Mafia Puppet (sample)

03 | a new bound

F R A N C E S C A

THE DAYS WENT by fast and before I knew it I was told that it was the day of my wedding. It was not unheard of to not tell the bride of her fine day and who her groom was. Usually, it was just his rank that mattered. I had been lucky enough to be told who, but I had not been told when exactly the wedding was. Not until a few days ago when Father once again called me to his office where he was sober and less mad. I had only hoped he had not remembered what he did.

And he had not.

The fathers in the Giordano Mafia were not stupid. They knew how women got tormented after marriage so they tried to keep it a secret. After marriage, the woman was purely the husband's responsibility. She was his puppet. She was his thing to torture and keep alive.

Mother was restless. She had a big scar on the right side of her forehead and I knew that it would leave a mark. She didn't seem to care though. She had lost hope long ago that her beauty would make a difference. Father would never change. She even had multiple bruises on her face and neck which she tried to cover up as well. It hardly worked when she could barely walk. Her limp was quite obvious and Father had no doubt discharged her before her actual date.

"Francesca," Mother called out as she covered my face with the long white veil. "It'll hurt a lot." She paused. I could feel her shaking as she held my shoulders. She was that weak. "Don't fight it. It'll be bloody. A mess. And then...it'll get better. You are lucky the Giordano Family no longer follows the bloody sheets tradition. During my time—." She stopped herself.

The bloody sheets tradition was nasty. In the Nostra Vita, only the Giordano Family stopped following it. Our crime family had the highest rate of rapes. It got so bad that the bloody sheets tradition slowly got removed as many women started faking it.

"Mother, how was your first time?" Her eyes widened in pain at the memory and I immediately regretted asking.

"It was horrible, Franci. I resisted and he wasn't a patient man. He, uh, he tied my..." she choked on her words. "...it's better if you don't hear it right now. Especially right before your wedding."

To be honest, I didn't want to hear it either. I didn't want to imagine it. Even just for few moments of my life, I wanted to feel like I was happy and marrying the love of my life. But I knew that was close to impossible. Yet still, I imagined. I hoped.

Hope was really a deadly thing.

Arianna was not here to tell me it would all be okay. She was not here to give me a smile of comfort when I would leave with a total, brutal stranger. My sister was not here because she was surviving in the hospital, fighting for her life because of the injuries Father had laid upon her. It was not her fault and neither was it mine but we still had to endure it because we were the women of this Family. It was our duty. Or so, that was what we were taught. It was what was inscribed into our souls the moment we saw a glimpse of light. Our first word was not Father but omertà and our understanding of silence.