Mafiosa

5

VALENTINA LUCCHESE

"Fuck." The voice groans in pain. Their head moves up to look up at me.

"Niccolo?" I question, recognising the intruder.

He slowly lifts his body up off the floor, and leans against the counter. His left hand instinctively moved to his right shoulder, where blood was soaking through his tight fitting shirt. "What- what the hell is wrong with-" He pauses before continuing, out of breath, "you."

"Why are you here?" I question him, now pointing my pistol at this head.

"Don wanted me to deliver something." He responds, pointing to a package wrapped in black tape.

I mentally question the truthfulness of his statement before tucking my pistol back into the band of my pants and nod my head. An awkward silence fills the room for a few seconds.

"Whiskey will help with the pain." I tell him, reaching for two glasses. I feel his eyes burning holes into my back as I grab the glasses and place them next to me.

Opening the alcohol cabinet, I stand on my tippy toes and try to reach for a bottle of whiskey, placed on the highest shelf. My five foot three figure struggles immensely and I could just imagine Niccolo smirking at my failed attempts to do so, behind me.

"I got it." The sound of his voice sends shivers across my entire body. He towers over me with his front pressed into my behind. Inching himself closer to me, he places one of his arms around my waist and grabs the bottle with his other.

I turned around, facing him, in the little space I had. We both hold eye contact for a few seconds, before I clear my throat. Getting the message, he moves to the side and I pour us the glasses. Sitting back onto the kitchen bar stool, he follows, sitting next to me.

"You'll be fine." I speak up, staring at his shoulder. Luckily for him, it was only a graze.

He nods his head in response and takes a sip of his whiskey.

"Who are you?" I ask, while twirling the whiskey in my glass.

He smirks, slightly tilting his head to the side, "Niccolo Russo."

I roll my eyes at his response, and wait for him to deliver a proper response.

"I'm an associate of one of Don's friends. Don heard about me through talk and wanted me to become an associate of this mafia. I agreed and now here I am, at three in the fucking morning, drinking whiskey with some gorgeous girl, that I know nothing about." He answers, downing the whiskey before pouring some more.

I ignore the last sentence.

"Who are you?" He asks me back, pouring himself another glass of whiskey.

"Valentina Lucchese."

"Valentina." My name rolls off his tongue, and I can't help but feel a warm feeling inside.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you're the Don's daughter", he continues.

"Good guess." I reply, my voice laced with sarcasm.

"Which means that you're the next mafia boss." He announces, not breaking eye contact as he looks at me.

I don't respond, but continue to stare back at him, with an intense gaze.

"No offence, but women aren't usually bosses in the mafia. I mean, especially someone, like you." He explains.

"Someone like me?"

"Yeah, I mean you're beautiful, clearly intelligent, and you seem so innocent. You have to be ruthless as a mafia leader, and I don't think you fit in that category."

The words that come out of his mouth anger me, and I have to mentally calm myself down from putting a bullet in his head, right this instant. I smile sweetly at him when he finishes speaking and go over to the sink to wash out my glass.

As I go back to the kitchen counter, I pass by him, whispering into his ear "Bold of you to make assumptions, when you only see what I choose to show you." With that, I leave the kitchen and walk towards my room, ready for my regular sleepless night of hell.

***

"Aye! There's our favourite girl!" The few mafia men yelled in the gaming house, a small decorated room where mafia men would play cards and pool, while chatting about nonsense. Don often took me here when he had to attend to his business.

My eight year old self smiled back at them, filled with joy as I watched one of the men grab an extra chair for me.

"Come sit down princess." Uncle Stefano smiled. His eyes lighted up at my presence.

"Uncle!" I yelled as I ran over to him. He embraced my small figure into a hug while he patted my back. His facial hair tickled my skin and I laughed in response.

"How was your day, beautiful?" Uncle spoke as he ruffled my hair.

"So fun! Don taught me how to shoot reallyyyy far." I dragged out my words and spreaded my tiny hands out to show the distance.

"Wow! You have to show me next time." Uncle responded, placing a card onto the centre of the table.

"What are you playing?" I asked in curiosity, intrigued by the coloured cards.

"It's called poker. Do you want to play?" Uncle asked, placing down another card on the table.

"I don't know how." I pouted in response, crossing my arms.

"That's okay. I'll teach you." He collected everyone's cards and handed out some to me.

In the middle of explaining, another mafia member entered the room.

"Stefano, I need to talk to you." Ant spoke. Nobody really knew his actual name but everyone called him Ant because he was really tiny. He was still bigger than me though.

Uncle sighed, threw his cards on the table and left the room with Ant. I looked up from the table to find two pairs of eyes on me.

"I'm going to go check out what's going on, watch the kid." The skinny one spoke while he took off his leather jacket and left.

"Wanna play a better game princess?" The last man left in the room asked me. I always saw him at the gaming house, and he often used to stare at me when he was playing card games with his friends.

"Like what?" I asked.

"Come here and I'll show you. It's very fun." He gestured for me to come over to him with his chubby hands as he patted them on his lap.

My innocent eight year old self listened and sat on his lap, curious as to what the game was.

"Can you feel how good you make me feel?" He whispered into my ear and dug his hands into the waistband of my glittery skirt.

"What are you-"

I wake up sweating and breathing hard, feeling like someone clamped their hand around my throat with an iron grip.

After regaining my breath, I check the time. It was one in the morning.

Memories of that day came flooding back. You'd think after you kill the person that gave you all that trauma, that they'd go away.

But they don't.