His Mafia Rose

Genesis

"Genesis?"

The voice, soft but inexorable, came like the ring of a bell, inescapable and ageless. My name in Sister Grace's voice always felt more ponderous, as if she was reading the scripture aloud. I stepped slowly, the manner in which one steps when awakened from a dream that one does not want to leave. She braced the doorway like a wax flame-carved shadow, her hands together before her, her mask of stone, worn smooth by wisdom and mastery, unyielding. She gave nothing away, and yet she said it all.

"Your father is here."

The words clung in the room like a frost. I didn't shudder. I'd learned long ago not to. But something inside me shifted. Something cold and familiar, like an old chain drawn up from a river bottom.

I nodded. I curled my fingers into the pleats of my gown, then unfolded them again as I fought to lay the fabric flat. The mask settled on, smooth, smooth after so much practice. Peaceful. Unmoving. I had worn it long enough now that I wasn't always sure what my face actually looked like beneath.

The visits were sporadic. And always the same. Precise in occurrence, methodical in pain. My father came like a storm that never boomed, cold, sterile, and surgical in his disruption. Always at St. Mariana's gates every two years, but never before, never again. Like a business seminar. He sat beside me, uttered brief sentences, evaluated like a soldier inspecting a weapon before deployment.

Fatherhood was never within him. Ownership, yes. Authority, always. But tenderness was something he lost long ago, if ever.

I blamed him sometimes. Then I didn't. The truth was: he didn't know how to love me because he'd loved another first. My mother. A woman who had attempted to escape from him. A woman who had traded disobedience for life. And I, in all my mirror-like resemblance, had become a reminder. A relic. A symbol he could not mourn nor release.

And so he visited me. Every other year. Like clearing a debt with the dead.

I followed Sister Beatrice down St. Mariana's dark corridors, my own footsteps quiet over centuries-worn stone. Candle flames played upon the walls, casting the saints in tall shadow. Wax and old wood and a constant incense smell hung in the air. I moved beneath vaulted ceilings and Mary's stare, Christ crucified, of angels carved out of stone as if their judgment still remained.

This house had been prison and haven to me. Had hidden me. Muffled me. Taught me to listen, then taught me silence with an impartial hand. My rebellion had grown in secret places—in unspoken prayers, unseen letters, the tension of my back and the hard-won set of my jaw.

I came to the parlor and stood outside the door.

He was there.

Just as I had imagined. As always.

Richard Moretti sat in a high-backed chair with the bearing of a king—or a general. His charcoal-gray coat was immaculate, the red silk handkerchief in his pocket folded with geometric neatness. Everything was in place. He was chiselled out of something permanent. Something lethal.

Time had grazed him but not displaced him. His hair was more silver now, but his face still a mask of control. The years hadn't dulled his sharpness, they'd just smoothed the edges.

But his eyes; those were what struck me. Unchanged. Steely. Alert. The kind of eyes that didn't just look, but ripped apart. I had those eyes too. A fact which had never comforted me.

I entered the room with measured poise, head held high. I did not bow or curtsy. That part of me died a long, long time ago.

"Father," I said.

"Genesis." His tone was unchanged: low, curt, without feeling.

He regarded me. Not a father regarding a daughter. More of a jeweler appraising a gem. Seeing differences. Searching for flaws. Assessing worth.

"You've grown."

A nonsensical thing to say. I hadn't responded. I'd picked up years ago that the most of his speech wasn't for talking. It was facts. Milestones.

I moved to the chair across from him and sat, putting my hands in my lap. The space between us was heavy with things unsaid. History. Ghosts. Silence.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" I asked, voice velveted with civility.

He raised an eyebrow, just a hint of it. "Only come to ensure you are prepared."

Prepared.

I let the word echo in my brain like a muted funeral bell. Always 'prepared.' Never asked if I was inclined. Never chosen. My life had been mapped out like a battle plan, and I had always been a pawn who had been made believe she was a rook.

"Ready for what?" I asked anyway. I liked making him say it. I liked the note of inevitability on his lips. It made my rebellion bite harder.

"For your future," he replied. "And what you will do for our family."

He tilted forward, his fingers laced. That was the giveaway. Whenever there was something to be serious about, Richard Moretti leaned forward.

"Your marriage will be announced shortly."

There it was. The line that did and didn't change everything.

I stayed frozen, but the storm raged inside me. Silent. Brawling.

"To whom?" I demanded. But I already knew. I'd known forever.

"Caspian," he told me.

His name hit harder than I'd expected. Not because I was shocked; but because I wasn't.

Caspian Graves.

Once a boy. Now a ghost. Or something even more terrible; a weapon. The son of Holland Graves. The heir to the empire that murdered my mother. The empire that stole what was left of mine. The boy who vanished during the massacre and came back as legend.

"How convenient," I breathed. "The Moretti-Graves massacre children, finally together."

He tensed, infinitesimally.

"This is not a love story," he said to me. "It is strategy. It is survival. The empires have to be secured. The old wounds buried."

I met his gaze levelly. "Do you trust him?"

That stumped him. It was a quick one, but I caught it. A hesitation that perhaps no one else might have noticed. But I was his daughter. I had spent years memorizing his pauses the way other people memorize scripture.

"Holland Graves wouldn't gamble this on a whim."

"Holland Graves is a murderer," I replied, very calm.

"He is pragmatic."

"And I am leverage." I let the venom into my voice then. Barely.

He looked at me for an eternity. "I believe you are Moretti. And a Moretti does what must be done."

I cocked my head to one side, ever so slightly. "And what if I don't?"

His face didn't change. But tension in the room tightened. "You will."

I stood up slowly, letting silence gather. I went to the window, looking out into the gardens. The same gardens I used to run through as a kid. Now full of weeds. Overgrown. Like me.

"I suppose I should be honored," I said. "Chosen. Strategic."

"This has nothing to do with honor. It is about legacy."

I faced him. "Your legacy."

He didn't respond. He didn't need to.

He stood, adjusting his jacket. "I will summon you when the time is right."

I didn't say anything. I watched him walk to the door, with precise and habitual movements. Just as always.

He didn't look back.

He never did.

As soon as the door was closed, I still did not move. I did not cry. I had not cried in years. But something settled deeper inside me. A resolution. An unspoken promise.

This marriage, this accommodation; was not my conclusion.

It was my start.

In my room, I opened the little wooden chest at the bottom of my bed. Within, everything was ready to go; letters, papers, photos, a creased map of New York. A passport hidden in the lining of a false panel. Secrets gathered over the years. Secret training I'd received masquerading as theology, language, and manners.

I could kill a man with a rosary.

I learned so much more than the sisters ever realized. I became so much more than anyone ever intended.

I was ready.

Not for marriage, though.

For war.

Caspian would come. I knew it. He would come dressed in authority, molded in Holland's hand, bearing the Graves name as crown and curse.

He would be looking for the girl he left behind.

He would find someone else entirely.

He had been re-made into a tool.

But so had I.

And when we next encountered one another, the empire they were looking to rebuild would not come quietly. It would burn.

Because this was not an alliance.

This was a reckoning.

And I was no longer waiting to be rescued.