Page 9 of Tainted Princess
CHAPTER THREE
Francesca
Six Months Later
I watched the city go by, the lights dim through the tinted windows as the Cadillac Escalade crawled its way through the late night Manhattan traffic. Normally I would have been quite content to sit in the back seat and people watch, wondering what each of my fellow New Yorkers were doing with their evening, but I was unable to focus on anything but my nerves.
I was being called in front of the Boss.
It was going to be the cherry on another exceptionally shitty week.
My father had been sentenced five days ago. I could still see him in the courtroom, the place bursting at the seams with reporters and other curious assholes who just couldn’t get enough of my family’s misery. After weeks of testimony, much of it by Special Agent Eric Morrison, a jury of my father’s supposed peers convicted him on all counts.
The sentence? Thirty-five years without parole.
I was devastated. My father had been all I had left of my family, and now he was being ripped from my life for what could very well be forever. I was under no delusions what life in prison would be like for him. He was a mobster in his fifties who had made a lot of enemies along the way. Even with a few of ourSoldatigoing to prison along with him, as the former Underboss of the De Marco Family, there was a target on his back that could probably be seen from outer space.
An entirely different problem was that the rest of the Outfit seemed to have turned their backs on us.
It turns out, when you welcome a traitor into your midst, people don’t look too kindly on you for it.
Even if neither my father nor myself had any idea we were being lied to. It didn’t seem to matter to the rest of the Families.
Everywhere I went, I was looked at with suspicion. My cousins had stopped calling, I hadn’t been asked to participate in birthdays or baby showers, and even my own grandfather, still the reigning Boss, was careful to never be seen alone with me, for fear that someone should wonder if he was conspiring with me to bring down the whole Organization.
It was utter bullshit, and it was seriously pissing me off.
However, I had a feeling that one way or another, things were about to come to a head tonight.
My grandfather, Carlo De Marco, had met with the Commission, and a decision had been made.
Tonight, I would learn how they planned tohandleme.
As if I were a problem that needed to be dealt with and swept under a rug, never to be thought of again.
Bastards.
The vehicle came to a stop outside a familiar restaurant,Tarantella, one of the legitimate businesses owned by my grandfather, and the perfect place for laundering some quick cash. It had been in the family since before I was born, and I had spent many nights inside, surrounded by laughter and good food as our huge extended family celebrated one thing or another. Tonight, however, the windows were dark.
I waited as the driver, one of the many men who worked for my grandfather, came to open my door, and I stepped out into the cool night. As I smoothed down the wrinkles in my knee length skirt, a gaggle of girls about my age moved past me, tottering on their ridiculously high heels. Watching them laugh and joke, arms linked as they headed off to what was likely the latest nightclub hot spot, I felt a flash of envy.
I had never done those sorts of things, things like wearing revealing clothing and hitting up my girlfriends for a night on the town. Preening in front of a mirror for ages, trying to look hotter than all the other women in the bar to catch the attention of the hottest man.
Good girls, respectable girls, did not do those things, my father would tell me. I was always busy, either training with him, or catering to the men in our house like I was expected to do. Any girl time was spent with my cousins and aunts, as they taught us to cook all the classic meals that our husbands would expect of us.
Fucking patriarchy.
I shook off the thoughts, focusing again on the matter at hand: my future with the Family.
I entered the restaurant, as familiar as my own home, and made my way back into the kitchen, weaving between the tables with their red and white gingham tablecloths, the candles in their centers all blown out for the night. My shoes, sensible things with only a modest heel, echoed in the empty space as I moved from the darkened dining area into the bright white kitchen, its stainless-steel surfaces glowing under the fluorescent lights. The kitchen staff, normally friendly enough with me to greet me by name, all averted their eyes as I passed, as if even looking in my direction would earn them the same treatment I was receiving. I swallowed my hurt as the people I had known since I still had baby teeth shunned me like a leper.
As I reached the very back of the kitchen, a man dressed all in black—shirt, pants, and suit jacket—stood before the huge double doors of the walk-in cooler, his hands clasped in front as he very conspicuously waited before the appliance. Again, he refused to look directly at me, but stepped to the side and opened the door, nodding at the driver who had followed me into the building. Not slowing my pace, I moved through the giant refrigerator and knocked three times on the back wall. A panel shifted to the side, like something out of the movies, and a pair of suspicious eyes looked me up and down. Once he was sure I was who I was supposed to be, the entire back wall swung open, revealing a moderately sized boardroom.
The table, which took up most of the space, was round with room for eight chairs, five of which were currently occupied. The two side walls were lined with additional seats, about thirty in all, and most of these were taken as well.
I was, unsurprisingly, the only woman.
I stopped in front of the table and looked at each of the men seated there. There was my grandfather, Carlo De Marco, Don and current Boss of the De Marco Family, who watched everyone in the room like a predator. Tall and lean with silver hair and dark eyes, Carlo was still whip strong and agile, both in body and mind. Right now, if the look in his eyes was any indication, he was in a calculating mood.
