𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐒 • the godfather [ bloodlines au ]

𝐢.𝐢. 𝟏𝟗𝟒𝟎

BEFORE THE UNFORTUNATE death of Cousin Michael — if one would call it a death, rather than a foolish, suicidal sacrifice for a country that he did not even live in for the last fifteen years — Vittoria had been in the States only once, though she could not remember it clearly.

She was far too young then, not even three years of age when her mother and father brought her along for a business trip to the great New York City for what was presumed to be a holiday for the newly made family.

It also proved to be the setting stone for the branch of Shelby Company Limited she was set to inherit from the moment she set her foot on the American ground in just a matter of hours.

Vittoria, or as her family preferred to call her – Vicky, leaned on her hand wistfully, watching as the bubbling waves crashed against the side of the iron giant that carried her entire life's possessions into the unknown of the New World.

     Her heart clenched every time the ship cut through the waves, or perhaps it was the biting Atlantic air that made her pale cheeks rosy, urging her to tighten the fox fur coat tighter around her body. There was commotion on the deck, and she reckoned she heard some lady say they were close to the shore.

     Vittoria wondered what her family was doing. Nothing much had changed, she was sure.

Father was in London at the Ministry of War and mother was most likely with him, if she wasn't at Bletchley Park. Only Charles remained at their family estate, the Arrow House, not of age yet to enlist or follow their parents into the bureaucratic fray that surrounded the British war effort. At fourteen he was still too young to understand why father wore a permanent frown since the day the bells rung for the first time, when the official looking letters bearing the King's stamp arrived for their parents a day later.

Not that father ever wore anything other than an expression of reserved indifference, with occasional genuine smiles reserved for special occasions, or mother.

Thomas Shelby never spoke of his years across the sea, and neither did Uncle Arthur, but Vicky was well aware the horrors of it shaped them to be the men they were today.

It was her mother that set her down on the plush sofa of their living room when she came from school one day, tears welling in her eyes and threatening to spill because of the vile words her classmates threw at her about her ancestry ( to be half Italian and half Romani, what a terrible thing indeed in the eyes of nasty ten-year-olds ) and the rumours surrounding her father's swift rise to power after the First war.

     As seriously as you could explain things to a ten-year-old, Mother told her how their family fought tooth and nail to achieve the wealth and privilege they believed they deserved for their hard work, and to create a better future for their children. It was a thorny path, she admitted, one that cost them many people ( she remembered how Mother's eyes glazed over at the mention of late Uncle John ), but a past she will never be ashamed of. Not much later in life Vicky would find out the real truth of her parents' business and understand. It was the way things were done, and it was the way things must remain.