“I was countersigning a ten-million-dollar patent license under a Department of Defense classification stamp when my mother called.
“”Isabella’s marrying into the Marchettis this weekend. You must come home.””
Click. She hung up.
The Marchettis. One of the Five Mafia Families.
For a Vitale girl to marry a Marchetti was what my mother had been praying for for twenty years.
I opened the friends-and-family group chat I’d had muted for a long time.
My brother Elliot had actually mentioned me for once.
【Every Don on the Eastern Seaboard is going to be at that wedding. Wear something decent. Don’t embarrass Isabella.】
Ethan Colombo, who’d grown up two houses down from ours, jumped in right after.
【Ten years out of high school. If you’d worked half as hard as Isabella and gotten into an Ivy, you’d have your foot in the Marchettis’ door by now. Instead you’re pulling espresso shots in some hole in Queens.】
I scrolled down.
I stopped at a message from Melanie Ricci, the girl who used to be my best friend.
【Hazel, Isabella’s going to be a Marchetti in five days. If New York isn’t working out, come home. Ask Isabella to put in a word. The Marchettis can place you somewhere respectable.
Hostess at the club. Anything is better than what you’re doing to the Vitale name.】
I lowered my eyes.
The Marchettis.
Over the last three months, Don Salvatore Marchetti himself had reached out to me three times through back channels, requesting a thirty-minute meeting.
Every request went unanswered.
The group chat kept pinging.
I couldn’t be bothered to read the rest. I typed back:【OK. I’ll be there.】”
Don Bowed To Me Chapter 04 “Hazel! You don’t come home for ten years, and the moment you show up, you start picking fights?” “If I’d known you’d turn out this ungrateful, I should have left you on the church steps in a basket the night you were born!” Exactly like ten years ago. The
Don Bowed To Me Chapter 04 Read Post »
Don Bowed To Me Chapter 03 Friday. I flew into Providence. A black car service picked me up and drove me down to Newport. No one from the Family came to meet me. The car dropped me off at my parents’ house on Bellevue. Melanie opened the door. Something flickered behind her eyes. “Hazel… I
Don Bowed To Me Chapter 03 Read Post »
Don Bowed To Me Chapter 02 I remembered senior year of high school. I was eighteen. Isabella had transferred back from her Catholic prep school in Los Angeles. My mother had sent her there for etiquette lessons, French, everything she’d need to one day carry the Vitale name into a Five Families ballroom. She effortlessly
Don Bowed To Me Chapter 02 Read Post »
Don Bowed To Me Chapter 01 I was countersigning a ten-million-dollar patent license under a Department of Defense classification stamp when my mother called. “Isabella’s marrying into the Marchettis this weekend. You must come home.” Click. She hung up. The Marchettis. One of the Five Mafia Families. For a Vitale girl to marry a Marchetti
Don Bowed To Me Chapter 01 Read Post »
