Chapter1

#Chapter1

Family-01

The front door slamming was louder than I intended but it didn’t slow me down. The door opened and slammed again meaning my pain in the ass brother was right behind her. /"Mom, Lucca, has got to get rid of that girl,/" I told her with an eyeroll as she sat beside her on the couch in the living room. Mom stopped reading the book in her hand, closing it, she nodded her head in agreement.

/"But it isn’t our choice,/" she told me even though I knew she agreed with me whole heartedly. She hadn't liked Arianna Romono since the first time Lucca brought her home to meet her.

/"She’s not that bad,/" Lucca sighed looking at us both. /"Will you please tell her, mom,/" he pointed at me.

/"You two have got to stop with the fighting./" Mom told us before she went back to her book.

/"That’s it?/" I shouted standing up, I turned to walk out of the room but stopped when my father walked in with the look of anger on his face. He was holding Gabby, my only sister and youngest Bellandini child, in his arms and she was rubbing her eyes.

/"Anyone want to tell me, when the rules of my house changed?/" He looked between Lucca and I, already knowing that it was us that had been making so much noise. /"Whoever slammed the door, gets her now,/" he glared at us while bouncing Gabby on his hip.

/"Sorry, daddy,/" I tried to look innocent.

/"Nope. Not going to work today,/" he shook his head. I sighed, it usually worked. /"You know I have a ton of work to get done today and your mother wanted me to get her down for her nap before I was able to leave the house,/" he walked closer to where to where I stood, holding Gabby toward me. /"Now it’s your job./" I took her with a huff.

/"Can all of you leave?/" mom sighed from behind me causing me to turn to look at her, /"I am trying to read,/" she didn’t lift her head but we all knew by the tone in her voice that she meant business and it wouldn’t be safe to not listen to her.

/"Lucca,/" Dad turned to him, /"I need you to go with me. You need to learn about the dock business./" Lucca rolled his eyes and groaned.

/"I have plans though,/" he told him. Lucca had no interest in taking over anything for our father even though it was what was expected. I on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to follow in my father's shoes. Mom and dad parents raised me to be a strong woman just like my mother and I didn’t see any reason that I couldn't do what my father did.

/"I can go with you, Daddy,/" I turned and smiled as I rubbed Gabby’s back like she liked.

/"Not this time, sweetie. Your brother has to learn the ins and outs of the business so he can take over./" he kissed both mine and Gabby’s foreheads before walking out and waiting for Lucca to follow. He sighed as he walked out of the room.

/"Mom, I don’t get it,/" I sighed, moving to sit back beside her. /"Lucca doesn’t want to do anything but party with his friends and that sl.../"

/"Don’t even think of using that word, Ivy,/" she warned me, /"no matter how I feel about Arianna, you will not use that word in my house./" She wasn’t looking at her book anymore. She was looking directly at me with the look that she had perfected over the years of being a mother to her crazy lot of kids. The look that told all of us children not to test her.

/"Sorry,/" I sighed. I wouldn’t test her. /"Just that girl, drives me crazy, you know./"

/"I know. She had been a pain since she came home with him six years ago. You know how I can’t stand her but, I also cannot tell your brother who he can and can’t date, he is a grown man and you hate it when your father does it to you./" I nodded. She really did hate when dad told me I couldn’t date someone and he had done it a lot since I started dating at 15.

/"Fine. By any chance can you make your husband let me be the next Capo?/" I knew that there wasn’t much that Rebecca Bellandini couldn’t make Vincent Bellandini, capo of the Italian mafia, do. She was his queen and that made her more influential than my uncle Dom, his right-hand man.

/"You know that I can't,/" she sighed, /"I have done my best your whole life to make sure that you were treated equal to your brothers by him but he is still the Capo and more than dropping hints, I have no control over his decision./" I nodded. I should have known that’s what she would say. She had respect for dad and I always knew that and actually loved how strong yet supportive she had always been of him. /"Go lay her down,/" Mom nodded her head to Gabby who had fallen asleep on my shoulder. I nodded and did as my mother said.

When I had laid Gabby down and covered her, I walked out and shut the door quietly. I turned to walk to my own bedroom, planning to sulk. /"Hey, Ivy,/" Matteo and Dante, my younger brothers, said at the same time. They acted more like twins then Lucca and I ever did yet, they were a little over a year apart in age. Mom said she wasn’t having any more kids after Matteo was born but before she could do anything to prevent it, she found out she was pregnant with Dante.

/"Hey,/" I smiled at them, /"what are you two up to?/"

/"Just getting back from school,/" Matteo shrugged. He was graduating this year and planned to go to medical school following in our mother’s shoes. He had been helping at the clinic since Gabby was born. Gabby had been a surprise on her 40 th birthday. Dad had told her that he had gotten a vasectomy but he had forgotten to go back and double check that he had worked. They had gotten lucky until she had woken up on the morning of her birthday and she just knew. After the results came back at the clinic that day, she had marched into Dad’s office, interrupting his meeting about her surprise party, and gave him a surprise of his own. A slap to the face. After the room cleared of the party planner and me, who was helping also, everyone could hear her yelling at him. He hadn't lived it down since. Uncle Domenico especially loved to tease him about it.

/"How was school?/" I directed my question at Dante. Matteo and I were the only ones who knew that he was being bullied at school.

/"It was okay,/" he shrugged but his eyes stayed on his shoes.

/"Liar,/" Matteo muttered. I looked between my brothers. /"Tell her the truth./" Dante took a deep breath and lifted his head to look at me. I gasped when I saw my little brothers face. I stepped forward and grabbed him by the chin.