Page 2 of Mafia Kings: Dario

My mother died when I was only 12 years old, and ever since then I was his only helper in the café. He would cook the few dishes we offered on the menu, and I would serve the customers.

It was a lonely, boring life.

I loved my father, but it wasnotwhat I wanted for myself.

I was 20 years old. I had hoped to move out when I finished school at 18 – perhaps to Florence! – but I didn’t have nearly enough money.

And my father had begged me to stay. Without my help, the café would go under because he couldn’t afford to pay anyone else.

Plus he said he would die of loneliness without me, which broke my heart.

So I stayed.

Yet I yearned for something –anything– else.

I soon learned to be careful what you wish for.

* * *

I lived with Papa above the café. Our closest neighbor was a 65-year-old widow who would walk a quarter of a mile every morning to have coffee and flirt with my father.

At 51, Papa was much younger than her. He had been older than my mother, and they had had me much later in life (at least compared with what was common in rural Italy).

Despite six years of flirting, the widow still hadn’t made any headway.

Papa had loved my mother fiercely, and he still mourned her passing every day.

Sometimes I felt like my own life had ended with hers.

Seven days a week, I took orders for coffee, pastries, and the occasional meal.

On Sundays I would walk to the church in Mensano for mass because we were too poor to own a car. Then I had to walk back home in time for afternoon lunch in the café.

My father wasnotdevout. He never attended mass, and despite my complaints, he forced me to work on the Sabbath.

Every Sunday I would joke, “If I have to spend an extra year in Purgatory because of you – ”

“Didn’t you hear, Alessandra? The Pope got rid of Purgatory years ago,” he would tease me. “And you don’t do anything bad enough to go to hell, so you’re fine.”

“That’s because there’s nothing todoaround here that’s bad enough for hell.”

Little did I know, something ‘bad enough’ would come and findme.

* * *

It was a Monday night. I remember the day because it was odd to haveanyonein the café for dinner on a Monday, much less a stranger.

He was in his 30s and ugly, like a toad with fat lips. I could tell by his accent that he was from the north, far away from Florence. When he came in, he demanded a table where he could sit with his back against the wall.

He was curt and rude and had a nasty habit of staring at my breasts whenever he talked to me. I dress very conservatively, so it wasn’t like I was inviting his gaze – but he still looked at me like a piece of meat, which made my skin crawl.

As soon as I took his order, I retreated to the far end of the café and waited for my father to finish cooking his meal.

The ugly man was constantly darting his eyes around the stone walls of the café. No one else was in there except for him, me, and Papa working in the kitchen – but the man seemed afraid that a boogeyman would suddenly appear from the shadows.

Apparently he knew something I didn’t.

I had just delivered hispollo al limone– chicken with lemon – when the ugly man said something odd in his northern-accented Italian: “Tell your father my compliments to the chef.”

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