Eight Years as the Invisible Mafia Princess of the Family Chapter 01
“You sure about this? You sign that paper, you vanish for the next eight years.”
An hour before I heard those words, I’d just gotten my acceptance from Columbia’s biomedical program. Right after, my mom dropped two itineraries into the family group chat.
One was a first-class ticket from New Orleans to New York. Under my name. The other was an economy seat to Bozeman, Montana. The name on it was Katerina Bellandi. My adoptive sister.
Mom breathed out like she’d been holding it for years. “Vesper, Rossetti Investments booked you first class this time. Even Katerina only got economy. You can’t tell us we’re playing favorites anymore, right?”
My fiancé, Silas Caruso, was packing Katerina’s luggage. Pecan pralines, chicory coffee, her favorite spice cookies—all of it shoved into three overstuffed suitcases.
He didn’t even look up. Ice-cold, he added, “You’re the Rossetti princess now. Stop staring at everything Katerina has like the world owes you.”
I kept my head down and said nothing.
The night before, I’d found other papers in my father’s study.
A property contract for a condo in downtown Bozeman. Registration docs for a Montana branch. The flight plan for the family jet. That economy ticket was pure theater.
They weren’t just flying the whole family to Montana State with Katerina—they were handing her the legal side of the Rossetti operation out West.
Katerina was the only daughter of the Rossetti family’s old consigliere. Eight years ago, her father died covering my dad’s retreat during a port ambush. After that, my parents brought her into the estate and treated her like glass. She’s been here eight years. I’ve been invisible in my own house for eight years.
I used to claw for every scrap. Every nice thing she got, I’d demand to know why I didn’t get one too. I finally get it now. When nobody truly cares about you, you can fight until your knuckles bleed—you’ll never fight your way into something that’s actually yours.
I pulled out my phone and answered the most feared don in the New York underworld—Maksim Vitale.
[I accept the Vitale family’s eight-year medical training and confidentiality agreement. From today on, Vesper Rossetti disappears.]
If they wanted me gone, I’d give them what they wanted.
***
The Rossetti family is one of the oldest Italian families in New Orleans.
They built their name on the docks, in casinos, on smuggling routes. Now the feds are squeezing harder every year, and my father’s trying to drag the family into legitimate business.
They needed a medical consultant—someone with real training and absolute loyalty. Every capo used to look at me like I was the family’s future. Until Katerina showed up.
“Vesper, did you go mute?” Silas zipped the last suitcase and straightened up. He came from the Caruso family, the youngest underboss in the Rossetti organization.
Our marriage was arranged when we were kids. He had his own room in the estate, and everyone always assumed he’d end up my husband. “Even a princess has basic manners,” he snapped. “Don’t forget to thank Mrs. Rossetti.”
I lifted my eyes to him. Sweat was dripping down his forehead. The back of his white dress shirt was soaked. All because Katerina had sighed at breakfast, “Once I’m in Montana, I guess I’ll never really taste New Orleans again.” So Silas drove all over the French Quarter in sticky, brutal heat and bought out every single thing she loved.
Yesterday, I was doubled over with cramps and asked him to grab me a box of Advil on his way home. He’d snapped, impatient, “You don’t have a phone? Can’t you get it delivered? You need to bother people over something that small?”
I dropped my eyes and locked my phone. “Thanks, Mom.”
A maid carried a plate of cut fruit out of the kitchen, walked straight past me, and set it in front of Katerina.
My mom nodded, satisfied. “Act more grown up from now on. Stop competing with Katerina over every thing.”
Katerina’s head came right up. “Auntie, don’t say that about Vesper. She worked so hard for her Columbia application. She’s going to run the family’s medical holdings one day. She deserves that first-class seat.”
I hated it the most when she stuck up for me like that. She could steal every drop of love in the room without ever lifting a finger—and then she’d stand there in the middle of all that favoritism, gently telling people for being too hard on me.
All these years, the angrier I got, the more angelic she looked. The harder I tried to show how unfair it was, the more I seemed like a raging psycho. But all I ever wanted was a little love with my name on it.
Outside, a storm had rolled in without me noticing. The front door shoved open and my dad walked in, suit jacket dripping. But the box hugged against his chest was bone-dry. “Katerina, look what I got you!”
She lit up and rushed over. “Is that the impossible Doberge cake from Mid-City? I heard the line on weekends is like two hours.”
Dad laughed and wiped the rain off his face. “If you want it, it’s worth the wait.”
His gaze skimmed the corner where I sat. His smile twitched. “Last one in the case today. Vesper, I’ll grab you one next time.”
My mom hissed at him under her breath. “You couldn’t have picked up some pastry on the corner for her? What if she throws a tantrum now?”
I said, calm and even, “It’s fine. I don’t want any.”
The living room went dead quiet. Before, I would’ve chased that crumb of attention. I would’ve demanded to know why she got something and I didn’t.
Katerina got a new dress, I demanded the same one. Even when the cut looked all wrong on me, I’d wear it anyway—as if matching clothes meant matching love. I don’t fight anymore.
Last night, the door to my father’s study hadn’t been shut all the way. I heard my mom say, “Everything’s in place in Montana, right? I can’t stand it, Katerina leaving home for the first time.”
“The western medical warehousing and legal logistics need restructuring anyway. Let her head the branch out there. She’ll have something to fall back on.”
My dad answered, “Paperwork’s done. Once she graduates, she officially takes over the family’s Montana holdings. We’re all going. Get her house and her people squared away first.”
My mom sighed. “Don’t let Vesper find out. If she catches wind the whole family’s going with Katerina, she’ll lose it again. She’s just heading to New York for college. How hard is that?”
Standing outside that door, I just went cold.
I’d bled myself dry to get into an Ivy, and all I got was a first-class ticket—a consolation prize. Katerina didn’t have to lift a finger, and she got both my parents, my fiancé, and half the Rossetti empire.