The Capo's Daughter Needs No Permission novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Five Hundred and Seventy-Six
Livia puts her box of permission slips on the dining table and asks for her graduation trip, and the family takes the orphan to Orlando instead; she accepts a California offer, and her counselor says her own login cancelled her transcripts.
I set a steel cash box on the dining table, opened the lid, and let my whole family look inside.
There were five hundred and seventy-six slips of paper in it, each stamped with my father's black seal.
My father was a capo in the Family, and he called them permission slips.
Without one, I couldn't leave our territory or spend a dollar I hadn't been handed.
A finished chore earned one slip. An A earned one. Staying quiet about Family business earned one.
Five hundred slips bought a single trip outside the state, and it had taken me three years to save them.
"My SAT scores came today," I said, and laid the report next to the box. "I got a 1580. Westbridge Institute of Technology gave me a conditional offer for cybersecurity."
"I've done everything on your list. I'm cashing in for my graduation trip. When do we leave for the Caribbean?"
My brother, Franco, stopped spinning his car keys on one finger.
Bianca looked down at her plate.
Bianca Corsi was eighteen, same as me.
Her parents were dead, and the Family had sworn in public to protect her.
My father, Carmine Marchetti, ran Newark for the Family and kept that oath.
Her travel, tuition and guards were all paid for. Nobody had ever made her earn a slip.
My mother set down her coffee. "Livia, you know Bianca's scores aren't like yours. Why would you say that in front of her?"
"She's lost her parents," Mom said. "Do you have to remind her that everything she has depends on us?"
I didn't have an answer.
Bianca had an unlimited card, a private driver and four guards.
I had to hand over a signed slip to buy jeans or school supplies, or to leave the house on a Saturday.
Her graduation gift was ten thousand dollars of Apple devices. They had also bought her every birthday present from the nine years since her parents died.
The next morning a new plan appeared in the family chat. The Caribbean was off.
They were taking Bianca to Orlando, with two cars and four guards.
The Family had promised she would be safe on her first trip out of New Jersey.
Nobody asked if I wanted to come.
I carried the box to the kitchen and dropped it in the trash, slips and all.
A week later I came home holding a gyro from the cart outside our gate.
The living room was full. They were back from Orlando.
Bianca was curled against my father, scrolling through photos on his phone, the one he never let anyone touch.
In every picture he wore pink Minnie Mouse ears. My father almost never smiled outside this house.
Franco sat on the floor sorting gift boxes. Nobody had seen me yet.
My mother came out of the kitchen with a bowl of cherries and smelled the gyro. She frowned.
"Bianca can't stand that smell. Eat it upstairs."
Only then did the room notice me.
"You're home?" Franco said. "Why didn't you announce yourself? Standing there in the dark, who are you trying to scare?"
Bianca opened her mouth, and my mother put a cherry in it.
"Thank you, Aunt Rosalia," Bianca said softly.
I went upstairs without a word.
A few minutes later Mom pushed my door open and pressed a thick stack of fresh slips into my hand.
"I was too harsh the other day."
"It was Bianca's first graduation event as a protected orphan, and the whole Family was watching. We couldn't take you to the Caribbean first."
"You understand the rules better than anyone. We'll go next time."
She left.
The slips had never been rules. They were how my family kept me in my place.
Much later I went down for a glass of water.
Everyone was gathered around Bianca, talking about her college applications.
My father said he would pay for any degree she wanted.
Franco dropped a three-hundred-page guide on her knees. "Pick from the list. Safest schools in New Jersey, all close to our territory."
Bianca's eyes filled. "I hate making everybody worry. I wish I were smart like Livia and could get over 1500."
My mother hugged her. "A score doesn't decide whether you deserve to be looked after."
Bianca lifted her face from Mom's shoulder and found me in the doorway.
"It would be so good to go to college with Livia. She knows all the security stuff. We could look out for each other."
"That's not a problem," my father said.
"Pick first," Franco told her. "Then Livia applies to the same school."
The glass shook in my hand. "Why?"
Westbridge was in California.
Its security program was one of the best in the country, and I already held the offer. All I had to do was say yes.
Why should I give that up for a state school, so I could stay Bianca's free companion and backup guard?
My mother's face closed. "California is far outside the Family's protection. If you go alone and something happens, who is responsible?"
"If you and Bianca share a school, we rent an apartment nearby."
"The guards only need one detail. We're counting on you, Livia."
I looked at my father.
He didn't contradict her.
In our house, protection had always meant a cage.
So I stopped asking.
I went upstairs and called my college counselor.
"I'm accepting Westbridge's offer," I said.
"Good," she said. "I'm glad." Then her voice slowed. "Livia, your transcript release was cancelled yesterday. It was done from your own login."
"Nobody has my password."
"Then someone in your house does," she said.
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