She Married The Mafia Heir I Married The Next Don Chapter 01
Her or Me
“This is my daughter, Mara.” my father told the staff.
Bianca smiled, too.
The girl who had grown up in my place, with my parents and everything that should have been mine, took my hand.
“I’ve always wanted a sister.”
She taught me which glass to use at dinner.
How to greet the wives of my father’s associates.
How to walk in shoes that cost more than three months of rent in the apartment where I grew up.
Nobody openly told me I didn’t belong.
They didn’t have to.
A dropped fork.
A spilled drink.
My heel catching the hem of a dress.
There was always someone nearby trying not to laugh.
Then, one evening, I knock over a cup in the sitting room.
One of the maids turns away.
Not quickly enough.
I hear her laugh.
I slap her.
The room goes silent.
“Mara!”
My mother’s voice cracks across the room.
“What is wrong with you?”
I look from the maid to her.
“She was laughing at me.”
“Then tell me. You don’t hit the staff.”
“They all do it.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Every time I get something wrong. Every time Bianca has to show me how to do something.”
Bianca rises from the sofa.
“Mara, I don’t mind helping.”
“I know.”
My voice shakes.
“You’re very good at helping. Everyone makes sure I know that.”
My father puts down his glass.
“Watch your tone.”
I look at him.
Then at my mother.
“Everything she has was supposed to be mine.”
Bianca goes still.
“This house. This family. The chance to grow up knowing there would be food the next morning.”
“Mara,” my mother says softly.
“Why am I the one everyone gets to laugh at?”
My father’s mouth tightens.
“None of that was Bianca’s fault.”
There it is.
The answer to everything.
Not her fault.
Not her choice.
Not something she should have to lose.
“And it was mine?”
“Nobody said that.”
“Then choose.”
My mother stares.
“What?”
“Her or me.”
Bianca’s face drains of color.
“I won’t keep living like this,” I say. “Not in my own family.”
My mother reaches for my arm.
I pull away.
“Don’t touch me.”
My father crosses the room.
The slap turns my head.
For a second, I hear nothing.
Then my mother says his name.
“Vittorio.”
He ignores her.
“Look at yourself. Is this how a daughter of mine behaves?”
I press a hand against my cheek.
“A daughter of yours?”
“Yes.”
“Then where were you while I was learning how to behave?”
His face hardens.
“I didn’t know.”
“But you know now.”
My voice rises.
“You know where I grew up. You know what they did to me. And you still act surprised that I don’t look like her.”
I sweep my arm across the table.
Cups shatter on the floor.
My mother flinches.
“The dresses come to her first. The jewelry comes to her first. Everything that reaches my room is something she didn’t want.”
“That’s ridiculous,” my father says.
“Is it?”
Last month, two dresses arrived from a designer my mother liked.
I had never worn anything so beautiful.
I asked Rosa to help me fasten the blue one.
Then I went downstairs, smiling like an idiot.
In the hall, two women were sorting flowers.
“She thinks they were ordered for her.”
“Well, Bianca said no to them. Someone might as well wear them.”
They hadn’t seen me.
I went back upstairs without making a sound.
Now I look at my mother.
“You watched me thank you.”
Her lips part.
“You said blue suited me.”
“It does.”
“Did you order it for me?”
She hesitates.
That is enough.
Bianca comes closer.
“You can have anything in my room. I don’t care about the dresses.”
“I don’t want you giving me permission.”
“I’m trying to make this right.”
“Then leave.”
My mother moves in front of her.
It is instinctive.
Quick.
As though I were something she needed to protect her daughter from.
I look at them.
My father beside the table.
My mother holding Bianca’s arm.
Bianca crying.
And me, standing alone with a burning cheek.
“I want her out of this house.”
“Mara, be reasonable.”
I laugh.
I can’t seem to stop.
A guard steps closer.
Someone says my name again.
Everything after that happens in fragments.
A startled shout.
My mother’s face changing.
A gun in my hand, pointed at myself.
For the first time since I came home, nobody is looking at Bianca.