The Mafia’s Lost Daughter Came Home. Then She Tore the Family Apart. Chapter 02
“Don’t…”
Chiara latched onto Leo’s leg, gasping between fake sobs.
“Don’t be mad at me, big brother. It’s my fault. I just wanted to play snow…”
Her mouth kept apologizing. Her eyes stayed locked on me.
Leo’s face went red. “Beat her down! I don’t care what happens, I’ll answer for it!”
I rolled my neck. “Sure. Let’s practice. Consider this me doing charity work, loosening up you sorry bastards.”
They didn’t know I’d cleared a whole bar’s worth of bikers when I was seventeen.
Eighteen out of twenty. Two broken bottles. One trip to the ER for the guy who started it.
I closed the distance first, ripped the baton out of the nearest guard’s hands, and cracked it into the back of a second one’s knee.
Half a minute later.
A ring of them lay on the ground, groaning.
Thwack. Thwack.
I walked up to Leo with the baton still in my hand.
He backed up fast. “You… what are you trying to do? I’m your brother!”
“Brother?”
The baton cracked into the stone column next to him. Chunks of rock sprayed across the floor.
“Since I walked through that door, which one of you has treated me like family? “
“This little snake cuts up my bedsheets and you call her a child? “
“Twenty years old and still a baby? Is her brain just missing, or did it shrink?”
I pointed the baton at Enzo, still thrashing in the pool. Then at Marco, on his knees, cradling his hand.
“Anyone wants to run their mouth at me again today, I’ll make sure this pool’s got more bodies floating in it.”
Chiara hiccupped, too scared to even cry anymore.
My mother pressed a hand to her chest, eyes rolling back, and dropped.
The courtyard broke into chaos.
I threw the baton on the ground. “Get him out of that water before I throw up. “
“If he freezes to death, I’m not paying for the funeral.”
I turned to leave. Then stopped.
I looked back at Chiara.
“Stay away from me from now on. If you push me again, that bottle’s going up your nose. I won’t pull it out slow.”
…
Back in my room, I took one look at the shredded sheets.
I didn’t hesitate. I walked to Donna Moretti’s closet and pulled out her real silk comforter instead.
Warm. Actually decent.
Hunger woke me up around midnight. I shuffled downstairs in my slippers, straight for the dining room. Lights blazing.
Enzo sat wrapped in a thick blanket, sneezing nonstop.
Marco’s arm hung in a sling, face cold.
Chiara was still in that onesie, perched on a high chair, sucking juice from her bottle.
The second I walked in, my mother slammed her fork down.
“You have the nerve to sit down for dinner? After what you did to your brothers?”
I pulled out a chair and picked up a fork.
“My conscience is fine. Besides…” I speared a piece of meat with my fork and put it in my mouth. Then I smiled, “It tastes great.”
My mother’s face turned dark. Yet I ignored her, I reached for the roasted chicken instead.
Then—
Before my fork touched the skin, Chiara wailed and grabbed the pot of hot gravy in front of her, throwing it straight at my face.
“No! Don’t eat the chicken! Chicken is Chiara’s!”
I flipped the steel serving platter off the table.
It met the gravy head-on and splashed back, right over her.
“AH—”
Chiara shot up off the high chair, slapping at her own clothes, hopping in place.
“Hot, hot, it hurts, it hurts!”
Enzo threw off the blanket and pointed at me, shouting. “Are you insane? Chiara’s not all there, she’s a child, and you throw hot soup at her?”
Child. Again.
Bang. I slammed the steel bowl back down on the table hard.
“Are you blind, or is it cataracts? Didn’t see who threw first? “
Leo grabbed a towel, dabbing at Chiara’s clothes, eyes soft with pity.
“She just didn’t want to share her food. She’s a kid. You’re the adult here. Can’t you cut her some slack?”
Silence. The only sound was Chiara’s wet sniffles in the background.
Then I said, “No, I can’t.”