Page 15 of Vicious Intentions
I can’t help the flicker of envy that cuts through me. Niccolò and I were never afforded such a luxury.
Curious, I pull out his phone and read the incoming text.
Anna:I don’t know. I think maybe a snake and a mouse could be friends under different circumstances. I mean, rivalry feels almost genetic, doesn’t it? But if you remove the conditions that create it, and they no longer see themselves as predator and prey, I don’t see what would stop them from being friends.
The message is so strange that I scroll up the thread just to make sense of it all. Yes, I’m invading his privacy, but as his older brother, I think I’ve earned the right.
What I find only deepens my concern. Every one of his texts to this girl is filled with the ramblings of a wide-eyed, carefree child. All harmless. Completely unguarded. Too innocent. Too good. Too pure.
It’s just as I feared. Raffaele is still too soft, too vulnerable for the world that is waiting impatiently to devour him. How will he ever be ready to take theomertáin a few years if he continues to spend his time fantasizing about a world that he will never belong in?
Just as I’m about to switch the phone off, satisfied I’ve seen more than enough, a photo catches my eye. It’s of a young girl around Raffaele’s age, smiling straight at the camera, her free hand poised over piano keys.
It’s a pretty picture. One of youthful innocence.
And how I loathe it.
Ice floods my veins the second I recognize the girl in the photo.
I assumed Anna was a school friend of my brother, but I was wrong. This picture is proof that Anna is, in fact, Annamaria Romano, Vincent Romano’s youngest daughter. And how I remember her clearly.
When I first saw the young girl back in Chicago, I hated her on sight. She was the living embodiment of the lie Romano tells the world. That he is good. That he is righteous. That he is beyond reproach. He must be, to have such a child.
She looked as though God himself had plucked her from the stars and handpicked her as a gift for the Romanos. All that was missing was a halo above her head.
Still, in my eyes, she is a lie. A beautiful, grotesque lie. And no family should possess such a trophy to parade around. Least of all, Chicago.
Betrayal tastes like copper on my tongue as I scroll through the thread of my brother’s messages to her. More pictures. More smiles and private jokes. Over five months’ worth.
Here I am, plotting my family’s reclaiming of New York, while my brother is entangling himself with the enemy, one text at a time.
Blind fury nearly has me snapping the damn phone in half. But I don’t. Something stops me.
A plan sparks to life in my mind. It’s tentative at first, then steadily begins to take shape, sinking its roots deep inside me. And as I look around the reception hall and keep seeing a few snickers thrown over to Niccolò, Raffaele, and my mother, the idea begins to expand in my mind until it’s all I can focus on.
Everyone here may ridicule my brothers and me for being bastards, but we are not the only ones. No. If I were to put tenmade menin a lineup right this very minute, at least half of them would have a bastard or two hidden away somewhere.
Cheating husbands are not unheard of in our world. Sometimes it is almost expected, a sign of virility and dominance.
But a cheating wife? Now that is a humiliation beyond repair.
And even though Romano acts as if his house were a fortress, that his family is what every mafioso should strive to achieve, we’ve all heard the rumors about his Red Queen.
They say Selene Romano shares her bed not only with her husband, but also with hisconsigliereand enforcer.
I never gave much sway to such a rumor. With the way I was raised, I know all too well how envious men love to strip women of their power by calling them a whore, even if it’s not true. Such words end up sticking to a woman, tarnishing their reputation. I always assumed that was what people were doing to Selene, and therefore wanted no part in it.
Still, what if there’s a kernel of truth buried beneath the gossip?
What if I can prove that Vincent’s children aren’t his at all? What if his successor, Marcello, the very devil who snapped Carlo’s neck before my very eyes, is like me? What if he’s a bastard too? What if all of them are?
That would mean that Vincent’s bloodline would end with him. And if the truth of that was ever to come out, it would create such chaos within the Outfit, such mayhem, that the syndicate would be forced to look elsewhere for a newCapo Dei Capi.
And if that happened, then the Romanos would know the kind of shame and ridicule my brothers and I have endured our entire lives. Their very name would be as despised in Chicago as the Donato name currently is.
Perhaps this friendship between Raffaele and Annamaria will serve me well after all.
At least, it’s a start.
