an aloofness as fake as the plastic they were sitting on, while everyone knew there wasn’t a single relaxed soul to be found at a mafioso funeral. The aura hung as tight as a kettle about to boil. The wind caught the tension, mixed it with the sorrow, and whirled it around till it cloaked the cemetery like a black coat on a dark night. Invisible but tangible.

The sudden sound of a lawn mower throttling to life broke the vibe in the air and drowned the boom of the priest. She counted on her fingers. One, two, three, four… four seconds before it jerked to a stop. Shame. She had thought they would get the job done in three. A tinge of curiosity swept through her mind. Had they killed him or just knocked him out? Asking nicely was not a trait known to her family. Especially now.

The priest resumed his flow of words. Loud and booming, full of pompous confidence, as if he didn’t know that while he was burying a man, another was probably being killed a few feet away. For the crime of wanting to keep the grass trimmed. But he didn’t care, and neither did she. Not even enough to turn around and take a peek.

Instead, her eyes followed the hornet resting on one of the tacky floral arrangements. She wondered if it was one of those pesky yellow-legged Asian hornets. What if it is? What if it got buried with the body? If it was the queen, she would birth another 150 soon. Oh well, Papà won’t be alone. He always did enjoy his women.

The sniffle to her left raked her skin like metal scraping on concrete. Daria, the fucking prima donna of the family. Even at Papà’s funeral, she sucked in all the attention. Looks of sympathy caught on her like a spider to its web. A quiet sniffle, red eyes brimming with unshed tears, and the whole fucking crowd fell to their knees to worship her. They shouldn’t have wasted the money on the prefica. They didn’t need a stranger weeping her eyes out when the madonna in the family, with her unshed tears, put on a better show. She peeked behind her. Just as she suspected. Not a single man watched the casket or the priest. All eyes were on her sister’s pale face. Which one of them would be the first to offer that handkerchief should those first tears tethering on her eyelids drop from her sister’s blue eyes?

Mamma’s nails bit into her upper arm, and she was yanked to face the front. “Stop fidgeting, Orietta,” she muttered even as her voice wobbled.

She bit back the acid in her mouth and forgave her harshness. Most women in the Cosa Nostra gave up a silent prayer the moment a bullet was lucky enough to hit their husbands. Not Mamma, though. She really was mourning her husband. She had loved him very much. Too much. Even if he had fucked any woman he laid his eyes on, she would have happily laid down her life for him. Mamma’s explanation was he couldn’t help himself. It didn’t instill a lot of faith in men in all three of her girls. They had front-row seats to watch the beautiful and intelligent woman that Mamma was being degraded time and again. She was sure even Lia, with her doe-eyed looks, at the tender age of eighteen, would rather stab herself than fall for a man.

A faint memory of Daria confronting Papà tainted her mind, even as she watched her mother dab a tear away. If there was even an inkling that Papà would listen to a woman, it would have been to Daria. But she had been a little girl then. She had flown into Papà’s arms, wailing, demanding he stop hurting Mamma. His words echoed silently in her mind like a bitter aftertaste. “How can I hurt Mamma? Non l'ho mai picchiata.” It was funny how the men in their family considered themselves saints if they weren’t hitting a woman.

Her eyes followed the Hornet flying off the flowers, resting on the casket, and then tangling in between Lia’s lush brown hair. She swept it away with a light shriek, and it took off again, passed Daria, of course, and landed on the broad shoulders of Vitale. He didn’t notice it. The new Don of the Cosa Nostra. He used to be kind and gentle. Those were traits that were but a distant memory. He oozed anger and murder out of every pore of his body as if he were born with it. He carried it with him like an aura of intimidation as closely tied to him as a second skin. She supposed it was normal. A man changed when his papà was murdered in front of him. If that hadn’t changed him, what Papà put him through before his death, or the massacre he created after, would have done it. The only time he ever showed a softer side was to comfort Mamma, Daria, or Lia. Funny, she was never on the receiving side. Mamma’s right hand clutched his in a death grip. She imagined it was all dented with her long nails. But he didn’t seem to notice as he looked straight ahead at nothing, really. His strong jawline was harsher today than on any other day, and his jaw ticked almost in tune to the silent music in her mind.

Awkward silence shrouded the air when the boom of the priest’s voice stopped. She had no idea what he had been going on about. Did he give numbers? Number of whores fucked by Papà, number of deaths on his hands? Perhaps he had made categories. Death by guns, knives, and orchestrated deaths without direct involvement. She liked numbers and she would have liked to have known that. Still, there would be many who would say Carlo Di Matteo, at fifty-nine years of age, had been going soft. Too soft with distraction for a don of the Cosa Nostra. That’s what got him killed. That’s exactly what her brother thought. Goose bumps ran the length of her arms at the thought of the future of Cosa Nostra under her brother’s rule. It wasn’t good to have a Don of thirty-three years who would have to prove himself.

The wailing of the prefica provided background music, as enemies, acquaintances, friends, and family lined up and offered their condolences.

It soothed her nerves to watch Daria’s misery as she and Lia held on to each other as if the two of them were stuck on a raft on the ocean. Those tears brimming on her eyelids refused to spill. Daria had always been Papà’s princess. It was about time she met her downfall. Because Papà was no more, neither should the princess be.

Soon it was only the close family standing in a cluster around the casket. Except in the Cosa Nostra, the close family entailed more aunts, uncles, and cousins than one could count with two hands. That’s if one forgets the numerous bodyguards. Men sworn in red and paid in black to protect the lives of Sicily’s worst criminals and their families.

Her family, in particular, was large, just like the gaudy floral monuments around the casket. It was like there had been a competition to win the most hideous decoration of the century. They should bury them with him. He always wanted too much of everything.

Vitale guided Mamma to the casket. Her shoulders shook as she kneeled and whispered words into the ornate wood as if Papà himself was visible. Probably forgave him for every pussy he stuck his dick into. She really shouldn’t have bothered. It was never a sin in Papà’s fucked up mind.

Every step Orietta took to the other side of the casket was laden with hatred for the man in it. The words he’d never spoken. The glances he’d never thrown her way. The times he’d ignored her. Somehow, she had been the invisible one. Her sisters hadn’t been that much better off. But in his eyes, she was the worst. As if the first girl in the family was his biggest disappointment of all.

Her eyes caught on Luigi, her bodyguard. She let a soft smile play on her face. When Mamma stepped back with Vitale, she leaned forward to the casket and whispered her parting words with Luigi in her eyesight. “I hope you rot in hell, Papà.”

Luigi frowned. The man knew her every move. Or did he?

She stepped away and leaned back against the gaudy marble tomb of her grandfather. There was no simplicity in Cosa Nostra funerals. They built tombs that competed with churches to spite the government for not allowing public funerals. The last fuck you before handing over the reins to the next generation.

Lia and Daria were leaning over the casket. Daria leaned over and kissed the wood. Just when she thought it wouldn’t be her day, her fragile hands trembled. Her breath hitched, her voice broke, and hallelujah, the duct broke, and tears flowed. Faster and harsher than a bust dam.

It brought her an odd kind of joy to watch her break. It was almost comforting. The prima donna of the family was ugly crying. Except it wasn’t so ugly, and she still was the prima donna. Frustration pinched her skin as her brother rushed to comfort her. Just like her father. Every wish of Daria’s was granted.

Vitale’s matte black Maserati Levante faded in the rearview mirror as he and Mamma stood next to it. The flick of his cigar being lit was the last thing in her view before the gravel on the road misted it as they drove away. But she didn’t need to see to hear Mamma huffing and puffing about the risk to his health. Of course, Mamma had just buried her husband. She wouldn’t want to sacrifice the only remaining male in their family. He wasn’t indispensable. She allegedly was.

Next to her in the back seat, Daria clenched Vitale’s handkerchief in her hands. She should have known. As if her brother would allow anyone other than family to comfort his favorite sister. The very sight of Daria disgusted her. It was as if she was the glue of their family. Everything revolved around her. Even with red-rimmed eyes and a swollen nose, she still looked the epitome of innocent beauty. Then again, so did Lia, all curled up against the door.

She wondered if she resulted from one of Papà’s liaisons. It was perfectly possible that she would have been adopted to save face. Totally the Sicilian thing to do. She had straight jet-black hair, while her sisters’ had wavy brown hair. Her eyes were dull and brown. Daria had blue, while Vitale and Lia had hazel eyes that bordered on green. The whole fucking family was blessed with beautiful genes, including Mamma and Papà, and somehow she had been overlooked. Her skin was pale. Not the delicate, porcelain pale, but more the she had been sick for a year kind of pale. The only good thing about it was it contrasted beautifully with her cherry red lipstick and a man’s dark hands on her body. She shifted in her seat as her thoughts changed direction and her breasts tingled in anticipation.

“I need to take off. Mamma asked to take care of something,” she said, looking straight ahead to the back of Luigi’s neck.

“What then?” Lia asked.

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