"Only then will you prove you're truly sorry for what happened to your stepmother!"
Listening to Damiano's self-righteous speech, I was so furious I almost laughed.
Beyond the sheer absurdity, a wave of clarity washed over me. So this was the real play. Damiano and Viviana had teamed up to destroy me, and it wasn't just about making me disappear. They wanted my tribute cut and my apartment too.
That explained everything. No wonder Viviana had barely settled into a few quiet days with my father before Damiano launched his sudden, passionate pursuit of me. I used to wonder when the Valenti family's luck in love had gotten so good. Now I understood perfectly.
With that realization burning through me, I spat right in Damiano's face.
"Go to hell!"
"You lose some bastard child and think that entitles you to my tribute cut and my apartment? Where do you get the nerve!"
Damiano and Viviana stood there stunned, then erupted in rage.
Viviana broke into loud, heaving sobs. "Damiano, don't bother speaking up for me. Bianca has never accepted me as her stepmother. She won't listen!"
"Forget it. Second wives are unwanted everywhere we go. Strangers look down on us, and our own families hurt us. If I'd known it would be like this, I'd rather be dead!"
Seeing Viviana lunge toward the iron railing at the stoop's edge, Damiano grabbed her just in time and murmured soothing words.
"Please don't be upset. I've already called Don Massimo. He's on his way to set things right for you!"
"Don Massimo is the head of this household. Bianca has no choice but to listen to him!"
The neighbors nodded along, abandoning whatever they'd been doing. One by one they dragged their folding chairs over and planted themselves in front of our door, waiting for my father to arrive. Two old men from down the block drifted closer, the way people on a Family-controlled street always drifted toward trouble. No one ran for the cops. That wasn't how things worked on this block.
"If you ask me, Don Massimo really needs to teach that girl a lesson. Getting too big for her britches, bullying her own elders. She even called the baby in Viviana's belly a bastard!"
"Absolutely outrageous. Having a daughter that disobedient is nothing but bad karma!"
Hearing the neighbors' condemnation, Viviana's eyes gleamed. She shot me a glance, so subtle no one else caught it. Her fingertip touched beneath her left eye, came away dry.
But she was in for a disappointment.
When that smug look landed on me, all I did was curl my lip in a cold smirk. I couldn't be bothered to waste a single word on her.
She had no idea. The person who wanted my father here most right now wasn't her. It was me.
Buying cigarettes didn't take long. Before much time had passed, my father came strolling back with a cigarette dangling from his lips, his coat open despite the cold, the gold ring on his right hand catching the streetlight.
Seeing the crowd packed around our front stoop, he visibly faltered.
But before he could ask a single question, Viviana scurried over and nestled against him, all fragile and helpless.
Her eyes were red, her face a picture of misery. "Massimo, please, you have to stand up for me. Bianca killed our baby!"
"The doctor said it was a boy. He would've been a big, healthy son!"
My father stiffened. His hand went still at his side. His first instinct was to bark at me.
"Bianca Valenti, get your ass over here! What the hell happened!"
Before I could open my mouth, Damiano stepped in front of me. He smoothed his tie flat with his whole palm, then spoke. "Don Massimo, this is all Bianca's fault. You need to get justice for your wife!"
"That's right, Massimo! You have to punish Bianca. Hard. Avenge our son!" Viviana clung to my father's arm, sobbing out her story. "This morning, first thing, Bianca dragged me to the store for a grocery doorbuster sale. I told her I was carrying your child and didn't want to go, but she pulled me out of bed anyway."
"When we got to the store, the egg section was wall-to-wall people. Bianca didn't want to squeeze in, so she shoved me into the crowd."
"Then it was so packed that someone knocked me down, and the people behind kept pushing and pushing until I lost the baby!"
"Oh God, Massimo, that was our big healthy baby boy! He never even got to be born and Bianca killed him!"
Viviana rambled on and on, completely oblivious to the fact that with every word out of her mouth, my father's expression was growing darker. His gold ring had stopped moving against his knuckle. His hand lay flat on his thigh, perfectly still.
By the end, his face had cycled through something between livid red and a sickly green. Quite the festive palette for Christmas Eve.
Viviana noticed none of it. Instead, she pressed on, demanding restitution for the lost heir.
"Massimo, you spoil that daughter of yours too much! That's why she disrespects her elders and schemes against her own blood. Hit her! Hit her hard!"
"Oh, and Massimo, what does a girl need all that money for anyway? Make her hand over her holiday envelope and her apartment deed to me. I heard she's got at least a couple hundred thousand saved up!"
She grew more animated with every sentence, and it was a long time before she noticed the dead silence around her. The neighbors had stopped cracking their sunflower seeds. Even the old men down the stoop had gone quiet, the way people on this block went quiet when they sensed a Don's mood turn.
She turned to look at my father and found herself staring straight into eyes that could kill.
Viviana flinched on instinct, her voice going soft a beat too late.
"Massimo, why aren't you saying anything?"
My father ground his back teeth together. "You just said Bianca dragged you out first thing this morning to fight over eggs at the store and caused you to lose the baby?"
"That's right! Damiano can back me up. When it happened Bianca ran off, and it was Damiano who took me to the hospital!"
As soon as the words left her mouth, Damiano stepped forward with a firm nod. He smoothed his tie once more, quick, automatic.
"That's correct, Don Massimo. I happened to be shopping at the same store and found your wife hemorrhaging. I drove her to the hospital and stayed with her from morning until tonight!"
The next second, Viviana jabbed a finger at me, unable to contain herself.
"Massimo, go hit her! Look at that little wretch, the way she's looking at me. No respect at all!"
Seeing my father raise his arm, Viviana's triumph peaked. She didn't even bother calling me by name anymore, dropping "that little wretch" in front of everyone.
She was certain my father would beat me half to death.
But the very next second...
