Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
I felt the shift in the air between us. He'd never approved of how I chose my inner circle—men who'd walked away from other families, who'd broken old ties to forge new ones. But now, there was something different in how he said it. Almost like respect.
"Strange times," he said after a moment. "When Salvatore's territory causes such... unexpected changes. Not just in business."
My jaw tightened but I held his stare. Everything in me wanted to keep Pearl away from this, from the weight of old blood and older promises.
"Your mother," he said quietly, surprising me with the mention, "she used to say some things matter more than business." His voice hardened slightly. "Took me too long to understand what she meant. Maybe you're smarter than I was."
He reached inside his jacket, pulling out a worn leather portfolio I'd seen it a hundred times but never been allowed to touch. The sight of it made my throat tight.
"Been thinking about the villa in Sicily," he said, running his thumb over the edge. "Air's better there. Might stay a while."
He opened it, and I caught the glint of his personal pistol, the gold-inlaid Beretta he'd carried since before I was born. Next came the key to his private vault, then his black ledger. The one that held three generations of our true accounts.
"You'll need these." He slid them across one by one. "Your grandfather's contacts are in there too."
I stared at the items laid between us—everything I'd spent years fighting to prove I deserved.
He looked toward the window, watching Providence glitter in the rain. "City's changing. Maybe it's time we did too."
As he stood, his hand found my shoulder. A rare gesture that made my throat tighten. He studied my face for a long moment, and for the first time, I saw pride replace the calculation in his eyes.
"Show them what a Barbieri can really build," he said quietly. Then he was gone, leaving me with the weight of his empire and something I'd never expected to earn: his respect.
The drive back to the hospital felt longer, everything that had just happened settling into place.
Pearl was awake when I returned. Her hand found mine before I could speak, warm and steady like an anchor in deep water.
"So?" she asked, reading the weight in my silence.
"He's heading to Sicily." I traced the line of her palm, remembering all the times these hands had steadied me, guided me toward something better than what I'd been taught to be. "Left me everything."
She nodded, understanding flowing between us without words. Through the window, I watched the lights ripple in the darkness, my free hand resting gently where our future was growing.
Time to build something new. Something that was ours.
35
PEARL
After a week of recovery at the hospital, patiently enduring the concerns of seven extremely overprotective men, I was finally strong enough to do this.
I sat on my bed and looked down at the documents before me. They seemed to gleam in the morning light streaming through the tower windows—legal forms that would reclaim my birth name. My true name.
I traced my fingers over the letters that would transform me back to Pearl Divino. The memories hit me so hard that I had to grip the edge of the desk. Sunday afternoons at our old estate—Dad in his big leather chair, teaching me not just about business but about life. Even as a feared Mafia don, he had this way of seeing the heart of things, of finding lessons in every moment.
"Success isn't in the numbers, piccola," he'd say, eyes twinkling. "It's in how many lives you make better along the way." He'd tell me stories about families he'd helped, employees whose children he'd put through college, communities he'd lifted up. Even at the height of his power, he'd take time to ask our gardener about his son's baseball games or help our cook's daughter with her math homework.
Mom would bring us hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows, even in summer. The scent of lavender always followed her around the house; it became so much a part of her that even now, years later, the fragrance could bring tears to my eyes. I could still picture them dancing in the dining room after dinner, Mom laughing as Dad hummed old Dean Martin songs completely off-key.
The fountain pen in my hand had been his, Austrian crystal and gold, a gift from my grandfather. Tears blurred my vision as I remembered Dad using it when I was little, watching from my perch on the corner of his desk as he'd sign documents. "A signature means your word means something," he'd tell me, that warm smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. "It's a promise to do right by the people who trust you."
Nan had kept the pen safe all these years, hiding it when Vittorio started erasing every trace of Dad after Mom married him. I remembered the day I became a Salvatore; I was eleven years old, barely understanding what it meant to give up my father's name. Mom had squeezed my hand under the table that day, a silent apology.