Chapter 5
Ophelia POV
I needed to catch my father before he
disappeared for the rest of the day.
Pouring myself some juice, I asked, “So, do
you know where she is?”
“Who?”
“Vincenzo. Where is she?”
“Probably at the bank. But I have no actual
address for where she lives. I doubt she’d just give that information out.”
I’d lived here all my life and knew of only
two banks in town. Two? The town was so packed that all the buildings seemed
sewn together. If Vincenzo owned a bank, I would have noticed it.
“Where’s the bank? What’s it called?” I
grabbed a pen from the top of the fridge along with a sticky notepad.
“We only have two banks,” he said.
My mouth fell open. So one of those banks was
owned by her or worse, both could be.
It was no shock that the Mafia was running
business right under everyone’s noses, including the government’s. I mean... a
small town like this hosting a bank seemed valid enough. Strangely, no one had
mysteriously disappeared over debts owed to it.
“Is it the Bank of Amico?” My eyes widened.
How had I not realized she owned the bank, given her last name? I was blind and
stupid not seeing that she’d been right under my nose all along.
“That’s the one,” he confirmed.
“So the Mafia owns banks? I thought that was
the government’s domain.”
He shrugged. “The government owns a small
share, it’s their soil, after all. So they own a little bit, but not much.”
I think they own just enough to keep their
mouths shut. But that’s outright corruption and the government knows I’m being
traded off. I sipped the citrus drink, hoping it would calm my nerves. “You
know, Dad, you and everyone in this house seem way too nonchalant about this.”
“Do we have to talk about this? I’ll try to
figure something out.”
I don’t think he understands the forces we’re
dealing with. He doesn’t realize that ‘figuring
something out’ isn’t really in her
cards. She wants something in return for that kind of money and that something
is me.
“What, by the end of the week? When the guys
with the big guns show up?”
He closed his books, packing them away and
slipping them into his briefcase. “You can put down half the payment, and I’ll
come up with the rest.”
“With what? Where are you going to find the
rest of the money?”
He stood up. “I have to go. I’ll figure
something out.” He came over, gave me a quick hug, and stepped out the door. I
threw the juice into the sink and watched it bubble down the drain. I felt like
I was about to crumble like a decaying wall.
My family can’t be this nonchalant about me
being taken this week. Maybe they just haven’t processed it the way I have.
Because I haven’t really cried—the kind of crying where your eyes go red, your
nose gets stuffy, and your head aches. Can I blame them for thinking Vincenzo
wouldn’t actually do something like this? Drag me to her country and make me a
sex slave?
“Good morning.” My mother approached, and I
heard footsteps behind her.
“Such a bright morning, wonder why?” Wren’s
harsh voice sneered. She needs to check her lungs. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if
she didn’t have many days left.
Wren chuckled as she dropped into a chair.
“Get me some juice, will you?” she croaked, coughing into her fist. My mother
sighed and walked over to the fridge, its base stained with rust. She pulled
out the nearly empty juice box and handed it to her.
“No glass?” Wren scoffed.
“It’s almost finished, Wren.”
“She just wants the attention on her,” I
muttered.
Wren shrugged. “Why don’t we just sit tight
and wait for the end of the week?” She twisted the cap off and lazily tossed it
into the sink. “Do you really think this woman is going to drag you out of the
country without any legal documents?”
I growled under my breath. “You think she
needs paperwork to get me out of this country? She’s Mafia.”
“That’s just an assumption.”
“Oh, so I was the only one who saw the big
guns?”
“Bodyguards. Security. If you were rich,
you’d have them too. And anyway, aren’t Mafia types supposed to be old men with
wrinkled tattoos and fat cigars?”
“You’re stereotyping—how typical of you.”
She smirked. “Takes one to know one.”
I ignored her. “That’s beside the point. What
am I even supposed to say when I see her again? How do I handle this?”
“You’re really going to see her?” Wren asked,
her tone laced with disbelief.
“I have to. Dad barely gave me any answers.
If I want clarity, I need to hear it from her.”
My aunt stood up, brushing off her jeans. “Be
my guest. But my ass isn’t going with you and neither is my sister. This whole
thing is one big, fucked-up mess.”
***************
I passed this bank every day without giving
it much thought. It sat quietly by the lake, wedged between the insurance
agency and the appliance store.
Bank of Amico.
I’d seen the name a thousand times, but
somehow, it never screamed Italian to me. If anything, it gave off more of a Mexican
vibe. So yeah—internally, I was still wrestling with the shock of it all.
I took a seat on a worn wooden bench just
outside the building, staring at the black lake. Funny how peaceful it looked
now, considering this might become the last place I ever sat if things didn’t
go well with Vincenzo.
I could do this. I had to. I just needed to
plead my case, lay out the truth, and hope she’d understand.
Hope.
But that was a delusion. Mafia bosses don’t “understand.” A
normal bank owner would’ve just repossessed the house, slapped a foreclosure
sign on the front lawn, and left it to rot. A normal bank wouldn’t trade humans
like property.
But Vincenzo wasn’t normal. She was an
Italian Mafia don. That much was clear and public. It was all over the
internet. She made people disappear. She’d had multiple run-ins with the law,
back when she was still a reckless rookie in the game. I even found an old
interview from ten years ago, where she admitted to her early chaos and called
it “youthful arrogance.”
Now she was more refined, more powerful and
far more dangerous.
And I was about to walk through her door.
"I've learned from my mistakes. I
know how to speak the solution of every man."
I never expected her to be all over the
internet, let alone the subject of a massive online fandom. But there she was:
Vincenzo D'Amico. People were obsessed with her. Girls, boys, artists, poets
everyone seemed to channel their talent into glorifying her. Poems, fanfiction,
sketches, even full novels. It was surreal.
One artist, Rebecca Loore, was practically
famous for her. She drew nothing but Vincenzo. And her work? Breathtaking. Somehow,
everyone knew who Vincenzo was except for me and my clueless family. Well,
everyone but Dad.
I turned my eyes back toward the lake. That
dark, depthless water felt like a metaphor. A haunting one. It stared back at
me with the promise of erasure. It could pull me in, crush my lungs, and spit
me back out as a corpse.
Because that’s how this felt.
If this didn’t work, no one would help me. No
one would go up against her. No one would understand.
I was already as good as dead.
I grabbed my bag and headed toward the bank
building. I’d never stepped foot inside before. But the second I entered, I
felt the difference. This wasn’t like any bank I’d known. It exhaled Italian
culture. The staff all spoke with subtle accents. In the corner, two flags
stood side by side: one American, one Italian.
Everything had been happening right under my
nose.
I glanced up at the signs. Upstairs, the
executive offices, where management worked. Downstairs, the tellers and regular
banking business.
I made my choice.
I hurried up the stairs, joining a line that
had already formed. My heart pounded in my chest, echoing each tick of the wall
clock.
If this didn’t work out…
The lake was still there. Waiting.
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