Page 3 of Mafia Kings: Valentino

That stunned me.

One, that he’d found out –

And two, that he would ever call me that.

It was horrible to hear him say it.

Not to mention it was totally unfair. Yes, I’d slept with a few more guys than other girls had – but almost everyone in my class was hooking up. It’s not like I was the lone sinner in a sea of saints. And I wasn’t sleeping with justanybody.Most of the time I had boyfriends, and I wasalwaysfaithful to them while we were dating.

I just tended not to stay in relationships long. I got bored easily.

But once my parents knew, they clamped down hard. I couldn’t sneak out anymore at night, which sucked donkey balls.

My parentsalwayscompared me unfavorably to my brothers and sisters – my grades, my behavior, the way I dressed – but one day my mother said something that took the cake.

“Why can’t you be more like your sister and marry a nice boy?” she wailed.

“What, you mean the sister who snuck out just likeIdid, but got knocked up by one of the guys she was banging?” I said angrily.

My mother slapped me in the face.

I stared at her, stunned –

Then ran back to the bedroom I shared with my little sister and burst into tears.

Nonna would have never done that,I thought.Nonna NEVER would have hit me.

At that moment, I vowed to move out as soon as I possibly could.

I graduated a few months later at 17. By the way, all Italians whoaren’ton the university track graduate at 17. It’s not like I did anything impressive.

As soon as school was over, I went looking for a job so I could get the hell out of my parents’ house.

The problem was that I came from a small town in Tuscany, the vast countryside in central Italy. Our town wasn’t a tourist attraction, so there wasn’t a lot of work in the restaurant business.

That’s why I moved to Florence, the nearest big city withtonsof tourists.

My parents were happy to see me go. They made a lot of snarky comments about my sex life, but I just ignored them.

I wasoverjoyedto move to Florence. I lived with two roommates in a tiny apartment, but it was still less cramped than my family’s house.

And I could date as many cute guys as I wanted. And there wereplentyof cute guys in Florence.

I went to parties and discos, drank too much, had fun with boys –

Everything was awesome. Except for one thing.

No good restaurants in Florence would hire me as a cook. Sure, I could work in a tourist trap and make 2000 gallons of spaghetti per day – but I didn’t want that. I wanted to work in a reallygoodrestaurant.

I didn’t mind chopping vegetables for two years and working my way up, but that wasn’t even a possibility. Everybody I interviewed with said I had to go to a fancy culinary institute first.

I told them I’d already learned how to cook from my grandmother, but they all laughed in my face.

Every girl who comes in here learned how to cook from her grandmother. You need more than THAT.

I didn’t have the money for a culinary institute, and I couldn’t ask my parents.

More accurately, I WOULDN’T ask my parents. I didn’t want to owe themanythingor give themanysort of control over my life again.

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