Page 4 of Vincenzo's Promise
Isabella
Chatter filled the private dining room. I sat around the round dinner table eating a dish prepared by my father’s favorite chef at his favorite Italian restaurant,Gianni’s. Although surrounded by armed guards like we were in some maximum-security prison, I couldn’t help but be overcome with emotion.
The midsize private dining room at the back of Gianni’s was elegantly decorated. The room had beige walls with a single arch entryway that led into the main eating area. A single candle chandelier hung from exposed dark wood beams, and brown Tuscan terra-cotta flooring gave the space an old-world Italian feel. It was one of the many reasons my father loved dining here. He said it reminded him of home. The smells of the wonderful homemade Italian dishes wafted through the room while we ate tasty food, drank even better red wine, and had enjoyable conversation to celebrate me passing my board certification exam. To me, it was a dream come true. I’d accomplished a major goal in my life, and I was civilly celebrating with my family. Everything was going as well as it could go, since I hadn’t been around them in almost a year.
I loved sitting and having a real family dinner with my father, my brothers, and their wives. Rarely had we been able to do so, but after my father’s wife passed a little over a year ago, we were finally able to interact with one another like a normal family without a looming threat hanging over our heads. There’d been no love lost when the old hag passed, and my father seemed much better afterwards. When he called me about her death, I was relieved. He wouldn’t say it aloud because she was his wife and the mother of three of his children, but so was he.
I’d remained at the back of the funeral service, hidden away from the attendees. His shoulders had sagged, a burden lifted from his shoulders as her coffin was lowered into the ground. Roses were thrown across the cherry wood with everyone’s final goodbyes. It was sad to say, but I believed he wouldn’t miss his late wife at all. She was a threat he would no longer have to deal with.
“I need you to do something for me, Bella.” My father looked at me with such sadness that my heart raced. His beautiful brown eyes were now accentuated by dark circles and glistened with tears. His once coal black hair was now littered with gray strands, and his beautiful olive complexion now less vibrant. “This is a very hard thing to ask of you, and it’s not what I want for you, but it is what’s needed.”
“Anything for you, Papa,” I said. “You know that.”
“You’re such a sweet girl. I know it’s been difficult having me as your father.”
When I started to deny it, he shook his head. He knew the truth, and so did I. It was difficult having him as my father, regardless of the luxury he provided. He hadn’t been around like normal fathers, and it affected me more than I liked to admit. I had commitment and abandonment issues I continued to work through even now. But even if all that was the truth, he was still my father, and I tried not to speak negatively about him.
“No need to spare your old man’s feelings, Bella. I know it was difficult. We didn’t get to spend a lot of time together. I missed some of the most important milestones in your life. No matter how much I tried to make it up to you and Stella, I know it’s something I can never truly do, especially now that your mother’s gone. And that is something I regret and will regret until the day I die. But I couldn’t be prouder of all you have accomplished and the woman you have become, despite the circumstances. Which makes this entire situation even more difficult.”
He sighed deeply, and pain clouded his eyes.
Was he dying?
My anxiety rose. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
“Okay, Papa, I’m not sure where this is going, but you’re making me nervous.”
“I’m sorry, but I need for you to accept a proposal for marriage to one of the Bosses.”
He can’t be serious.
“You want me to do what?” I sat my silverware down on my plate. “Papa, you can’t be serious?”
My voice rose a few octaves in the five-star restaurant. The conversation my brothers were having with their wives immediately ceased, and the private dining room became deathly silent, with all eyes focused on me and my father. I’d believed this to be a family dinner, celebrating a major accomplishment for me. Now, I knew different. He’d only wanted me here so I would agree to some marriage. I’d thought maybe, just maybe, my father had finally wanted to have a real relationship with me and not just hide me away, but I’d guessed wrong.
Cyrus Lombardo was just out for himself, as always. He wanted me to accept his crazy proposition. I didn’t know the first thing about the men of his world; he’d made sure of that. So why in the hell did he want me to marry a man just like him?
“I need you to marry Vincenzo De Maio, of the De Maio clan, Isabella.” Cyrus grabbed my hand, squeezing it. “You have to do it for our Family.”
Do it forourFamily? I wanted to scoff and roll my eyes. When did it becomeourfamily? Any other time, he wanted me to stay clear of anything associated with the Scuderi organization, including him and my brothers. Now he was dead set on involving me in a world he made sure I’d stayed far away from and knew nothing about.
I hadn’t been here for more than three days and already wished I were back home, alone. Over the years, I’d gotten used to the short trips to see my father, or the short trips he made to see me. Now, bombarding me with the news he wanted me to marry some crime boss, I wanted to be anywhere else but here.
I loved my father and my brothers. My love for them wasn’t in question, but hearing the news of me marrying some man I didn’t even know, not to mention the head of some crime family, this was the first time in my life I’d ever questioned their love for me. Especially my father.
How in the hell did I get pulled into the middle of mafia business?
I’d give my father the world, even though he hid me from everyone like I was a stain on his name. But I understood his predicament and why he’d hidden who I was, no matter how much it had hurt me to be away from him. Why pull me in the middle of something he’d worked so hard to keep me away from?
In this world, the love child of a black mistress was looked down upon, although he never looked at my mother as his mistress. In his heart,shewas his wife. They met and fell in love in their early teens. Apparently, my grandfathers had conducted business with one another, which had put their children on a path to fall in love during a time when it was forbidden for blacks and whites to have anything to do with one another, especially be in a relationship.
But they didn’t care.
They broke the rules, defied their fathers’ wishes once their relationship was discovered, and made time to be with one another—my father going to my mother’s all-black neighborhood and my mother sneaking out of the house to meet him.
Their love for one another prevailed throughout the years, despite everything and everyone against them, including two of the most powerful men in Chicago. My father often told my mother if he were any other man, she would have been his wife. And she’d respond by saying if she were any other woman, he would be her husband.
To everyone else, she would never hold the title of being Cyrus Lombardo’s wife, nor his Donna. She was a woman he could sleep with but never love and never make a life with.
