Disowning My Mafia Family After They Chose A Liar novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Wrong Gun
At her welcome banquet, Nerina finds her custom pistol was cut for her adopted sister's hand, and gets blamed for asking. Half an hour later the Queens warehouse is raided.
At my welcome banquet, in front of forty guests, my father slid a pistol across the table and told me it was mine.
It had taken the Brancato family a year to throw this dinner.
A year ago a DNA match had pulled me out of my life as an orphan and a lawyer, and handed me a mother, a father and three brothers.
Tonight was the night they finally told their world I was theirs.
My adopted sister Delfina had come to my room that afternoon to pin up my hair.
She said I looked like I belonged here, and I believed her.
The chandelier lit the long table in the dining hall, and every place was full except one.
A chair at the far end had a plate, a glass and a folded card, and nobody sat in it.
Dad looked at the door twice during the soup.
When the plates were cleared, the old butler carried in a wooden case and set it in front of my father.
"Every child in this family gets one," Dad said. "A custom 1911 with the Brancato crest on the grip."
My three brothers lifted theirs from their jackets to show me.
Delfina touched the handle of hers and smiled.
Dad opened the case, took out my pistol, and fired one round into a vase on the far wall.
The vase burst, and the guests laughed and clapped.
Then he slid the gun along the cloth to me. "Yours."
I picked it up, and my hand did not fit around it.
My fingers left a gap along the grip, and the magazine release sat too far from my thumb.
I turned to him. "Dad, was this made for me?"
"Of course it was."
I held the pistol up so he could see the space between my palm and the wood. "Then why was it cut for a smaller hand?"
The base of the magazine had a sharp corner on it, and in a fight that corner would snag on a reload.
In a fight I would need a clean reload, and I would not have one.
I turned the gun over and looked into the open chamber.
Two letters were scratched into the steel, small and neat. D.B.
I looked down the table at my sister. "Did you two switch them?"
The whole table went quiet.
Delfina bit her lip. "Nerina, you're Dad's real daughter. I thought the gun should be yours, so I gave you mine."
"You gave me yours," I said, "because you aren't blood and you wanted to be rid of it?"
Her face went white.
My middle brother frowned at me. "It's a pistol, Nerina. So what if she swapped?"
"Dad told us every one was made for its owner," I said. "So why is mine somebody else's old gun?"
Nobody answered, so I went on.
"If this jams while I'm reloading on a job and I die, what does the family lose? Me, or the Brancato name?"
My eldest brother Tullio looked at his plate.
My mother put her napkin down. "That's enough. Delfina was being kind. Stop picking at every little thing."
"I'm not picking." I looked at her. "Dad said every child has one made for them. Is that true?"
Mom nodded once.
"Then where is mine?"
Delfina's eyes filled. "It's my fault. I'll kneel in the courtyard until you're satisfied."
She shoved her chair back, and the leg caught the rug.
She went down hard on one knee, and a cry came out of her.
Mom was out of her seat before I could blink, and had Delfina in her arms. "Sweetheart, your heart. Don't get worked up."
My middle brother stepped in front of both of them.
My youngest brother turned on me. "Happy now? You ruined the whole night."
"I asked for what belongs to me," I said. "How is that ruining anything?"
"You know how touchy she is about not being blood. Why throw it in her face?"
"I didn't," I said. "She said it first. Why am I the one in trouble for what she said?"
He opened his mouth and closed it again.
Delfina clutched her knee and sobbed. "I'm sorry, everyone. I'm not your real daughter. I had no right to come tonight. I'll go."
She limped out, slowly, and Mom and my three brothers followed her.
Guests looked at their plates, and nobody looked at me.
Dad stayed at the head of the table, and his eyes stayed on me.
"I'll have another pistol made," he said. "Delfina isn't blood, but I've raised her twenty years. You will learn to get along with her instead of shaming her in front of my guests."
"I only wanted the truth."
His hand came down on the table so hard the glasses jumped. "Enough!"
I set the wrong gun on the cloth.
"All right," I said.
He blinked at me.
In all my year in that house, it was the first time I had stopped asking before I got an answer.
The butler came down the table and lifted the plate and the folded card from the empty chair, and Dad gave him a small nod to do it.
The guests left in twos and threes, and I stood alone by the broken vase.
Half an hour later Dad's phone rang in the hall.
He listened, and his face emptied.
The north warehouse in Queens had been raided, and every crate in it was gone.
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