Chapter 2

• LUCINDA’S POV
• I scrolled down the images on my feed, bored out of my f*ck*ng mind. All my friends at Princeton had updated their social media profiles. Well, I say my friends but – ugh, I don’t know, they are just people I talk to. I really couldn’t give a sh*t about any of them. But then again, they all follow me on Instagram and all my social media pages, they like my posts, comment like wannabes, they know who my Dad is, and they want to be friends with me. After all, I am the daughter of Luca Castello, the owner of Italy’s largest wine-producing vineyard, and Alfio Castello’s niece, New York’s fearsome mafioso.
• I’m a mafia princess. What’s not to love about me?
• Downstairs, the trunk of the car slammed shut. There go my bags and boxes for school.
• It’s not like I’m not excited about returning to school because I am. I can finally get Mom off my back with her constant whiny about my behaviour.
• It makes no sense to her that Dad thinks I am his perfect princess. And he says it every day. He thinks I’m perfect, but no amount of Dad’s glowering praises about me can change how Mom feels about me.
• Seriously, I wish that after 17 years she would have had another child by now, but I never get anything I want! God decided that I had to suffer more of my mom’s constant whining rather than give me a sibling for her to focus all of her excessive energy on.
• Trust me, I prayed a lot for a younger sibling as a child when Mom yelled at me and spanked my bum when I pushed Maria off my bike when she tried to ride it down to the village.
• In my defense, Dad bought me that bike for my 5th birthday. There was no way I was going to let a raggedy dirty kid from the village damage my bike.
• Maria skinned her knees and elbow and Mom freaked out. Her injuries weren’t even that deep, but she spanked my bum anyway, and she probably would have done worse if Dad hadn’t grabbed me and hugged me to his chest.
• “She’s a baby, Fran!” he bit out firmly, trying not to yell at her, because one thing I know is that dad loves mom as much as he loves me.
• “You are spoiling her, Luca! She’s rude, she’s mean, and you coddle her!” mom yelled. She didn’t bother to hide her dissatisfaction with Dad’s concern about my feelings.
• The next day, she took my bike to town and gave it to Maria and that very day I snuck out of the house into the old church on the hill and prayed for a baby brother or sister.
• And I was given none.
• Anyway, why did I go down memory lane again?
• Oh yeah, getting Mom off my f*ck*ng back.
• I’m really happy to finally get out of the house for my last senior year at Princeton, after which I hope never to return to this house. I’ll probably go to New York to stay with Uncle Alfio, but first I’m a bit disappointed by how my holiday ended.
• At just the right moment, I got a message from one of my best friends. Aliyah.
• ‘Well???’ she wanted to know.
• I rolled my eyes as I tapped on her message and typed a reply.
• ‘Didn’t go as planned. He knew who I was.’
• ‘D*mn’ she texted back.
• D*mn is right. She’s the only one who I told about my plans for the holiday. She and Monica.
• There’s an older guy I recently started noticing at the club Aliyah, Monica and I usually sneak into. Trust me, this man is cute and hot as f*ck, and I knew just by a glance he would be a very good f*ck. We exchanged glances across the bar and I knew that he was staring at my perky boobs peeking above the top of my low-cut gown.
• For the record, I don’t f*ck just about every guy I meet, only those that I choose and, when I do, I let them go through the back door. I learned quickly that dad would flip out if he thought I wasn’t a virgin. Dad is that protective of me.
• My first attempt at s*x was with one of the boys who worked in the vineyard. I was 15 at the time and I thought Mario was a cute, shy boy with a nice lean body at 20. I would watch him work shirtless from my window upstairs and pretend to be shocked when I ran into him in my skimpiest gown even though I was literally stalking him and intentionally running into him. When I decided that it was time for me to lose my virginity, I chose Mario. I invited him into my room and shut the door.
• “Miss Castello…” Mario stammered when I shut and locked the door. “Y-you said...”
• “Yes, Mario, I said my pipe has a leak,” I winked at him, dropping my hand to the wet spot between my legs. “Right here.”
• I still remember the look on his face when I took my top off and squeezed my virgin boobs. At least the one thing I’m happy about is having Mom’s good looks and her full figure. I hit puberty really fast, and I think that made Dad worried. He was concerned that men would try to take advantage of me, and so he sent me to an all – girls elementary and middle school.
• However, Mario’s reaction to my full, firm breasts was better than what I imagined.
• He licked his lips and couldn’t tear his gaze away from my boobs. I squeezed them gently, watched his pupils dilate and when I released them, and they bounced freely, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He took a step toward me without thinking, his hands reaching for my firm mounds. He was a little shy and his rough, hesitant squeezing was not at all what I expected, but it felt good, and I began to moan to encourage him. His kiss was awkward, too much tongue (not in the right places, mind you) and way too much teeth gnashing but it was my first kiss too, so I went with it.
• And then it all went to sh*t!
• First, without warning, Mario threw me on the bed and began to undo his pants and right at that moment Dad knocked once, calling out ‘Princess’, paused at the door when he saw what was happening and proceeded to misread the entire situation.
• Which I’m glad he did, because I cannot imagine the look of disappointment in his eyes when he learns that his perfect little princess is not at all perfect.
• Anyway, before I knew it, Mario was ripped furiously from my arms and the look on Dad’s face and the raw strength he showed when he tossed poor half-naked Mario across my room made me realize why Dad was a terrifying mafia boss.
• How mom got him to give up the mob in the first place is beyond me.
• The house was thrown into chaos. Lucky, dad’s second in command came running in with a pistol. Mom was right behind him, eyes wide with fear until she took one look at the situation and narrowed her eyes at me.
• I know if Dad wasn’t there, Mom would have trashed the living daylight out of me and ranted on and on about how much of a brat I was and how much of a disappointment I turned out to be.
• Okay, maybe she wouldn’t have said all that verbatim, but her glare would have implied that.
• As luck would have it, Aphrodite was on my side, so when Lucky managed to yank a terrified and bleeding Mario from Dad’s grip, I hid behind my father and clutched his shirt, covering my nakedness behind him.
• “Give me that gun!” Dad yelled. “Give me that f*ck*ng gun! I’ll kill the b*st*rd!”
• Lucky managed to keep Mario away from my Dad even though he got punched for it. “Let me handle it,” he calmly told Dad. “Let me take care of him. Worry about Lucy.”
• That finally got dad to direct his murderous intent from Mario, who was crying and shaking miserably behind Lucky, to me. His gray eyes softened as he reached for my face and cleaned my tears even though I was crying for the wrong reasons.
• “Are you okay, princess?” he asked with worry in his eyes.
• I nodded, averting my gaze so that he wouldn’t see the guilt in my eyes.
• “My precious baby,” he hugged me close, smoothing my curls as he used to when I was a baby. He grabbed my discarded blouse from the floor and raised it above chest level to cover me with it. Only when he checked to make sure that I wasn’t bruised did he calm down and sit with me on the bed, holding my trembling body close to his.
• We both looked up and saw Mom still glaring at me. She wasn’t fooled by my tears.
• Dad reached a hand out for hers, and she ignored it, turning her gaze from me to him in anger. “You spoil her, Luca, you’re the reason she’s irresponsible…”
• “Irresponsible?” Dad’s voice was soft. He has never yelled at mom and I doubt he’s even capable of doing that no matter what disagreements they might have. “Fran, he nearly r*p*d our daughter!”
• “Is that what you think?” Mom’s voice was equally soft. My parents don’t yell at each other; the only yelling they do is in bed. “Luca, you know what our daughter is capable of, but you turn a blind eye to everything she does because…”
• “She’s a child, Fran.”
• “At 15? A manipulative child.” Mom shook her head at me, her mouth tight with disapproval. “What else do you want? You have everything you could ever ask for and more, and this is how you choose to repay your father and me?”
• “Mom…” I wept, finally feeling a twinge of guilt. I’m not entirely a spoiled, unfeeling brat. Unlike some other privileged kids out there, I count my blessings. I know what I have, and I’m grateful for it. Not all kids my age have a multi-millionaire father, a mother with a blooming health and wellness business and, to top it all, a healthy family. I’m not blind to all the things I have. However, what’s so bad about s*x, what’s so about a drink or two? Some weed? Some makeout with a random stranger at the club?
• I bet Mom had her wild days too, yet for some reason she doesn’t want me to have mine.
• She shook her head again, glared at Dad and turned away.
• Dad watched her disappearing back, torn between going after her and staying back to comfort me.
• “It’s okay Dad, I’m alright,” I told him, knowing that if I didn’t say something he would stay with me throughout the night, but he wouldn’t stop thinking about mom.
• “Are you sure, sweetie?”
• I nodded, putting on my best sad/innocent face and dad fell for it. He kissed my temple, rubbing my shoulders before getting up to go after mom.
• Mom must have been waiting for him outside because he didn’t go too far before I heard his voice again.
• I tiptoed to the door and peeped through the peephole to eavesdrop. Dad had his arms wrapped around mom in a gentle embrace even though her body was tense, and she gave him nothing back. With the way her shoulders trembled, I could tell she was crying.
• “Oh God, baby, please stop crying,” dad pleaded, pressing kisses into her hair.
• “You can’t keep doing this…You’re spoiling her…she can never do wrong in your eyes…” Mom hiccuped.
• “She’s my daughter…”
• “And mine too, Luca!” mom’s voice was firm. “She is our daughter! Do you think I want a daughter that is spoiled, selfish and inconsiderate?”
• “Come on Fran…”
• “It’s because she’s the only child, that’s why you do this, Luca. If we have other children…”
• “But we are trying,” dad’s voice dropped an octave and his hand, pressed flat on mom’s back, began a slow descent down her back to her waist and further down.
• “We are,” mom agreed, her voice equally becoming softer as she lifted her face.
• I knew it was time to go because Mom and Dad have no concept of personal space, and they'll makeout anywhere. But well, I guess that’s a good thing because it means they love each other. I later learned that night that Dad pointed a gun at Mario’s head and would have shot him if Mom hadn’t intervened.
• But what was I talking about before this slight tangent anyway?
• Oh! Yeah the man at the club who knew who I was. I tapped Aliyah’s new message.
• ‘Well? How did he know?’ she wanted to know.