I don't care about gossip, but one person must learn that my engagement to Luca is over before it hits the grapevine, my Papa, the boss of the biggest bratva clan in L.A. My heart palpitates at the thought of this conversation.

Can I ah... avoid it somehow? I chew my lips, considering the scenarios, until this neurotic habit reminds me of Pansy's squirming. Good thing I have a tube of lipstick in my bag. It's a confident color; it will help.

The trick is to dig the lipstick up, seeing how many compartments it could have rolled into. I search and hum. Where, oh where my wee lipstick has gone?

The impulse to chew my lips intensifies, as my fingers grasp anything but the lipstick or hit the silky lining of the purse. I'm breaking into sweat by the time my fingers close on the cool cylindrical object. Thank God!

I make-up my lips, then give a couple of extra passes with the cherry-red lipstick and finish with a sensual smooch to the dash mirror. "Ta-ta, Luca!"

Really, I can do this all day and all night, instead of driving to see Papa. I pucker my lips again at my reflection, but what I see is Luca's dejected face.

"Ta-ta, you jerk! Be grateful for four years of my life. Ain't wasting any more on you."

"Okay, God is with us..." I heave a sigh and give my Porsche gas, and we fly...until we hit the gridlock at Santa Monica.

Maybe it's for the best that I have to slow down, because I'm so jittery. I'll be treading even more carefully once this drive is done and I have arrived at my destination. Much, much more carefully, because bad things happen to those who screws with Papa.

The Porsche slides into Papa's garage, stabling two dozen exotic cars smoothly. As smoothly as Luca used to slide inside me. At least, his beemer isn't there, so he didn't beat me to my father's august ears to whine about my rush behavior. Color me impressed.

A deep breath and a light press on the door handle later, my legs swing out of the car. They levitate for a count of three, before the heels land on the concrete with a seductive click-cluck. There are at most two guys observing my entrance—a chauffeur on duty and a mechanic—but I'm doing it like the whole world is watching. Like Luca is watching.

I smooth my skirt and puff up my hair. The lipstick is still in my hand, just in case the color fades. I squeeze the tube. "That's it, girl. Ready, set, go. Go, girl. Go."

And my feet stay glued to the concrete, as if there is a magnetic anomaly in my dad's garage.

"Yo, girl? Set one foot a little ahead of the other, that's how you do it." The condescension with which I say that does the trick. I'm finally on the move, heels drumming up a storm.

This time of day, Papa is on the third floor of Nazarevich Stronghold, closeted in his office with his lawyers. Unlike Luca, they're boring sharks, distinguished, prim and forever-forty-four. One of them drones on about a limited partnership, the investment package and how blending it holistically achieves—

Papa ignores his words and taps a line in the contract that doesn't work for him.

"Papa!" I scoot over to peck his cheek. Light as the kiss is, it leaves a red smudge on his skin. It looks like blood.

"Hello, Mila." Papa lifts his almost square head from the stack of papers. The stubby finger remains parked on the line he has issues with. "We'll be done in an hour. Go visit with your brother until then."

"No, Papa, no. There's no need. I only need a minute, and... let me get this for you." I lean on the oak desk to wipe away my lipstick.

He adores surrounding himself with oak furniture. The desk, the chairs, the bookcases, the paneling—they all have the same sturdy, old-fashioned gleam. The Persian rug, the herringbone drapes and the three-feet by three flower arrangement match the oak and the man, but he wouldn't blink if his decorator replaces that, so long as he keeps the oak furniture. It's his only weakness.

"Papa, I left Luca, that's all. I'm moving into the studio at the Palmira building. You know how much I love it." The family owns it. He can't possibly object to it... can he?

I slither back, ready to make my escape, but Papa catches my wrist. His pink-veined eyes roll out of the puffy bags underneath to search my face.

"You left Luca Tangorello," he repeats without any expression on his face. His voice is deadpan too. Translation: he's furious with me.

"Papa, look! It's unbearable!" I launch into an explanation. Luca, the girl, the four fruitless years of feuding with him over the same damn fly zipper that wouldn't stay zipped.

The worst thing is that Papa knows about Luca's philandering already, but he wants me to say it anyway. Because he called me a a young fool for throwing myself at Luca four years ago. He warned me that I was too young to tangle with a slippery bastard like Luca, from a family of slippery bastards.

I sigh. "You were right, Okay? I'm twenty-five now, Papa, no longer foolish. It's time to find a better man."

These lift the corners of his mouth in a smile, but he doesn't say, I told you so.

In the end, he gave us his blessing, I'm still not sure why.

Maybe he was blindsided by the Italians brokering a union outside their own clans, and Tangorellos' attention flattered him. But he still had misgivings and asked if I wanted to wait for a better man.

"What's the rush, Mila," he asked me and shook his head, "what's the rush?"

What I heard back then was, wait for a man Papa would hand-pick for you. A boring, pliable bratva lieutenant who would make a decent second to my baby-brother.

Now I suck my teeth and wonder if his objections were due to a player spotting another player. Despite Papa's heavy jowls, a spreading bald spot and dead eyes of a gangster, he's shopping for his fourth bride. For him, it means that he test-drives everything with a pulse in his quest for a better woman.

But he was wrong about Luca. He isn't a player, at least not in the sense that Papa understands it. He's too old-school to understand how Luca operates. I have no desire to enlighten him and his closest lawyer-friends about my personal problems.

As the pause stretches, the room falls so silent that I hear the antique clock tick. The lawyers stand by, maintaining neutrality, but at the same time they are coiled to jump to Papa's side.

I sweep them with a challenging stare. If one of you dares interrupt—

They regard me with pale eyes, reflecting a single consideration. What if this separation turns into a legal matter? Which one of them would handle it for the boss? They hope in vain. There are no assets involved, apart from my tits and soul.

In the end, Papa cringes, as if I've served him vinegar instead of wine in a crystal flute. "Mila, go ask Marina to make you a cup of tea and visit with your brother. Don't worry, I'll have everything squared away for you."

My hands fold into a pleading gesture before I can stop myself. "Papa, don't bother. It's over. I'm through with Luca this time, I swear. It was just FYI, really."

"FYI, yes. I got it. Go chat with Ilya. He's been missing you."

I envy my little brother, Ilya, for his physique.

Where I work tirelessly to cultivate myself as a bitch not to be crossed, he just cracks his knuckles. I swear, he gets taller by the week and puts on bulk in defiance of all realistic expectations.

Men don't have growth spurts at 23, it's fucking unnatural. Unless their name is Ilya Nazarvich. Then they develop into this walking Mount Kilimanjaro on their own time.

Given his formidable size, Ilya drinking tea is a sight to behold.

He holds a British porcelain cup—pastel flowers, golden rim and all—with trepidation. One twitch of sausage-thick fingers is enough to explode porcelain into shards.

I survey him from the threshold of the living room. "Papa says you miss me."

He pushes a platter of sugar-dough cookies towards me. "You look like you can use some sugar, sis."

The treats are shaped like walnuts. From years of experience, I know them to be filled with thick caramel. Marina insists on baking them near-daily, and they aren't that bad, but nostalgia is their key selling point. Not being a first-generation immigrant, to me, they are basically the most inconvenient cookies in the world. Too round to hold, yet too large to finish in one bite, without looking like a hamster. Plus, they leave your teeth sticky.

"Hard pass," I say.

Ilya slurps instead of an answer. His baby-blue eyes are a shock under his heavy brows, particularly when they glare like a doomsday ray from an underground bunker. When his cup is either half-empty or half-full—depending on your world-view—he parks it on the table.

"Why pull the plug now, Mila? You knew for years that Luca had a roving eye." His lips clam together, glad to be done with the detestable task of talking.

"Aha, Papa wasn't too busy to appraise you on the new Mila's problem." I perch on the armrest of his Lazy-Boy.

This room is not Papa's favorite. Mom had it finished in honey-colored wood. The upholstery mixes tasteful color stripes with always-in-fashion white stripes. It's cozy and boring, and if Papa didn't hire a small army of housekeepers, it would have lost its gloss long ago.

My living room was its kissing cousin. My living room, where Luca is probably fucking Pansy right now—

My fingers grow itchy, but there is no gun range in Papa's basement. I settle for twirling the curl of blond hair swirling down Ilya's massive neck.

"Shoo!" He flicks my fingers away. "What did Luca do? Or didn't?"

I stubbornly pick on the same strand of hair and roll it tight enough for the pull to be noticeable. He winces.

"Do you remember how at first I wanted to marry Luca this very second?"

Ilya's beautiful head tilts at most a quarter-inch in acknowledgment. "You still owe me for the suit I had made for the wedding."

"Pfft."

We sit in silence.

"Were you going somewhere with it?" he finally prompts. "Not that I'm in any hurry, but Papa is going to be here soon. Of course, if you want to illuminate both of us at once—"

I don't. I really don't. "I was madly in love with Luca, blindly. To the point of crossing the days on the calendar till we would wed."

"Really?"

"Okay, no calendar thing, but close enough. Then, four months later, I got clued in and postponed the wedding. I told him we'd set the date again, once I was sure he's done womanizing behind my back. I understood nothing about him back then. But you know what's funny?"

Ilya expels an exaggerated sigh to emphasize how he's suffering. "Tell me."

"I've almost set that date again just before he brought this cunt home this afternoon."

I go over what happened the second time. Meanwhile, my gut roils. Funny, funny, funny... rolling-on-the-floor-laughing funny.

Once I'm done, I grab Ilya's cup and drain it like whiskey. The impotent swill inside has a floral hint. Gee, is Marina hinting at something?

"What bugs me the most is that I don't understand why Luca brought her home. I just don't! I didn't sense anything fishy for months..."

I despise players. As a mafia heiress, I was raised to be on guard against men either stupid, or daring, or mercantile, or anything else that makes men omnivorous. One pussy is just like the other, everything they say is dross to cover up misogyny... Despite being forewarned, forearmed and not a fool—let's come clean—I'd fallen for their tricks and complained before. Dodged the bullet too, and regretted it sometimes. However, my mistakes never lasted. I walked out, or the unfortunate infatuations faded.

But I stayed with Luca for years, and I stayed after my eyes had been opened, because he loves women so much.

As in he loves women enough to prefer their company to men's, even when his romantic radar is at rest. He studies them with awe. I was his favorite subject, so had me mapped to the last grain of sand on the bottom of my soul. And if Luca knows me in every exquisite detail, then why did he do something so monumentally dumb?

I could only think of one answer. I hang my head and voice it. "He must fooled my other women radar, utterly blindsided me."

"How?" Ilya cocks his brow. "Lots of sex?"

I slap the (mostly) empty cup between his thighs, yes, right over the business end.

"Careful there! Or you'll be married and making babies for both of us."

He shakes imaginary drips from his jeans—think what you wish of me, but I'm not going to upturn tea on the familial treasury—and resumes the conversation from the point where he'd driven me mad enough to act. "Not enough sex then?"

I snort. "Ilya, with Luca the quantity and quality is perfect."

"That's good. Because, Mila, you're marrying him."

"Fuck you!"

He shakes his finger at me. "Don't look at me like that. Papa is going to insist. I know it, you know it, she—" he nods at the gray cat who's just wandered in the room, attracted by the sound of our voices. "She knows it, even though she is dumber than my boots."

I roll my eyes. "Papa always hated Luca. He'd be happy—"

"It's not how Papa feels about Luca. It's how he feels about the Tangorellos. And, boy, Mila, that romance is flourishing."

"Fuck you!"

"Your seduction routine needs work." He makes rocking motions as if he wants to push to his feet. If he actually needed to get up, he would have launched out of the armchair's embrace like a rocket. His size is deceptive. "I'll go and tell Papa to cough up some dough. You need a therapist, someone who can help you make this marriage work."

"There will be no marriage." I wrap my arm around his shoulders and press my forehead to his. He grumbles how he's lousy at this touchy-feely shit, and I shush him. His presence is comforting and he's right. He's terrible at the emotional stuff, so I can't explain my break-up to him. If I asked him to break every bone in Luca's body, then he'd understand. But I don't want Luca to suffer.

Ilya accepts his lot as a shoulder to cry on and fills a fresh teacup with the waif's piss Marina calls tea.

"I'll never marry Luca Tangorello," I sniff, then sit upright, blinking tears away. "Mark my words."

Ilya yanks two napkins from a silver holder and offers one to me. He dabs at the wet spot on his shirt with the second, "wanna bet?"

Silence falls over us as I sit there and crumple the napkin. Silence is golden.