Sunday, 7:42 p.m.
Location: The Ricci Compound, Meatball War Zone
If hell had a buffet, it would smell like my Nonna's gravy.
Dinner at the Ricci house was supposed to be sacred. Keyword: supposed to. You don't grow up in Mafia Central with a full-blood Alpha family and get many quiet meals. But tonight? Tonight made Thanksgiving 2018 (the year Marco punched a priest) look like preschool nap time.
It started with meatballs. It always starts with meatballs.
Adriana my mother, full-time Alpha, part-time wedding planner, and recently rebranded chaos agent stabbed one right off Luca's plate with a fork like it owed her money.
"You could chew with your mouth closed for once," she snapped.
Luca, my father, Mafia boss, and now apparently out and proud (surprise! we'll get to that), wiped sauce from his chin like he was too dignified to bleed.
"I'm chewing just fine. Maybe the problem is your hearing."
I blinked. Frankie paused mid-scroll. Marco grunted and kept eating. Vince was already rubbing his temples. Matteo clutched his water glass like a hostage negotiator.
And me?
I was trying to vanish into my chair and praying for spontaneous combustion.
Then came The Moment.
Adriana set her fork down, slowly, like she was about to commit a federal crime with it. "I'm done."
"You're done eating?" Luca asked.
"No." She stood up. Her heels made that threatening click-click on the tile. "I'm done with this. The family. The charade. The business. You."
She didn't even blink as she looked down at him. "I want a divorce."
Somewhere in the house, a wine glass committed suicide off a counter. Probably in sympathy.
"You're not serious," Luca said, his voice low. Alpha-low. The kind that makes grown men cry and street-level informants piss themselves.
But Adriana? She laughed. "Oh, I'm serious. You want to know how serious?" She pointed across the table. "Your children deserve better than a father who's been lying to them for decades."
She turned toward me. "And you Sophia you especially deserve better than this nonsense."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried again. "Wait, what did I do?"
But she was already mid-monologue. "Do you know how humiliating it is? I built this family. I survived your wars, your enemies, your deals. And now; I find out the only reason you stayed with me is because you were too cowardly to admit you've been sleeping with your fated male mate behind my back?!"
Dead. Silence.
Matteo dropped his fork. Marco sat up straight like someone had offered him a chance to fight. Frankie looked delighted, like this was the best reality show she'd ever seen.
I, meanwhile, officially died inside.
"Wait," I said, voice cracking. "Dad has a what?"
Vince made a noise like he was being strangled by paperwork. "This isn't really the time—"
"Actually," Adriana said, "it's exactly the time. You can all keep playing mafia Barbie if you want, but I'm done. I've filed the papers. The boutique's mine. I'm out."
She tossed a folder onto the table. Legal documents. Neat, color-coded tabs. Because of course she divorced him with tabs.
Then she walked out.
No big emotional goodbye. No teary exit. Just: click-click-click of heels, and the front door slamming like the end of an opera.
The family sat in stunned silence.
Then Marco said, "So… are we still doing dessert?"
I tried sneaking back to my room after The Great Divorce, but of course Luca was waiting in the study.
He had that look—the one that meant "we're about to talk, and it'll be business, not feelings."
"Sophia."
I paused at the door like a deer caught in mob drama headlights.
"Come in."
I did. I sat. I looked at the expensive whiskey on his desk and the stack of weapons invoices beside it.
He didn't offer me a drink. Rude.
"I need your help," he said.
And I said the only thing a sixteen-year-old Beta daughter of a divorced, emotionally constipated Alpha mob boss could say:
"Please tell me you're adopting me out to a normal family."
He didn't laugh. He pushed a manila folder across the desk. "You're going to start handling payroll."
I blinked. "What? No. No-no. I'm a Beta, remember? I blend in. I'm good at math club, not money laundering."
"You're good with numbers," he said simply.
"Yeah, like AP calculus numbers. Not 'Rafael is demanding hazard pay because a body exploded in the van again' numbers."
"Sophia."
He gave me the Look™. The Ricci Look. The "I am your father and you will obey" Look.
I almost flipped the desk just to be petty.
"Why not give it to Vince? Or Frankie? Or literally anyone else who came out of your loins and doesn't have a locker combination?"
"Because you're invisible," he said. "And that's valuable right now."
I hated that he had a point. Being a Beta meant no scent. No heat. No one noticed you. Unless they wanted something, or you owed them money. Which made me the perfect mule for laundering a few hundred thousand in untraceable shell company wages, I guess.
He stood. Walked to the window. Looked out like a brooding vampire.
"Adriana's gone," he said quietly. "And we're exposed. You're going to help keep us alive."
I stared at him.
Then I said, "If I get arrested, I'm naming you in every group project for the rest of my life."