The expected email and the unexpected letter

Bianchi sucked a breath in through her nose and let it out her mouth. In out, In out, In out. Keep your head straight and look slightly up and blink rapidly. Nobody could see you cry. Keep walking, keep moving. You can't let people see your weakness.

Bianchi slipt her phone into her bag. She kept a steady pace and took the long twisting roads back to the apartment her famiglia owned in Pairs, France. She got the email. She has been expecting it for a while now, with her turning eight-teen in a week. It still doesn't sting any less, though.

The email itself was brief and straight to the point. She was to come home, and she was to be wed to the 3rd Caporegime on the night of her eighth birthday. That Caporegime would then become the Underboss and second in command. The heir of the Cavaliere del Veleno famglia.

His name was Francesco Ricci. She knew him. He was cruel, cold and calculative. He would take what he wants without regard for what happens to anyone else. He was also thirty years old. She feels like breaking down, but she can't because a mafia woman always keeps their composure.

A don can't be a woman. You also can't just be a Mafia Woman because if you are a Mafia Woman, you are a Mafia Wife. That is what she has been told her whole life. She was under no disillusioned that she would ever lead the familga. Still, it stings a lot.

The door to the apartment was in view now—a door made out of storm flame-proof wood and gold carvings and details. Bianchi suddenly feels sick at the extravagant of it all. She slid into the apartment, swinging the ornate door open and breaking down crying. For her future, for her dreams and for what she could have been as a leader.

It was also the email itself. That the news of her marriage was sent in an email at all, the least her father could have done would be the formal letter sealed with his flames. This was a great slight. A slap in the face letting her know all she was worth was a shortly worded email with enough protections on it that a novice could hack it.

The assassins that would come after her if word got out who she would be marrying. Being a female, she must be inherently weaker. Easier to take out and spread chaos in the Famiglia. That is what her enemies would be thinking.

Well, that's what she gets for working as a freelance hitman after graduating from the mafia academy this past year. This is what she gets for daring to think she could be more than a pretty face that would wait for hand and foot on her husband.

She pulls herself up off the ground and falls back onto the soft velvet couch. She stares up at the cream colour ceiling.

Her mother taught her everything that she knew and more. So much more. That was the cause of her death in the end. She would always sing one song to her every night without fail. It would, without fail to make her feel better.

Bianchi hasn't dared sing it since her mother died, though, and she doesn't think she ever will. After Hayato ran away, she was given so many more tutors, all preparing her for her future. Her duty. For her to truly embody the three virtues of a mafia woman.

Loyalty

Bravery

Truth

Loyal to your family, husband and famiglia. Your life belongs to them. You forever serve them. You are loyal to them.

Brave enough to take all the pain, to bear the weight of responsibility, to always get up again no matter what.

Truthful to themselves, truthful to their families, truthful to the famiglia and above all, will always tell the truth to their husband.

Bianchi stopped her tears and went to the kitchen to prepare a meal, passing the dining room along the way. Where she saw a letter inconspicuously sitting there, she froze, her eyes widening. She quickly walked to the letter and picked it up. There was the vongola seal on the parchment with the flames of vongola nono himself.

She could feel his sky flames oozing from the letter and staining the area around the letter. Oh, she knows this is the real deal. She could remember that flame from anywhere. Just two hours during the closing ceremonies, and she could remember it for life. It was sticky and slimy and gross.

Everyone seemed entrapped by it, but they were not flame sensitive. They didn't have flames that could resonate so well with almost anything that it would accidentally turn it poisons. Usually, she would have just denied it. She wanted nothing to do with vongola, but she was desperate.

She knew any orders from the Vongola would take president over her wedding. She slowly opened the letter.

Dear Bianchi Veleno,

We humbly offer you a long-term contract of tutoring the youngest main family member of the vongola.

Her name Tsunade Sawada, better known as Primrose di Vongola.

She is four years old and requires a long-term tutor till she is eight-teen. She would be expected to learn the womanly arts and how a mafia lady was to act along with core school subjects, mafia academy training, languages and Martial Arts.

You're required to remain a Miss so that we know you have young Primrose interest at heart.

Signed vongola nono.

She gasped. That was perfect, absolutely perfect. It would stop the wedding. It would stop the future even if her mind were screaming at her for agreeing to raise another young child as a sacrifice for her Famiglia.

She herself hasn't heard of this girl, but it is normal only to announce the birth of a child of the main family of a

famiglia at five years old to decrease assassination attempts of hiers. Sawada, so she was the external adviser's daughter. Main family because she was a direct descendant of vongola primo.

So she steeled herself and wrote her acceptance of the position. Pushing away any niggling doubts she had.