Page 32 of King Of Order

‘Of course, I did,’ I said, forcing a smile. I came every other fucking day, come rain or shine. Even though I loathed each moment, doing it out of duty, out of some misplaced loyalty, which I hated even more.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked, setting my bag on a table and sinking into the chair beside him.

He gave a weak shrug. ‘Dying, I suppose,’ he muttered with a grim chuckle, then turned his head to face me. ‘Can’t believe that not one of my close friends bothers to visit.’

Friends? He’d none.

All the couples and individual companions that he’d socialized with for years disappeared after my mother died. Evidence of how much she’d been their social connection.

He argued with some, coming to blows with some of his fellow mobster acquaintances in recent years.

As he aged, he also regressed to childishness. At 76, his emotional maturity was 16.

He’d also burned so many bridges with his siblings due to his entitlement, lack of empathy, and judgmental attitude that they all refused to see him.

Other than a few loyal capos and my brothers, he’d no intimate confidants to turn to. Those who did call or come around feared the repercussions of dealing with him.

They worried about what he had on them, afraid of his threats or hoping to recoup their money in whatever deal he struck with them.

‘I’ve been thinking. About everything.’

Olivio’s utterance hung in the air, heavy with meaning. I guessed what was coming, and I was ill-prepared to hear it.

The heart monitor machine beeped, and oxygen hissed through the aircon vents as I braced myself.

‘I wasn’t the best father,’ he said, hushed and rough. ‘I put too much on you. I treated you like shit for years while Claudio -.’

I swallowed hard, the words catching in my throat as he omitted what we both didn’t want to say.

I wanted to tell him it was OK, that it didn’t matter anymore, but the truth was, it did. It still hurt, even now.

Olivio raised me in the heart of Naples’ underworld.

As his daughter, his underlings and shady mobster connections venerated me as a princess yet loathed, despised, and underestimated as a woman.

I’d navigated my world first as a spoiled young girl.

When puberty hit, my father’s callousness and my mother’s death stripped me of my innocence.

It’d led me to drugs to cope.

I’d become an addict, then into a pure survivor. Throwing myself into work day and night to avoid my brother’s resentment, our rival clans’ bullets, and the handcuffs of the police and anti-mafia investigators.

I’d cleaned up and attempted to reinvent my life.

Art and portraiture, in particular, helped me endure my darkest days.

I’d set up the Galleria with my meager savings.

Now, it was fundamental to our survival.

With most doors closed now to obtain cash flow, it now operated as a laundering operation, albeit a sophisticated one.

What began as an avocation to drag myself out of addiction had been handed to the family to help us survive.

Without my fuckin’ hard work to cover the bills, the Tironefamigliawould not have lasted these last five years.

So, while I was not a ‘made’ member and had never performed the blood ritual, I had a significant role to play.

---