Page 15 of I Would Beg For You

“We need to discuss this, Naomi.”

Any other day, I’d do just that. Today, I don’t have it in me.

“Tomorrow,” I mumble.

I land in a pile on my bed, not bothering to get out of my clothes. My knees buckled under me and I knew they wouldn’t hold me up anymore. Sleep comes, but right before it does, I realize Valentino didn’t tell me if he’s going to the ball or not.

Chapter 6 Valentino

My sister sputtering hermimosa in my face is not how I planned for this brunch to go. Not much takes Francesca by surprise, but guess I just did.

It takes her a minute to regain her composure, the napkin pressed to her nose. Well, she just snorted champagne and orange juice from there, it must be burning. I’m sorry for this, but she shouldn’t have been so taken aback.

Francesca blinks as she drops the napkin then motions for the waiter to bring her another drink and a plate of eggs benedict.

“You’re going where?” she asks once the table has been cleared before her.

I roll my eyes. She’s rubbing it in now.

“You heard me just right.”

I don’t want to say it aloud again. Because it would make it too real. The Governor’s New Year ball is the last place you’d ever catch me. High society, the hobnobbing, the very snobbishness of it rubs my skin the wrong way.

“Um, why?” Francesca asks as a fresh plate and flute appear before her. She nods to the waiter in thanks before turning her piercing hazel eyes on me.

Merda, it’s like having Mamma giving me ‘The Look’ all over again. We Andretti boys took after our father. Our mom and Francesca look like they just stepped out of a Botticelli painting, all red hair and pale skin.

A sigh escapes before I can quell it.

“It’s our world now,” I say.

“It’syourworld, you mean.”

Another sigh wants to emerge. I quash it. We always come to this in our conversations.

It’s fair to say Francesca never really took to our way of life. Not that she should’ve been a pampered princess, but she resents how we live. The expectations our Borgata places on each of us. As a woman, she’s expected to stick to a certain image and role. As much as I don’t like that she feels caged, it’s a fact. We’re the Andretti family—we have to act like it, whether we like it or not.

“Francesca, please. Not today.”

She has the decency to look chastised.

Since coming back home in all urgency and crash landing to handle the murder of our father in the summer, I’ve taken to having monthly brunch with Francesca in New York. She doesn’t like coming home to Morris County, says it stifles her. She needed leeway, so I gave it to her. As long as she allowed me to keep tabs on her once a month.

But today’s no ordinary Saturday. It’s the holidays, and we should’ve all been together. Since the funeral, all five of us Andretti siblings haven’t been in the same room at the same time. For security reasons. My dad wasn’t gunned down in the middle of a street or a busy restaurant at lunch time. But he got shanked, nevertheless. It happened at the gym, of all places, agoddamned cugine trying to be made into a rival faction getting the drop on him.

Needless to say, that figlio di puttana is swimming with the fishes now. We also sent a strong message through the eye of his whore of a girlfriend who had grand ambitions of being a mob wife.

This was handled a few months ago. It’s been quiet ever since. Guess everyone knows you don’t mess with the Andretti family. None of our plans are going awry, and if I can keep it that way, I will.

Yet, my brother Victor is right. We’re not a cohesive unit yet. By taking out the head of the Andretti family, it destabilized us all. Everyone respected Marcello Andretti around here. We don’t use ridiculous terms like ‘Capo di tutti capi’ in real life—the media came up with this one—but that’s the position my padre held in this region.

So, no meeting where we’d all be sitting ducks at the same time. Meaning no Christmas celebration at home this year. Victor’s natural paranoia prevailed this time. He’s in Venice enjoying the empty cathedrals at this time of the year. Franco is in London. Luciano took little Luka to his in-laws’ so the bambino could have a semblance of holiday cheer at his maternal grandparents’ estate in upstate New York.

It's just Francesca and me here, and it hurts. It sucks.

“Let’s talk of something else,” I tell my sister.

“David is thinking of proposing, I think.”

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