Filed to story: The Mafia Boss’s Regret (Ava & Dante)
My home looked like something out of a magazine.
A red front door with a gleaming gold knocker. Black-and-white checkered floors polished to perfection. A sweeping wooden staircase, all lacquer and shine, crowned by a chandelier that glittered like it had secrets of its own.
But sometimes I wondered… if I peeled back a corner of that perfect wallpaper-would it bleed?
If the truth seeped through like cracks in glass, would it drip slow and thick, staining the marble floors red?
I sat in the kitchen, staring at the TV without really seeing it. The newscaster’s voice blurred into noise-until one word sliced through everything.
Murder.
It echoed in my head, sharp and relentless. My throat tightened as I twisted the ring on my middle finger, over and over again.
My life-this house-was built on dirty money. That had always been true.
But I used to tell myself I was different. That I hadn’t added to the weight of it.
Not until this year.
Now, the guilt followed me into my dreams. And I didn’t wake up clean.
Voices drifted in from the foyer every time the kitchen door swung open. Staff moving in and out. Lunch preparations in full swing. Laughter-too loud, too bright. My cousin Benito’s unmistakable tone. A woman’s lilting giggle.
And then him.
A voice I’d heard just once this morning, outside the church. Low. Smooth. Detached.
Cold.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
My future brother-in-law.
The reason-partly, mostly, entirely-that I was hiding in the kitchen like a coward.
Not that I’d ever admit it.
“You are too beautiful for that frown, Candy Voss.”
Mamma swept into the room, bringing the noise of our guests with her like a trailing storm.
I shifted under her gaze. I hadn’t heard that nickname in a long time.
Candy Voss.
I’d outgrown it-like a dress that used to fit but now clung in all the wrong places. I’d been the pretty girl. The quiet girl. The polite one. Admired for all the reasons that didn’t matter.
A bird in a gilded cage.
It took years before I realized I was trapped.
And when I finally did… I ran.
“I don’t know why you watch this, Ava,” Mamma said, stirring the sauce on the stove. “All that nonsense is depressing.”
She said it so casually, as if her husband wasn’t Salvatore Voss-a man whose name carried weight in places the law didn’t reach.
Sometimes I wondered if her innocence was real… or just easier.
“I’m not sure who to vote for in the election,” I said, my voice distant.
She paused, glancing at me like I’d grown a second head. Maybe it was strange-a mob boss’s daughter caring about politics, rules, consequences.
Things our world ignored.
“Your papà isn’t happy with you,” she said finally, her tone sharpening as she looked at me through dark lashes.
I let out a humorless breath. “When is he ever happy with me these days?”
“What do you expect after what you did?”
There it was.
Six months later, and she still held onto it like a prized weapon. If anything, I thought she enjoyed it-finally having something to use against me.
“Why didn’t you meet the Moretti after church?” she pressed, pointing her spoon at me. “Don’t tell me you forgot’ and waited in the car like an innocent girl.”
I crossed my arms. “I didn’t want to. He’s… rude.”
“Ava,” she snapped. “You don’t even know him.”
“You don’t need to meet someone like him to know what he is.”
“Oh, Madonna, salvami,” she muttered under her breath.
“And he won’t understand Lydia,” I added, more quietly this time.
She snorted. “Not many people understand your sister, figlia mia.”
The gardener did.
But I kept that to myself-because in this family, secrets didn’t stay harmless for long. And I had no intention of seeing him end up at the bottom of the Hudson River.
Earlier this week, Papà had announced that Lydia would be marrying Dante Moretti, the don of one of the five families in New York. My past transgressions were still tender wounds, but with this news added to the list it was like they’d been cut back open.
I was the eldest sister; therefore, it was my responsibility to marry first. But because of my mistake, my sister had been thrown under the bus-and to a man with a reputation. Everyone knew that when someone had a reputation in this world it meant one thing: stay the hell away from them.