Page 5 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)
Chapter Two
Michael
C C moved in last week and apparently, we’re not doing Cosima anymore, we’re doing “CC”.
I set up her bedroom upstairs and quickly realized that I still see her as a dorky middle schooler, and not the grown up twenty-three year old she’s become.
It feels good to return to Buffalo after such a long absence.
I went out to Pittsburgh to help my cousin Vito with the crazy shit going on out there and now, I can finally have some peace.
My sister and I have always gotten along, although dad wasn’t wrong about the recent shift in her attitude.
I arrive at the brick house in Orchard Park after a grueling session at the gym with Luigi.
The shocking series of events with Delphine has changed my cousin in the most profound ways.
He’s about to become a father after years of living alone as a grouchy, dangerously single bachelor. It’s much too late for me.
When I walk through the front door, I smell CC’s favorite meal baking in the oven. She hasn’t been up for much cooking since she moved in, so this change of pace surprises me.
“Is that mom’s lasagna recipe?” I ask her as I kick my shoes off and let the grumble of hunger rumble through my abdomen.
“Grandma’s,” she asks while scrolling on the phone next to the egg timer.
“Since when are you cooking?”
“Dad’s coming over,” CC asks, rolling her eyes as she taps furiously at her phone. Young people are all addicted to their phones and CC is one of the worst. She barely looks up as I walk over to the oven and check on the lasagna progress.
“What? Since when? Why?” I ask as I turn the oven light off and take a good look at CC for signs of the mental illness my father insists she’s coping with.
“Mom wants him to drop off my business textbooks so I can study over spring break.”
“You haven’t failed your business classes yet. Keep at it.”
“Dad is a huge asshole,” CC says. “I don’t want to see him.”
Younger people are also much quicker to state their true, unfiltered feelings about their family members, which gets your ass into a lot of trouble as an Italian woman from a traditional family.
“You should respect your elders.”
“Like you, grandpa?” CC teases me, smirking for a brief second before she locks in on her text message conversation and taps away.
“Don’t worry about how old I am. Worry about getting better so dad trusts you on your own again.”
“Dad doesn’t trust me on my own because I’m a woman.”
“It’s not that,” I assure CC, although I can’t confirm that. Dad loves his daughters more than his sons. My sisters somehow find a way to get offended over that. Ugh, Gen Zs…
“Yes, it is. Our family is so fucked up.”
“You mean traditional?”
CC stares back at me with a piercing, meaningful expression. “I mean fucked up.”
“When is dad getting here?” I ask her. It’s better for me to change the subject than for us to get into another argument over our family values.
“Five minutes.”
“Five? Shit. I’d better take a shower.” I smell like the gym and I need those precious minutes to mentally prepare myself for seeing my father after we all just got the news about Luigi Taviani.
CC shrugs and talks while continuing to text, “Just don’t leave that nasty fake eye on the kitchen counter again. You don’t live alone anymore.”
I lost my eye working for the family about six years ago. Long story involving metal shrapnel and my brother, Peter.
“He’ll get here before I’m done. Keep him busy and don’t fight.”
By the time I emerge from my shower, dressed well enough to see my father, Pino Corsini, right hand to the most powerful mobster in Buffalo, my sister already goes against my commands.
I hear her argument with dad from the hallway and question whether I should leave through the back door instead of sitting through this.
“Be quiet,” he snarls at her. “I am not Leandro Taviani. You aren’t going to lie on your back for some fat fuck the rest of your life. I’m paying for you to finish business school and that’s what you’re going to do.”
“But dad, this is the best oil painting course in all of North America.”
“It’s in Canada. We’re not fucking Canadians, CC…”
I clear my throat before tensions rise between them even more.
My sister has dreams of becoming an artist that my Italian father couldn’t begin to understand.
Guidos from his generation dreamed of joining “the family”.
Wanting anything outside of our life and Cosa Nostra doesn’t register in my father’s mind.
“Mikey. Come on over here before your sister and I get physical.”
Again, I think to myself, not daring to say it out loud and remind either of them of a conflict we would be better off not returning to. These days, my sister hits back.
“She’s been a lovely house guest,” I reassure my father.
He gives CC an icy, disapproving stare while her face offers me gratitude I’ve barely seen during her stay here. Young people. They don’t appreciate their blessings until it’s too late.
“Good to hear,” my father responds icily, clearly doubtful. I don’t blame him, but I’ve always had a unique ability to reach my sister.
“Did you just come here to check on us?”
My father is easy to read in the sense that he never fully relaxes until he discusses business.
He spent his entire life as Leandro Taviani’s right hand man, which pretty much meant he never got to relax until the boss was satisfied.
He doesn’t envy Leandro’s position in the slightest, but there has always been a competitive edge between them about other things aside from their positions in the family.
Golf swings. Children. Money.
“No. I’ve been thinking about an heir.”
“An arranged marriage for Cosima?”
He chuckles. “How did that work for Angela Taviani? I thought it might be wiser to leave producing an heir up to you.”
Me? I haven’t had a woman in my bed for years.
After the first year, I stopped missing their presence.
Sex is just one of many emotional releases available and you can get a similar high elsewhere.
I can’t stand the demanding emotions of most women and how wholly incompatible untethered emotions are to our family situation.
Marrying a cold-hearted Italian woman only after my money doesn’t feel like the right answer either. Why the hell should I pay for boob jobs and lip fillers that I don’t even want?
An heir requires a wife. Unless I do it the way my cousin did. Dad seems to read my mind.
“I’m going to be direct with you, Mikey. Because we are different from Leandro and his family. Similar, but different.”
“Of course.”
“When our people came to America, we did everything to make our lives easier. Even with you kids, I gave you all traditional names so you wouldn’t have to get called greaseball or guido at school.”
He should have tried giving me a different nose to avoid that fate…
“Yes, dad. You’ve told me many times about the sacrifices you’ve made for us. Have I done something that I need to atone for?”
“Not yet,” he says ominously.
Even CC pays attention, glancing up from her phone with the guilty expression of someone live posting her family drama to the internet.
“Get it out, because you’re starting to make me think you’re terminally ill.”
“No black women. Knock some chick up, get the baby out of her, but I do not want you bringing a mixed race child into this world under any circumstances.”
CC drops her fork and goes full liberal on his ass.
“Are you fucking kidding me, dad?”
“I’m not going to apologize,” Pino Corsini says, perfectly absent from remorse. “I need to be straightforward with you. A black child will have a difficult life in this world.”
“Isn’t that because of white people?” CC says as my father continues to ignore her contributions to the conversation. I look over at her, wondering why she insists on constantly starting battles with my father.
“Leandro Taviani has two black grandchildren and the world hasn’t ended.”
“Yet,” he says ominously. “We are different. We have more connections to the old world and I will not have our blood… I will not accept it. I will never accept it.”
“This is why I hate you,” CC says. “Racist pig.”
She grabs her food and stomps off to eat it in her bedroom. Dad glares at me menacingly, as if I said a word to either of them about the argument unfolding before me. Obviously, I would much prefer not to get involved.