Eight Years as the Invisible Mafia Princess of the Family Chapter 07
Eight years later, autumn was just settling over the city when I came back to New Orleans.
Outside the airport, three black Cadillacs sat waiting in the private-access lane. Elio pulled the door open for me. “Doctor Vesper—first time back in eight years. How’s it feel?”
I let out a small laugh. “Easier than my first Vitale council meeting.”
He smiled back.
Eight years ago, I signed that contract at eighteen. Walked away from everything. Didn’t dare look back at the house I grew up in.
Now, I’d overseen three core projects for the Vitale Medical Foundation. Maksim had handed me authority over the family’s medical investments and risk review across the whole Gulf Coast.
The next day, I wrapped up a project handoff at Tulane University Medical Center. Around noon, I walked into a coffee shop in the Central Business District, and a hesitant voice came from behind me. “Vesper?”
I turned around. Katerina. That calculated, eager-to-please softness was gone. She was wearing a sharp gray blazer, a tech company badge clipped to her lapel. Her eyes carried a weariness life had carved into her, but there was a capable edge there too.
We sat down by the window. “You work in the office upstairs?” I glanced at her badge. She nodded. “Yeah. Did a few years in medical software sales. Just got promoted to regional associate manager.”
She stirred the ice in her cup, her gaze flicking to the street a few times. By the curb, the two Vitale family guards beside the black Cadillac hadn’t moved.
Before long, Elio pushed through the door. He didn’t rush me—just set a file beside my hand. “Doctor, Maksim has a video conference in ten. Do you need me to push it?”
“Push it twenty.”
“Understood.” He walked out without another word.
Katerina stared at the closed door, quiet for a few seconds. “I used to hear my dad mention Elio. He’s the hardest consigliere in the Vitale family to get anywhere near.”
“He works for me now,” I said evenly.
She blinked, then let out a quiet laugh. “You’ve really changed, Vesper.”
She looked down. “Mrs. Rossetti’s health hasn’t been great the last couple of years. Her memory’s slipping. I go back to the Garden District once a month to check on her. Every time the doorbell rings, she mistakes me for you.”
Her eyes went glassy. “I did this. All of it. Just—if you can, go see her. Every night she’s in your old room. Nobody can get her out.”
I looked down at the dark coffee in my cup and gave it a slow swirl.
Maybe I did hate them once. Hated them so much I wanted to shred myself to pieces, just to show them I was hurting.
But eight years on the East Coast had worn those sticky, rotting feelings down to nothing. I’d triple-checked data in labs at three in the morning. I’d squeezed onto the subway on freezing Manhattan mornings. I’d seen blizzards bend the branches in Central Park and sunsets over the Charles River bleed the Back Bay gold.
That first year after I left, I still woke up in the middle of the night all the time. The dream was always the same—the Garden District parlor. My parents, Silas, and Katerina laughing together. Me, trapped on the other side of a glass door I could never push open, pounding on it until my throat went raw. No one ever turned around.
Later, the labs got busier, and the dreams came less and less. Eventually, even their faces blurred in my memory.
I finished my coffee. “Once the project stabilizes, I’ll go see them.”
A month later, I finally cleared half a day. Elio wanted to send two guards in with me. I said no. “Leave the car at the corner. It’s a personal visit, not a negotiation.”
The motorcade dropped me in the Garden District. I walked up the familiar street, stopped at the Rossetti estate gate, and pressed the bell.
A long moment passed before the door cracked open. My mom stood behind it. She was so much thinner than I remembered. Her hair was half-gray, deep lines cut into her cheeks. The second she saw me, she went completely still.
She fixed her eyes on my face, not daring to blink, like even breathing had stopped. “Vesper…” Cloudy eyes flooded with tears instantly. “You came home.”
My dad’s tired voice drifted from the living room. “It’s probably Katerina.”
“Katerina, bring her inside. Don’t let her stand in the draft.”
Silas walked out, holding a glass. “Mrs. Rossetti, Katerina doesn’t come by that often, don’t mistake her agai—” He cut off mid-word and lifted his eyes.
The moment his gaze slammed into mine, the glass slipped through his fingers. It hit the tile and shattered.