Chapter 18 - The Shattered Glass
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I didn't pack a bag. I didn't wait for a coat. I ran out of the library, sprinting down the grand staircase of the compound, my vision blurred by hot, relentless tears.
“Emily, wait!” Christopher shouted from the top of the stairs, his voice echoing with absolute desperation.
I ignored him, bursting through the heavy front doors and out into the freezing Boston air. Dante was standing by an idling SUV, talking on a radio. He looked up, shocked by my sudden appearance.
“Miss Carter? What’s going on?” Dante asked, stepping in my path.
“Get out of my way, Dante!” I screamed, shoving past the massive bodyguard with a frantic, hysterical strength.
I ran down the driveway, toward the massive iron gates of the compound. I could hear Christopher yelling at Dante to open the gates, to let me go, not to touch me.
The iron gates slowly swung open, and I sprinted through them, disappearing into the dark, snowy streets of the city. I ran until my lungs burned, until my feet were numb, until I collapsed onto a park bench miles away, sobbing uncontrollably into my hands.
The money, the mafia, the gunfire—none of it mattered compared to this. The universe had played the cruelest, most twisted joke imaginable. The only man who had ever made me feel safe was the one man I could never have.
I sat on that frozen bench for hours, the reality of my bloodline slowly sinking in. I wasn't just a broke singer from the North End. I was the granddaughter of a mafia queen. I was a Vitali.
My phone buzzed constantly in my pocket. Christopher called twenty times. Then Dante. Then text messages promising protection, money, anything I wanted, if I would just let them know I was safe.
I turned the phone off.
I walked back to my tiny, freezing apartment. The lock was still broken from when the Mancusos had been looking for me. I pushed the door open, the silence of the empty rooms hitting me harder than ever.
I walked into my bedroom, opening the small wooden box on my dresser where I kept my grandmother Rosa’s things. I pulled out her old rosary and clutched it to my chest, falling onto the unmade bed.
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“Why didn't you tell me, Nona?” I whispered into the empty room. “Why did you let me walk into his world without knowing?”
I cried until there were no tears left, grieving not just the loss of the man I loved, but the loss of the simple, quiet life I had thought was mine. I was a mafia princess, born of secrets and hidden by lies, and I was entirely alone.
