Page 47 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
Return to the Rossi estate immediately.
Do not make us come for you.
I stare at the words for a long time before setting the phone down.
It is not a request.
It is an order.
And for the first time in years, I don't have the power to refuse it.
I spend the night packing slowly.
My daughters don't understand what it means when I press their favorite toys into the worn leather duffel, when I fold their blankets with care, when I reach for the travel documents kept hidden in the linen closet.
They ask me questions in bursts—why now, where are we going, will we be back, if we’re doing to meet daddy.
I tell them stories as I zip their bags, paint a picture of new places, old houses, of people we will see again.
I lie the way all mothers lie, with gentleness, with conviction, with the kind of grace that makes truth a luxury too dangerous to afford.
The flight is arranged by morning.
Private.
Fast.
The plane meets us at a discreet terminal an hour outside the city.
No one speaks to us beyond the bare necessities.
The stewardess offers warm towels and doesn’t ask who we are.
The pilot nods once and does not wait for introductions.
Everything moves as though it has already been paid for, because of course, it has.
We land at dusk.
The girls are asleep again, their heads heavy on either side of me.
I carry them one at a time from the plane to the waiting car, strapping them in as gently as I can.
The road winds as I remember it, climbing through the hills, the sky bruised and bleeding out the last of the day’s light.
My heart hammers steadily, not from fear, not from panic, but from the sheer inevitability of what awaits us at the end of this road.
The Rossi estate looms ahead, its pale stone façade lit faintly by the warm glow of lamps that have not changed in decades.
Cypress trees line the drive like sentinels.
The fountain out front still runs, though the marble is more cracked than before, the statue at its center missing one arm.
It has grown more unkempt since I left. But it is still home.
I step out first.
The gravel crunches beneath my boots, and I lift my daughters in turn, holding them against my shoulders, one on each hip, as I walk toward the house.
