She Discovers Her Mafia Family—He’s the Father She Has to Hide novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Opening
My grandfather silenced fifteen people by tapping his glass once.
It was the second Saturday in January, in the grand dining room of the villa on the Corniche in Marseille.
Outside, the sea was black.
Inside, the long table had been set for the fifteen Gomezes, and not once in my life had anyone explained why they put out a basket for our phones.
I’d just placed mine in the basket, along with the pregnancy test I’d tucked into my dress pocket.
Two pink lines.
I’d taken another one that morning, just in case.
Ten weeks.
The father, a forty-year-old man I’d loved for two months without ever learning his last name, knew nothing.
He’d told me his name was Damiano and that he worked in imports, and I hadn’t asked for anything more.
I hadn’t replied to any of his messages in three weeks because I didn’t know what to say.
I kept his last texts unopened.
My name is Elise Gomez, I turned eighteen in September, and I’m in my second year of psychology.
In this family, I’m the baby, the one who listens and says nothing.
That night, I listened better than ever.
“My children,” Alberto said.
He was seventy-five, with a straight back and hands no one had ever seen tremble.
Everyone lowered their eyes, even the uncle who yells at everyone.
“In our family, you learn the truth on the night of the Opening, the year you turn eighteen,” my grandfather said.
“All your cousins learned it before you.”
He looked at me.
“Elise is the last one. Tonight, the family is complete.”
I looked for my mother’s eyes.
She stared down at her tablecloth.
My glass was already full.
The others had red wine in theirs; mine had grape juice, set out before I arrived.
I thought it was a tradition for the youngest, and I didn’t ask.
“Our family doesn’t sell boats,” Alberto continued, “even if the paperwork says otherwise.”
My cousin Lucas smiled into his glass.
He was twenty-five, built like a wardrobe, and once told me I was useless in a fight.
“We’ve been the Marseille port mafia for forty years,” Alberto said, without raising his voice.
“Each of you joins at eighteen. Each of you has a place in it.”
I waited for laughter.
Nobody laughed.
My cousin Ines, twenty-three, who always had an answer ready, ran a finger along her glass.
She didn’t look at me.
“This is a joke,” I said.
“No,” my mother whispered.
It felt as if the room had shifted one step to the left and I’d been left behind.
My father, my uncle, my aunts: they all knew.
For eighteen years, they’d made me pancakes on Sundays, asked about my grades, and driven me to the train station.
And every Sunday, they knew.
“I’m old,” Alberto continued. “A don doesn’t die in his bed, but I intend to give it a try.”
Someone coughed.
“The time has come to choose my successor. There are six grandchildren and only one position.”
He let the silence stretch.
“You’ll be judged in five trials: combat, authority, intelligence, improvisation, and diplomacy, with both our allies and our enemies.”
“The winner runs everything. The others obey.”
“Each trial earns points, and I’ll be the only one keeping score.”
No one asked how.
Lucas placed both hands flat on the table, like someone who’d already won.
Ines lifted her chin.
And I thought of my belly.
I couldn’t help it.
I didn’t put a hand on it.
“I want to refuse,” I said.
My voice shook, but the words came out.
Alberto didn’t move.
“You don’t get to refuse, Elise. Not in this family.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“You can,” he said. “The day you lose everything you’ve been given. Your college, your room, your mother’s rent.”
I turned to her.
She was crying silently.
No one stood up for me.
Not my father, who was looking away, not my uncle, not the aunts who’d braided my hair when I was six.
For once, I felt something inside me straighten.
It was the first time that had ever happened with them.
“And if I don’t join?”
“Then it’s Lucas or Ines,” Alberto said, “and you’ll obey them.”
I looked at Lucas, who was smiling.
I thought of my child, and what that smile would do to them one day.
I stood up.
“I’m entering the competition,” I said.
Fifteen faces turned toward me.
Alberto tilted his head, ever so slightly, as if I’d just given the right answer.
He pulled a photograph from his jacket and slid it across the tablecloth toward me.
“Then you need to know who our only enemy in Marseille is.”
I looked down.
A tall, dark-haired man, tattooed down to his wrist, in a dark suit, standing on the steps of a courthouse.
I knew that jaw.
I knew the line of those shoulders, the scar through his eyebrow, and the tattoo showing beneath his sleeve.
I’d spent two months in his arms.
“His name is Damiano Venturi,” my grandfather said. “He’s forty, and he’d like to see us all buried.”
I didn’t say anything.
I stood in front of the photo of the man whose child I was carrying.
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