Chapter 18 RóISE

"Okay, you sure you've got this, Fi?"

Fiona waves her hand around the media room like a game show presenter. "I've got three of my favorite movies queued on the big screen for an all-night binge watch with enough snacks and drinks to keep me until next week. What's not to love?"

"You're right." A night all to herself in the media room, watching whatever she wants is her jam.

It's kind of mine too, when I'm not doing my best to ace all my college classes. I don't remember the last time I binge watched my favorite show, much less a bunch of movies.

I'd be jelly if I wasn't going into the City to watch Drunk Shakespeare.

"What happens if someone comes looking for us?" Kara asks, looking around the media room like a bodyguard is going to jump out from the shadows.

But our security teams respect our privacy. We don't even have to have someone in the hall outside the room when we're home.

Uncle Brogan has plenty of security, both bodies and technology to keep the mansion safe from intruders.

"The only security that might do that are gone for the day." We all know I'm talking about Allessio and Zoey, who are assigned to be with me whenever I leave the house.

Since I had no official plans to leave the house tonight, they left before dinner.

"No one will question that you're not in here with me," Fi answers her sister. "No one ever checks on us when we're having a movie night. "

That's the main reason we're pretty sure we can get away with this. Because no one does check on us when we do our movie nights. Unless you count Kara's husband and tonight, he's in Queens with Uncle Brogan at a mob meeting.

So, tonight Kara and me? We're meeting my friends from college and going out to celebrate my 21st. Which technically isn't for another week but who's going to tell?

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Kara says her eyes alight with excitement. "I have never snuck out of the house before. Not even when I was younger."

"You talk like you're an old woman and you're only four years older than me, three as of next week."

"And then it will be four again in October," she responds with the familiar argument. "I guess that's what comes from getting married when you're eighteen."

Kara doesn't sound bitter, just pragmatic.

But tonight we're not two women trapped in a world we were born into and can only leave by death. Unless we want to leave all those we love behind.

Tonight, we aren't two mob princesses. We are just two young women having some innocent fun.

There's a door in the back of the movie room, hidden in the wall. It's for staff to use and leads to the inner hallways they use to move around the mansion efficiently and unobtrusively.

They have more direct routes from one area of the house to another, which we are using tonight to reach the backdoor.

Of course, the passageways are monitored, but Kara is some kind of genius with technology and she's programmed a glitch into the system that will give us three minutes to get out the back door unseen.

If she weren't a mob princess who married at eighteen, she'd probably run a dot.com or one of the big software companies by now.

We're both breathless when we reach the backyard. We have to wait one minute for the sensors in the backyard to glitch like those in the house.

"Remember, we have one minute to get down to the boathouse," she says.

I nod. "Pull up your hood."

We both tighten the drawstrings so only a little bit of our faces show and then we run toward the boathouse, using the route we carefully mapped out to decrease our chances of getting caught.

My cousin insisted on disabling the security systems for the shortest amount of time possible, staggered like this so no one trying to breach the property could take advantage.

Not that anyone knows the systems will be down. Or that we are leaving. Not even moma .

Because of Kara's scary smart brain, the biggest problem we face is timing our movements to avoid the perimeter guards. If one of them deviates from their routine by even five seconds, we're not going anywhere.

But our sprint across the lawn, past the pool and down to the boathouse goes unseen. Not even by the backyard cameras. Kara disabled those too.

The rest of the plan is my idea, including the dark camo clothes we're wearing. I pull the inflatable lifeboat out of the bathroom that I took off the yacht earlier this week. Fi inflated it this morning.

She spends more time in the backyard and the boathouse than the rest of us, so her being there today didn't cause any suspicion.

"This is fun," Kara says breathlessly.

I grin at her. "Just call me 007."

"Oh, I want to be Salt."

Crossing my fingers for calm waters, I drop the waterproof duffle with our clothes for tonight in the bottom of the dinghy.

The yacht has a full size, motored lifeboat of course. But there are four dinghies for backup only the family and my uncle's most trusted men know about.

Men like Uncle Brogan have to be prepared for any eventuality. Including having his yacht sunk and the lifeboat disabled. Mob life.

What can you do?

But that extra precaution is working in our favor. If I had to order an inflatable rubber raft off the internet, it would never be delivered without being checked by security.

All packages are.

Adrenalin pumping, we each take an end and lower the boat into the water beside the speedboat. Like Kara planned it (which she did), the bay door opens halfway.

"We've got two minutes to launch."

This isn't new to us. We used to have a rubber raft both of our parents let us use as long as we didn't paddle too far from shore. It sprang a leak and dumped us into the bay one day and disappeared the day after.

Too dangerous.

Kara gasps and starts tipping toward the water. I grab her hoodie and yank her back. We don't have time to exclaim over her close call.

We need to launch. Like now.

Which we do, falling into a rhythm with our paddles pretty fast. Is it a little risky? Maybe. But we're both strong swimmers and it's not like this boat is going to spring a leak .

Uncle Brogan has all the blow up rafts checked on the regular. What good is a failsafe if it fails, right?

It takes longer to reach the pleasure craft waiting for us with my friends onboard than we expect and my arms feel like rubber when we finally do.

A hundred yards of paddling with oars is about my limit, but my friends couldn't risk dropping anchor any closer.

Twenty yards offshore and another eighty southeast of the mansion, there's no clear line of site to our backyard from this spot. Which means it won't trigger Uncle Brogan's security measures.

Aleks, who looks like an action-adventure hero but who wants to write scripts, helps me and my cousin into the boat.

Two inches taller than me with her brown hair pulled into a sleek ponytail, Goodwin hands us a couple of towels to dry the sea spray from our faces.

"It worked," Traci crows, holding out two glasses of champagne. "You two are the bomb!"

I shake out my arms before taking my glass. "Rowing on these choppy waters is harder than I remember."

"Drunk Shakespeare will be worth it." Carrie's signature giggle accompanies her words.

She's always smiling and is too sweet for showbusiness, but she's determined to break into television.

Like Aleks, though, she wants to write scripts. Not get in front of the camera even though she embodies the girl next door with her blond hair, trim figure and sunny attitude.

Traci has enough snark to make up for it. She's an actor, like me, but I have no doubt we'll see her on the silver screen. Goodwin too. She's third generation theater with more talent in her little finger than I have in my whole body.

We formed a posse freshman year and we're still besties.

Traci raises her glass. "Happy birthday, Rosy!"

Everyone else joins in the toast and a chorus of happy birthdays fills the air around me. Happiness fizzes through me with more bubbles than the champagne.

After a single sip, Goodwin puts her glass down. She has to pilot the borrowed boat back to dock. Her mom's sorority sister lives in one of the shoreline properties before the barrier islands to the east.

Once we arrive, all of us use the boathouse to change our clothes. The bay is too choppy to avoid salt spray and none of us wanted to arrive in Midtown looking like we just ran through a rain shower .

There's a stretch limo waiting for us in the drive, and I squeal. "You got us a limo!"

Yes, my family is richer than all the newly minted billionaires, but I get driven to school in a town car or an SUV. We haven't used limos in our family since my grandfather passed.

Uncle Brogan says they're ostentatious and don't give the right impression. I don't know what impression a mob boss wants to give that a limo doesn't, but this one is perfect for my birthday.

The interior is wild. With white leather seats, a drinks cabinet topped by a basin filled with canned pre-mixed drinks and pink LED lights along the ceiling, it's perfect for the trip into the city.

I grab a can with palm trees and an orange background that says Sex on the Beach and grin at Goodwin. I know this is her doing.

She smiles and winks. "I found all the fun drinks in cans. It's taken me months to get them all, and some are probably super gross—"

"Which is half the fun," I interrupt with a laugh.

We try the drinks and Goodwin is right. Some are awful. Some are pretty good and we're all feeling the alcohol by the time the limo pulls to a stop to let us out.

We're laughing and joking around while Kara shows the tickets on her phone so we can get in. We all get carded, including Kara.

I nudge her with my elbow. "Not such an old lady after all."

She grins and shakes her head, then leans down to whisper. "It's a good thing your fake ID is so good."

The guy who checks our IDs uses a UV light to confirm the state and public safety seals are on the driver's licenses.

I can't help looking around nervously and not because my fake ID is getting such close scrutiny. This is Cosa Nostra territory and there is a tiny chance we'll be recognized by someone on Miceli's payroll.

Not that I'm thinking about my gorgeous enemy tonight.

I'm so not.

Only being cautious.

That doesn't mean I'm looking forward to seeing him again on my actual birthday. Because no. Not.

The show is in the lounge area set up to look like an old library and we get to our seats without seeing any Cosa Nostra soldiers. Even if I wouldn't recognize their faces, I know a made man when I see one.

When the actors come out, they call for someone to come up and drink the first shot with the actor who's going to get five shots before trying to act his part in the play. My entire group erupts into shouts and points at me.

Kara's shrieking, "Let the birthday girl do it, let the birthday girl do it!"

The actor in charge of the shots makes a joke about Kara already having had her shot and I must want to catch up. Laughing I join the actors and after a lot of banter, take a shot with the actor chosen to play his part drunk.

It burns as it goes down and I confirm to the rest of the audience that this is real alcohol. My friends whoop and holler as I return to the table while the actor takes his four remaining shots.

The rest of the evening is kind of a blur but it's fun. By the time we're back in the limo, I'm watching my friends and listening to all the in-jokes we have with each other.

I cut a look to my cousin. Did she have friends like this before she got married?

Tilting her head, she looks at me. "What?"

"Was it like this for you before?"

She shakes her head. "I was still in high school. Dad would have had an aneurism if I got caught drinking."

I nod because I know that's true.

"But yeah, I had friends."

"What happened to them?"

"I keep in touch with a couple, but most of them didn't want anything to do with a nineteen-year-old mom. I couldn't exactly leave Fitz and go out partying."

"I'm sorry."

She grabs my hand and squeezes. "Don't. Neither of us made the world we live in, but we're both expected to keep it going."

Literally.

My choice in Uncle Brogan's study back in January means a night like tonight won't happen again. Not exactly this way. But seeing how much fun Kara had tonight, I'm determined that we'll find other ways to let loose.

Even if we have to bring along the nosy mafia bodyguards.

Things will change, but that's okay. We all grow up. And sometimes growing up means giving up things. I will give up my freedom for the sake of Fiona. Because Kara gave hers up for me.

But that doesn't mean I'm giving up living, no matter what my mafia husband-to-be thinks. And I'm going to make sure my cousin starts experiencing life again too.

Reality bites in the strict timing we have for our return, which means it's not that late when we get back to Long Island.

Neither of us wanted to try to navigate the raft tipsy, which means we have to be on the spot to sneak back in when Uncle Brogan and Mick return from Queens .

Our re-entry strategy isn't as foolproof as our exit. Because it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. If we get caught sneaking back in on the land side, the worst that happens is some yelling.

I've already got two more bodyguards than I need. What's Miceli going to do? Give me two more and make my extra security round the clock?

I don't have to find out because, by sheer luck, we manage to get our tipsy selves back onto the estate and into the house without being detected.

One of the guards is caught on his phone and Mick reads him the riot act while Uncle Brogan yells at the other guards for not noticing. Honestly, I don’t think we would have made it through undetected without the distraction.

Sometimes Fate smiles on mob princesses who just want one night of normal fun. And tonight's that night.

Not like Portland when Fate was playing nasty tricks.

Fi wants to hear everything about our night and we happily spill it all.

Afterward, we finish watching a movie with her before raiding the kitchen for middle-of-the-night root beer floats. My favorite.

Fi insists on both me and Kara also drinking a full bottle of water before going to bed.

"Hangovers are caused by dehydration," she lectures.

We all end up sleeping together in my room, waking at some ridiculous hour to Mick pounding on my door looking for his wife. Kara lets him carry her out and I roll over to go back to sleep.

I don't think Fi even woke up.

All-in-all, it was a pretty perfect birthday, even if it had to happen a week early.