Chapter 39 RóISE

Still Monday

Not wanting to take my bad mood out on my family, I turn down Kara's offer to go for an after dinner coffee and Fiona's offer to watch All About Eve with me for the dozenth time.

When mamo asks me to read to her while she does her cross stitch, I tell her I have a headache and need to get some fresh air.

My grandmother loves her audiobooks and she lets me read to her, using different character voices to practice getting into different characters quickly. But I'm sure it's a lot more fun for me than it is for her.

My extemporaneous reading, with my stops and starts and stumbles isn't the same as listening to a smoothly polished audiobook.

They're all being wonderful, but they don't deserve for the gray cloud hanging over my head to start raining on them.

I'm not just sad. I'm angry. At that stupid jerk, Boaz for blabbing my business to the whole class. At the dean for telling me to stay home for a few days while the board gets together to discuss the problem I present . At my professor for going to him in the first place.

And at Miceli damn De Luca, underboss from hell, who put the whole thing in motion with his extra vigilant bodyguards.

Out here, I can cry where no one can see. Tears are a weakness we're not supposed to give into. But I can't always control mine. Even Fiona is better at keeping the waterworks from starting.

She'll huddle in a ball of shivering anxiety and not shed a single tear .

It's not right, but even mamo ascribes to the axiom, mob princesses don't cry .

"What are you doing walking out here alone? I'm going to fucking kill Allessio." Miceli's voice interrupts my solitude.

Swiping roughly at my cheeks, I croak out, "Allessio and Zoey are off the clock. I don't need a security detail in my own backyard."

And what the heck is Miceli doing here?

"How often do you come out here alone like this? Do Kara and Fiona do it too? Does Kara let Fitz play out here without security?"

I spin around and glare at the source of one of the worst days of my life. "What's it to you? Contrary to what you think, Miceli, you are not king of the world. You're not even his little brother."

The underboss's brows draw together as he studies me. "What's wrong with you?"

"Something has to be wrong with me to ignore your texts for a day? Come on, how controlling are you?"

"You were crying. God-fucking-damn-it! I told that insensitive son-of-a-bitch to let me break the news to you."

"You knew I was going to get kicked out of school? How? The dean wouldn't call you." So far as anyone knows, I'm still just the girlfriend and that's hardly common knowledge among normal people.

And as far as I know, even Uncle Brogan doesn't know about my temporary suspension.

"You got kicked out of school? What the hell happened today?"

"What I told you would happen!" My fingers curl so tightly, my nails dig into the palms of my hands. "I told you," I say again, this time my voice filled with defeat.

He reaches for me and I rear back, unable to bear his touch right now.

Dropping his arm, his hand fists at his side. "Tell me what happened."

So, I tell him, ending with, "I'm on unofficial suspension until they decide what to do about me ."

"I will speak to your dean," Miceli says grimly.

"What? No." I shake my head in vehement denial. "That's all I need, for them to find out I'm not only the niece of a known mobster, but the fiancée of one as well."

"We keep a lower profile than the Irish. As far as your dean is concerned, I'm part of a powerful and generous multibillion-dollar family empire."

"You are not bribing the university with a donation to let me continue taking classes." Enough people are using me for gain, I'm not letting the dean be added to that list. "I've done nothing wrong. They have no right to do this. "

"Your uncle won't allow you to pursue legal recourse," Miceli says with certainty.

I blow out an angry, frustrated breath. "I know."

I could pretend that I believe that since I'm an adult, I can do what I want. But I know that's not true. So does the underboss watching me so stoically.

"That doesn't mean I'm going to let the dean profit from treating me like crap." A minute ago, I felt helpless. Now, I don't. "And he doesn't know I won't sue. I'm an actor. I can be pretty convincing."

"Never make a threat you aren't willing to back up," Miceli says.

"Yeah, that might work in the mafia, but normal people make threats they don't plan to carry out all the time."

Miceli looks out over the dark water. Not like he's admiring the view, but like he's watching for something. Looking for something.

"If a sniper isn't going to shoot from a swaying boat in the middle of the day, he's sure not going to try at night," I point out.

Is there a reason Miceli is extra worried about someone trying to kill him?

"First, while shooting from a rocking boat might increase the difficulty of the shot, it wouldn't make it impossible. Second, it's not someone trying to kill you that I'm concerned about."

"Me? Why me? You're the target, not me." Of the fictitious sniper in the boat that is nowhere to be seen anywhere near us in the water.

"Divers could come out of the water and kidnap you, one of your cousins, or your nephew before anyone in the house even knows you are gone."

"First," I copy him. "There are perimeter guards. Second, when there's a risk to our security, we don't come back here."

"You are always at risk. Any of you would be leverage against Brogan. And now you are leverage against me." He says the last like that's an even bigger deal.

"You're ruining everything else in my life, do you have to ruin this too?" The back yard isn't just a safe space for Fiona.

All of us enjoy the relative freedom of being out here. Especially when the constraints of life in a mob family get too tight. Like today.

Besides, we're never really alone. Not even here. There are guards that patrol the perimeter of the estate and I know Ollie is somewhere in the trees watching over me.

Close enough to guard me, but far enough away to give me what privacy he can.

"How have I ruined your life, Róise?" Miceli's tone implies he thinks I'm being dramatic .

Again.

My feeling of helplessness in the face of my hijacked life boils over. "I wasn't going to be a mob wife. I was going to pick my husband, if I got married at all. I was going to have a normal life with friends that carry phones, not weapons. I was going to be an actor!"

Part of what hurts so much right now is the realization that even if I fight the dean and win about returning to college, I'll never be able to use my degree.

Not even if I divorce Miceli, which in my heart of hearts I know will never happen. Not if he keeps the promises he's made to me.

But even if I did, for the safety of the child I've agreed to have, I'll never be able to pursue a career on stage, or in Hollywood. Or anywhere else I will be in the public eye and risk putting my child (and Miceli) there too.

"Life changes for all of us." He doesn't look or sound dismissive. More pensive.

"Oh, yeah, how has it changed for you? According to you, you always expected to marry for the sake of the mafia."

He looks at me for a long, silent moment before going back to his vigilant observation of the dark bay waters. "Severu is making a bid for godfather when Don Caruso dies."

"I care about this why?"

"It's the reason we have to cement our alliance publicly right now."

"What difference does the title make? He's already a don."

"Like ancient Rome, the mafia has a re . A king. We call him godfather. He rules over the Cosa Nostra in the United States. Once he is elected by vote of all the dons, he is godfather until he dies."

Do syndicate men ever think they have enough power?

"What if he's a bad godfather?" I ask, my curiosity pushing aside some of my bad mood.

Miceli shrugs. "What if a king fucks up his country?"

"They get away with it," I say a little bitterly.

The Irish mob doesn't have the same kind of structure as the Italian mafia, but Uncle Brogan has no checks on his power.

He's the boss over the Shaughnessy family in New York and no one can challenge that. Not without bloodshed.

But Uncle Brogan's authority doesn't extend beyond our territory even if his influence does through alliances.

There is no King of the Irish Mob.

Miceli shrugs again. "Or they get assassinated."

"That's hardly a reliable check on his authority. Even good kings get assassinated. "

And whether they were good depends on who wrote the history, right? That's almost never the general population who live under the tyranny of monarchy. People like me, whose lives get stolen by the powers that be.

Maybe I could be a history teacher and change that. You know, teach good little mafia girls and boys about the real history of la famiglia .

Shoving away the fanciful thought that is also silly because I don't know that history, I ask, "So, the godfather is the king. What does that make the dons? Princes?"

"If you are referring to Roman princes."

"Why do they have to be Roman? And please don't tell me it's because of Italian superiority."

"Roman princes ruled over their own fiefdoms."

"This sound like feudalism."

"You wouldn't be the first woman to say that the mafia is stuck in the Middle Ages," Miceli drawls sarcastically.

"Oh, joy. Every modern woman's dream is to end up married into a Medieval culture setting equality back centuries."

"It's not that bad, but our leadership structure is feudal."

"The dons rule over their own territories. Like my uncle."

"Yes."

"And the capos?"

"The capo dei capi operate under the authority of their don. They have a second-in-command and no one except the don outranks them."

"What about you? You're the underboss. And Big Sal is the consigliere ."

"Your accent is improving."

"I'm learning Italian on Duo Lingo." I'm not living with a bunch of people who speak a language I don't understand.

"I am equal to the capos in rank, unless I am speaking on behalf of Sev. Then I carry the authority of his position."

"A prince's prince," I quip.

"In a way. If we go to war, as my brother's right arm, I also have the authority to conscript soldiers from the capos if I need them."

"It really is like a medieval kingdom."

"The capos and soldiers pay tithe to the organization from the businesses financed and built by it."

"You can't tell me that the De Lucas need tithes from their mafia."

"We don't," he agrees. "We put the money into an account used to support widows and children of our soldiers."

"You mean for the men who die for the mafia?" That's kind of cool .

Do we have something like that in the mob? I could ask Uncle Brogan, but would he tell me. I bet mamo knows though.

Miceli shrugs. "Or who die from a heart attack, or getting hit by a car."

"What? Really?" That's…more than I expect from a criminal organization.

"We take care of our own."

"Are all mafias like yours?"

Miceli shrugs again. Like it doesn't matter. Like the only thing that matters is how the Genovese do things.

For him it probably is.