Page 17 of Forbidden Sins

ESTELLA

T he next morning, after breakfast, I’m summoned to my father’s office.

I throw on the same outfit that I wore to dinner that first night, all black, and I go without complaint, because I know now for sure that there’s no point in arguing.

I saw how my father was at the funeral—cool, composed, calm.

I can’t believe that he’s not grieving, but he keeps it hidden, tucked away so deeply that not even I can see it.

A man like that isn’t going to care that I don’t want to talk to anyone right now, not even him—not anyone other than Sebastian, anyway.

He’s not going to care that I don’t feel like I can handle any kind of meeting, that whatever he’s going to tell me is going to be too much for me to shoulder right now.

He’s not going to care, even though I’m his daughter, and he’s my father, and we just lost his son and my brother. So I go, Sebastian following me down and waiting outside the office as I knock and then walk inside.

My father’s office is one of two rooms in the house that no one goes into unless invited.

This, and his personal study, where he keeps all of his favorite books and alcohol and goes not to work, but to just be alone—which he prefers to be when he’s not engaged in work.

Divorce isn’t common in mafia families, even less so in old-world ones like my father’s way of running things, so my parents aren’t divorced.

But my mother left years ago, unable to stand what she deemed neglect from her husband.

Whether she didn’t understand how things would be when they married, or foolishly hoped for more, or thought that she would be okay with it and then wasn’t—I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since she left.

I doubt she even knows Luis is dead.

My father let her go, although he’ll never give her a divorce. He assumed that she wouldn’t go through with it, that she wouldn’t leave her children behind. But she did, and now she lives in France, I think, on money that my father never even notices she spends—he has so much of it.

His office is cold, and I try not to shiver as I walk up to the desk, where two leather-backed chairs sit in front of it.

The room is all dark colors, and woods, and heavy masculine decorations, with two large windows that let the light in and soften it just a little.

At night, it feels especially oppressive to me, but I’m rarely ever in here at night.

I’m rarely ever in here at all—as my father was so quick to point out at dinner, the business of the Gallo family is none of mine.

I have nothing to do with this part of things.

Except, it seems, now.

“Sit down, Estella.” My father gestures to the chair directly in front of him. “There are some things we need to talk about.”

His tone is so calm, so emotionless, that I can’t stop what comes out of my mouth next. “We buried Luis yesterday ,” I say sharply. “This can’t wait?”

My father’s dark eyes, very like mine, meet mine as he looks up at me. “No,” he says simply. “This is business, Estella. It does not wait for personal emotions. You will learn this, as time goes on.”

I press my lips together tightly, my hands knotted together in my lap. “Fine,” I manage. “What ‘business’ do you need me for?”

My father lets out a long, slow breath. “I know you’re grieving, Estella.

We all are. But we need to quickly establish what happens next, regardless of our personal grief.

Among families like ours, alliances shift all of the time.

There are more effects of Luis’ death than just what we feel, Estella.

And those other effects could spell disaster for us if we don’t choose our next steps carefully. ”

I narrow my eyes. “We? When have I ever been involved in the business side of the family?”

My job, as Antony Gallo’s second child and daughter, is to be beautiful.

Ornamental. To show up at parties and let others be impressed by what a lovely, talented, polite daughter he has.

To one day marry. Those are the things I’ve been told all my life—and not to concern myself with business .

That’s too much for me, a mafia daughter, to handle.

I bite my lip with irritation. There was a time when I would have loved for my father to bring me closer, to let me be a part of all of this.

To show me that he loved me and my potential more than old traditions and ways of doing things.

But I don’t want it now, when we’re only having this conversation because Luis is gone.

“There’s very little that you need to actually do,” he says, leaning back in his chair a bit. “All I need is for you to understand what needs to happen now, Estella, and to accept that it’s your duty to comply with what needs to be done.”

A chill winds down my spine, and I frown. I don’t like the sound of that. “What are you talking about?” I ask, and my father sits forward, his hands steepled as he looks at me.

“You are the heiress now, Estella,” he says simply. “And you need to be married.”

The words hit me like a slap, my blood running cold. I was afraid from the moment he started talking that that was what he was about to say, but I hoped I was wrong.

“Preferably to someone with enough money, power, and connections to maintain the strength of our family’s empire once it comes time for him—and you—to inherit,” my father continues, as if all of the blood hasn’t drained out of my face.

“It’s important that I choose your husband carefully, Estella.

It always mattered who you married, but before—” He pauses, clearing his throat—the most emotion I’ve seen from him so far, I think, regarding Luis’ death.

“Before, it was more a matter of secondary alliances, of increasing territory or business holdings, or strengthening connections. Now, it is imperative that the right choice be made. Your husband will not only gain you as a wife, but he will inherit the entire empire that the Gallo family has built when I die. Do you understand what that means, Estella?”

I can’t speak. My throat feels closed over, my hands gripping the arms of the chair until I can feel my knuckles turning as white as my face. My father continues speaking anyway.

“It has to be someone who the other families will accept, and who won’t be challenged by anyone from another mafia for territory?—”

“I can’t do this,” I interrupt suddenly, the words coming out before I can stop them.

“We buried Luis yesterday ,” I continue, everything spilling out of me in a rush.

“I can’t talk about marriage right now! And the things you’re talking about—” I swallow hard, continuing on before I can be interrupted.

“These are old-world traditions! We don’t need to follow these anymore. We don’t need?—”

My father looks at me as if I’ve grown a second head. “What would you suggest I do?” he asks mildly, and I draw in a breath, trying to find the courage to continue now that I’ve begun.

“I could inherit,” I manage. “I could inherit alone. You could teach me everything you taught Luis, papa .” I look at him pleadingly, begging him to understand how I feel right now, how all of this makes me feel—terrified, alone, sent adrift with only the promise of a stranger for a lifeboat.

“I’m smart. All you have to do is look at my grades in college to see that.

Even the classes that had nothing to do with my art degree—the math and science, and literature classes that everyone has to take—I aced all of them. I could learn all of this. And then?—”

He holds up a hand, and I know I’m not being heard any longer. I keep talking anyway, unable to stop.

“The idea that a man has to inherit is from the old world.” I shake my head, feeling my eyes start to burn, and I fight back tears. If I start to cry, he won’t take anything I say seriously. “I can do this?—”

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re smart, daughter,” my father says calmly, dropping his hand back to the desk. “It’s not how things are done. If you had been born first, and Luis second, he would still have inherited.”

“But others?—”

“How others run their families is not my concern,” my father says stiffly.

“If the Yashkovs and Gallaghers wish to have new ideas and do things differently, so long as they maintain our alliances and our agreements, I have nothing to say about it. But I do have a say in how my family is run. And tradition matters, Estella.”

“Enough to marry me to a stranger?” I stare at him, wondering how long I can keep from bursting into tears. “Enough to make me marry someone on the heels of my brother dying? Enough to make me marry someone I hate?—”

That’s a step too far. I see the irritation in my father’s face as soon as I slip the slightest bit into potential hyperbole.

“It doesn’t have to be someone you hate, Estella,” he says, his tone approaching patronizing.

“You’ll be given several options. There are plenty of men in powerful positions, sons of those men, who could be worthy candidates.

You’ll be afforded the chance to meet them, to decide how you feel about them.

Although my choice is final, I’m not doing this without any input from you, daughter. ”

The look he gives me suggests that he thinks I should be more grateful than I am for that. “I can’t fall in love that quickly,” I whisper. “However long you think I should have, I’d need more time—especially for a stranger?—”

“Love isn’t a part of this,” my father says…

not entirely unkindly, but the words feel harsh all the same.

“This is business, Estella. His wealth, his connections, his portfolio, how ambitious he is—enough to carry our family forward but not so much that he might try to usurp all that I’ve done—how willing he is to carry on the alliances I’ve already established, all of those things matter.

Your ideas about love or attraction or anything else like that are not factors in this decision. ”

I swallow hard, blinking back tears. “I don’t think I can do this,” I whisper. “I can’t—I can’t marry someone I don’t like, or love, or want. I don’t want a life like that?—”

“It’s your duty.” All of the emotion, any kindness, has faded from my father’s voice.

This is an order, hard and cold, and I feel it reverberate in my bones.

“It was Luis’ duty, Estella. He would have married a woman I chose for him for all of those same reasons—for what she and her family name could offer ours.

But now it falls to you to do so instead.

And you will do it, with grace and dignity, so help me God, Estella. ”

Each word comes out harsher than the last, a gavel pronouncement coming down again and again, condemning me to what I feared most. My chest feels tight, my entire world closing in, and all I want to do is run. As far away as I can, from all of this. From him, from this house, from this life.

I don’t want any of it, and I don’t see a way out.

“When?” I ask in a small voice. “When am I going to start meeting these…”

“Suitors?” My father glances at the calendar on the wall.

“Within two weeks, I hope. I’ll reach out to the potential matches that I have in mind, and see when dinners or a party, perhaps, can be arranged.

I’ll let you know beforehand, of course.

You’ll need to be at your best.” His gaze flicks over me in a cool appraisal.

“Which means not wearing black, Estella.”

“We’re—” I suck in a breath. “We’re supposed to be grieving.”

“And we are. But your brother is gone, Estella.” My father’s hard gaze fixes on my face once again. “Wearing black won’t change that.” He pauses, looking at me for a long moment, and I know he sees the tears brimming on my eyelashes.

“You can go.”

I’m out of the seat in a flash, flying out of the office and slamming the door as I bolt for the stairs.

I forget that Sebastian was just outside the room—I forget everything except how desperately hopeless I feel right now, and how desperately I want to roll time back, back to the night of my birthday, back before everything fell apart.

“Estella!” Sebastian calls out from behind me, but I keep running, halfway up the stairs before my foot catches and I trip, sending me sprawling to my knees. A moment later, I feel Sebastian’s hands on my waist, gently helping me up.

“Estella.” He says my name more softly this time. “What happened? Are you alright?—”

I turn sharply, and like the night that I found out my brother died, I fling myself into his arms.