Valentina_Woman Empowered Read online

  I didn’t think that it would hurt them. Being raised in an environment where children should be seen and not heard, it seemed to me that I was more than generous with them in only making one area of our expansive home off limits. When I worked, I could hear them laughing and having fun. I could still see them through the frosted glass doors; see them smile and peek in at me, causing my heart to sing the praises of what beautiful children I had. I was sure I had done the right thing; better than my parents and grandmother had.

  “She’ll get mad,” I heard Cesca warn her sister one day.

  “No, she’ll get sad,” Toinette corrected her. “But I wanna show her. It’ll make her happy, too.”

  “Gotta wait,” Cesca told her.

  “But—”

  “Work makes her happy, sissy, not your silly statue,” Cesca said.

  “I make her happy.”

  “Not as much as work.”

  Cesca’s words were like a knife to the chest. It was a double shot of reality, telling me that I wasn’t much different than my parents or grandmother. Still, not wanting to replace another carpet, I didn’t give in completely.

  I got up and opened the doors. “I’d love to see your work, my sweet.”

  That day, I sat and played with my girls. It was possibly the first time I ever truly played. I got swept up in their imaginations and eagerness to create. And after that, I began opening the boxes and boxes of toys that had been shipped with them. Once a week, we girls sat at my desk, and regardless of how messy the product was, we did live reviews together.

  Shag be damned.

  Oddly, this also keeps them busy and more aware that this is in fact a space for work.

  Today, I pull off my socks and step on that shag rug, not only matting it, but curling my toes around its softness and taking comfort in it the way my sweet girls do.

  There is one more week of the regular school semester, and I have told the girls that, instead of the summer intensive program they normally take part in, we will be taking the summer to enjoy some travel, some beach days, and some family time.

  At first, they were upset. They love school. Let me clarify; they love going to the same school my cousins’ children attend.

  Jase’s oldest daughter Bell is going into her junior year of college at NYU. She has graduated and is the only one who doesn’t attend Saint Mary’s with my girls.

  One Year Ago…

  “They are as thick as thieves,” one of the nuns tells us as we sit around the large conference table in the school’s office.

  There was a fight and not one of them will give up the other. They won’t talk. Apparently, they won’t talk at all. Not one word, not even a hello or goodbye. It’s infuriating the nuns, and we are told, if we don’t get them to talk, they will all be forced to accept punishment.

  When the children are all called down to the office, they walk in a straight line, noses up, and avert eye contact with the nuns. Then they see us, and all eyes go to Justice, Cyrus’s oldest son.

  He narrows his eyes and gives a quick nod of sorts, looking straight ahead. They all follow suit.

  I glance at Cyrus, who is looking between Justice and his daughter Truth, the only other twins in the family. He leans in and gives them a look that would intimidate any grown man or woman. They don’t budge. Then he turns back and looks at his wife, Tara, and whispers, “We’re fucked.”

  She nods then looks at me. “We’re definitely screwed.”

  We all but plead with them to explain what would make Justice beat up two boys who he once considered friends. None of them will answer, not one word to any of us.

  When Jase suggests we all take the rest of the day to figure it out, the children stand and walk out behind their parents in single file, like ducklings following their momma.

  Behind Jase and Carly is Kiki and Max. Behind Cyrus and Tara is Truth and Justice. Behind Xavier and Taelyn is Patrick. Behind Zandor and Bekah is Tris, Amias, and Brisa. Behind Abe and Nikolette is Fawn and Dromida. Behind Sabato and Melyssa is Torrance and Marcelo. Behind me is no one. I make Toinette and Cesca stand in front of me, as always, the way their father always walked behind me.

  Once in the parking lot, Jase looks behind him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Jase.” Carly looks around, making sure no one heard him outside the family.

  “Carly, it’s not the damn time to worry about my language. Look at these little assholes.”

  “Jase!”

  “No, nope, they look like they’ve been brainwashed to do this shit. We’ll have CPS at our doors, hauling their little asses away,” he snaps at her.

  “Easy, Jase.” Cyrus puts his arm around his wife, who was raised in the foster care system.

  “I think they look like a bad-ass, little Steel army,” Xavier says with a smirk.

  Jase throws his hands up. “Well, that’s not goddamned better!” He then squats down, eyeball to eyeball with Kiki. “Okay, you wanna tell me what’s going on so Daddy can make it all better?”

  She smiles. “Forever Steel, Daddy.”

  Zandor busts up laughing, and Bekah shakes her head.

  “Y’all did this to them.”

  “Then we did good,” Zandor tells her. “We did damn good.”

  If I had not been raised the way I was, I may have looked at our line of all black SUVs following each other out of the parking lot and down the street to Jase’s house and thought it was a motorcade for a diplomatic or religious figurehead, or a funeral procession, which I find amusement in. Being raised the way I was, though, I see thing like this and it screams Mafioso at me.

  I can imagine my girls—my sweet, loved, and innocent girls—think of it as family, and that thought warms my heart.

  Unlike my cousins, who cringe at money and what people think of it, I am not in the least embarrassed to have been born of privilege. What I find embarrassing is the fact that, with all the money and protection that surrounded us, we are still susceptible to the cruelties life brings. More embarrassing is that it creeps in like a fog under even the most secured doors, causing lifelong injuries, changes, and scars. And when found out, it gets swept under the rug, leaving its victim ever changed.

  Having worked through my issues a little and being surrounded by family who share the same blood—my family in Italy was much different—I see wealth in a different light now.

  I try to believe in my grandmother’s good and see the way she treated money over family as misallocation of funds. However, my comfort comes in allocating the necessary funds to ensure those I love are well-protected. I would rather be comfortable than courtier. Like Franco would have.

  I have learned that, with privilege comes responsibility. I never understood that fully until now.

  Sitting in Jase and Carly’s kitchen after Joe made and served lunch to our degenerate children, they all ask to be excused, and we say no, that we would like to discuss this as a family.

  Josephina, though, shuts her children down, telling the kids, “Go run along and play.”

  She and Jase then have a stare-off as the kids look between her and him before scattering like mice.

  When they leave the room, Jase continues to stare at his mother and says, “Momma Joe, you don’t get to—”

  “Shh,” she cuts him off, pulling out a handheld monitor from her apron pocket and setting it in the middle of the table before turning it on. “This would have come in handy when the four of you were younger.”

  Zandor shakes his head. “That’s not right, Momma Joe.”

  “To fuck if it’s not.” Cyrus smiles at his mother. “Good work.”

  We all sit and listen like Cyrus, Jase, Zandor, and Xavier still sometimes sit out on the beach and listen to their beloved Yankees’ baseball games while the children play.

  We hear Kiki first.

  “We are sooooooo screwed.”

  Carly palms her face and shakes her head.

  “Like hell we are. Assholes deserved it,” we hear Justice
tell her.

  Tara gasps, while Cyrus sucks in his top lip, trying not to smile.

  “Why’d you have to punch them in the faces?” Truth then asks her brother.

  “What did you want me to do? Kick them in the balls like you did?” is his retort.

  We hear Patrick laugh then ask, “You did what?”

  “So what? I kicked him in the nuts,” Truth defends herself. “He had it coming.”

  “Then the fucker grabbed Truth, so I had to grab him. If Justice hadn’t popped him in the nose, I would have strung him up by his balls,” Marcelo adds.

  Mel looks down and shakes her head. Sabato chuckles.

  “What even started this shitstorm?” we hear Max ask the question we are all wondering.

  Carly drops her head to the table and groans out, “I give up.”

  I can’t help laughing. Max is one of the youngest, only in first grade.

  “He told me they were crying ’cause he told them their daddy killed someone,” Truth tells them, and now, now I know it’s about my girls. “I told them to shut up. He grabbed his nuts and said suck these, so I kicked him there instead.”

  “Justice better have punched that fucker more than once,” Cyrus hisses.

  “I’m so sorry …” I begin before I am stopped by my daughter’s voice.

  “We know,” Cesca whispers.

  My heart breaks.

  Toinette continues for her, “Mommy doesn’t talk about him, and we always take vacations during father/daughter dances. We aren’t stupid. We know our daddy is a bad man.”

  “How do you know?” we hear Tris ask her.

  “Because Mom does something every year,” Cesca whispers. “Something weird.”

  Aunt Joe giggles, and I look up at her.

  “What?” Dromida asks.

  When there is silence, I have never been more thankful.

  “Hey, we’re cousins, we’re family—all of us,” Kiki’s voice booms through the monitor’s speaker. “We’re forever Steel!”

  “Yeah, you can tell us anything,” Max chimes in.

  “She pees on his grave,” Cesca says.

  I stand up abruptly, and Joe puts her hand on my shoulder.

  “Wait and think, Valentina.”

  “Think about what?” I snap. “I will not have my daughters think Benito is their father. I will not.”

  Jase blocks the doorway, stopping me from leaving.

  “I am warning you; Truth is not the only female in this family who can kick—”

  “Listen to him.” Sabato is beside me now.

  “You need to move,” I begin to panic. The room seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

  “What will you tell them, Valentina?” Abe asks.

  I look back at him. “I will tell them the truth.”

  “We’ll tell them all the truth … together.” Zandor wraps his arm around my shoulders and brings me back to the table.

  Jase sighs as he sits beside me. “We’ll talk about it first; decide what’s best for them together.”

  That night, my girls and the rest of the kids learned about what Benito had done, in kid-friendly terms. It was honestly a great lesson to them in what they have been taught about stranger danger. It isn’t always strangers who mistreat others; it can be a person you thought you could trust, too.

  They learn about grooming and that sick people do such things, not only to children, but adults, as well. My girls also learned what their father had done to make sure Benito never hurt anyone again, and yes, they were all told it was wrong and that he paid the ultimate price in making that choice. Ultimately, they now know what Franco did to protect us all and why he should have considered what it meant to our family as a whole.

  We didn’t tell them they had to keep it a secret. We told them that some things are better kept between us. They weren’t told they had to tell the nuns what had happened, but if they chose not to, they would have to pay the price, too.

  The lesson they learned that day was the biggest of their young lives. What they chose to do the next day was a lesson to us that, even though we sometimes doubt ourselves as parents, and even though they might hear us say one thing and do another, we actually were doing a fine job raising our children.

  For two weeks, they missed recess, were made to empty trash cans and clean them out, help in the cafeteria doing dishes, and attend thirty minutes of afterschool detention.

  We joked that they were actually doing chores that some of us, mainly me and Josephina, never had to do as children, and shockingly, they survived. Not shockingly, they grew a stronger bond amongst themselves, possibly stronger than … steel.

  Capitolo Tre

  Vincent

  I have always secretly loved watching the rich be brought to their knees. Hell, I have enjoyed them being on their knees, looking up at me like I’m some sort of trophy to be won. I was raised with nothing, but I lucked out by getting my mother’s looks, the only thing a whore like her had to offer. I made sure I became strong, stronger than any opponent I may ever come up against. In doing so, I became something.

  I have no respect for rich bitches, only disdain and malicious satisfaction gained from seeing my cum filling their well-fed mouths and dripping down their overly made up faces.

  Having worked for Miss Segretti’s family for years, covering for Franco’s much-needed vacations and time off from his charge, I knew what I was getting into if I agreed to become her full-time protector. The family trusted me because I had been chosen and trained by him.

  I knew her erratic behavior and tenacious ways. I understood she was a nightmare and any normal man would have run the other way.

  Even so, I agreed.

  Eight years ago, I was on edge, watching her look at her children like she was afraid of them. It wasn’t an act. She was afraid of them.

  She watched her family swoop in and take charge. She let them, becoming even more afraid. Then the spoiled, little socialite learned from them.

  Many times, I watched her crumble into a pile on her bedroom floor from exhaustion and frustration when they were finally in bed. I also watched her fight harder than I have ever seen her fight before, for or against anything. In that time, I gained respect for a spoiled rich girl who I never anticipated for a moment I would have.

  Over the past eight years, I watched the lioness become tamed by her cubs. I watched her become a woman who would someday make her children proud. I watched her, and I watched her children become something I never imagined—a family.

  Over the past few days, I watched her more closely, knowing she is about to come face to face with a past as a changed woman. She is going to fight an enemy twice her size, who has won round after round against her. She is going to fight someone whose hunger is stronger than any she had ever come up against. She is going to fight, and she is going to lose, as she has lost this battle before.

  In a sick way, I am interested to see what becomes of her after she has fought so hard to become something more and gets knocked on her ass again. Will she fall into the lifestyle she left behind, becoming nothing more than she was? Will her children suffer, or will her family step in and save her again?

  It doesn’t really matter to me. I will have a job either way.

  This afternoon, Miss Segretti is going to the spa with her cousins’ wives, her aunt, and the little socialite in the making, Isabella Steel. I will be spending the rest of the day fishing off my boat and enjoying an afternoon to myself.

  When the boat is loaded up with beverages and I am awaiting my female companion for the afternoon, my phone rings from an unknown number. Since it could be my companion informing me that her husband is coming home early from a business trip, instead of ignoring the call, I answer.

  “Vincent,” an old, familiar voice comes thorough the phone.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know who this is?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I need a favor.”

  “Okay.”


  “I need a ride. Apparently, a hand was slicked and my plans have changed until tomorrow.”

  No explanation is needed. I owe him one favor at very least.

  “I’ll be there in two hours,” I tell him as I spot the BMW pulling into the spot next to my vehicle, knowing I can still come before sending her off.

  “I need you here in one.”

  Fuck, I groan to myself before telling him, “I’ll be there.”

  Trenton is an hour from Asbury Park. There is no fucking way I’m getting off before all hell breaks loose.

  I shove the phone in my pocket and watch as she hurries toward me.

  Tammy is a beautiful woman. She’s blonde, which works in her favor—I seem to have acquired a taste for them. She is on the shorter side, and although I assume she’s had some work done—most women in the circle I have found myself in have—from what I have seen, she looks natural.

  I crave natural.

  I walk to meet her, knowing I’m going to disappoint her.

  Franco

  Nine years and three months ago, I woke up after what I have since learned was a five-day coma. In St. Francis Hospital, I lay with gunshot wounds to my chest, listening to a voice I had loved, then loathed, then loved again for the majority of my life.

  Valentina Segretti’s small hand held mine as she prayed to all the saints and the Virgin Mother for my life, while I prayed to the same for death.

  When I opened my eyes and looked at her, she sobbed and praised them all while her tears and kisses fell gently upon my face.

  “I knew they’d bring you back to me, my love, my everything, mio amante,” she cried.

  “And I prayed for death. I want you to leave and never look back.”

  Do you know what a hospital staff and law enforcement officers can do to a one hundred and twenty-pound woman when she crosses a line? When she loses all sense? When she attacks a man who has just woken from a coma, though he wishes he hadn’t? Not much more than they can do to a junkie who is full of adrenaline and drugs, making them fearless and unafraid.