Saint Valentine

7

It smells delicious. The whole room is filled with the scent of spices. Valentino must've blocked out the whole kitchen because not a single person has tried to enter. It's just the two of us. He's standing behind the stove, stirring the sauce with a ladle. I haven't contributed at all. I'm watching him, sitting at the breakfast bar.

"Who taught you how to cook?" I ask.

"I learnt at school. I took home economics."

"You did?" I didn't expect that. He nods.

"My mum wanted me to learn to sew."

"And can you?"

"Barely."

"Well, that's better than me."

"Do you cook?" he asks.

"Only a little. Just the basics," I tell him. "I only learned when I went to college."

"That's usually how it is, isn't it?" he responds. "How did you find that — living outside the family?"

"It was fine," I shrug. "I had fun. It was just... different. I didn't expect it to be so obvious, but it's like a whole separate culture out there."

"In what way?"

"They don't have the same values we do. They aren't bound by a code of loyalty and honour like we are. Everywhere you look, there's infidelity, abandonment, and betrayal. It's awful, really."

"You don't see that often in the family."

"Exactly. It's so common out there, but none of that happens here. And if it does, it's a big deal."

"You will be held accountable and there will be repercussions."

"It's completely different," I nod. "But they don't really see it that way. They think we're barbaric and cruel."

"I can understand why," he says. "They see us as lawless criminals, but they don't know their own government is ten times worse."

It's true. They think we kill people without reason, and that we bring weapons to their country and drugs to their streets. It's not true. The biggest crime families in the world have nothing to do with weapons or drug importing. It's the government that does that. They produce their own drugs and create their own weapons. They drop bombs on innocent children with no remorse. We would never. The whole Sainte family would be ousted if that were to happen. What we do is far more nuanced. We're involved in money laundering, gambling, legal collusion, taxes, and so much more. A lot of what we do isn't even considered illegal. We work in the stock market, banking, and real estate, in all major accounting firms, financial institutions and courts. Sure, it's not the most ethical, but it's no different to what the average businessman does.

We take the fall for the government's doing.

"Do you ever wish the family stayed in Sicily?" I ask. We were in our own world there. We

"Sometimes," he nods. "That was our land. Now we're displaced foreigners. We don't truly belong here."

"I agree," but we didn't have a choice but to leave Italy. The government overpowered us. "Did you ever live outside of the family?"

"Never," he shakes his head. "I never wanted to, either."

"You didn't want to go to college?"

"Not really. I still had a lot of work to do here."

"And you were happy with that?"

"I was," he nods. "I know a lot of people wouldn't be, but I always knew I'd take over from my dad. And I wanted to do right by the family. I wanted to be the best leader I could be."