The call came in just as I was countersigning a ten-million-dollar patent license under a Department of Defense classification stamp. My mother didn't bother with a greeting. "Isabella's marrying into the Marchettis this weekend. You need to be there." She hung up. The Marchettis. One of the Five Mafia Families. For a Vitale girl,to marry a Marchetti was what my mother had been praying for for twenty years. I set my pen down. I opened the group chat I'd had on mute since Christmas. My brother Elliot said: "Every Don on the Eastern Seaboard is going to be at that wedding. Wear something decent. Don't embarrass Isabella. " Ethan Colombo, who'd grown up two houses down from ours, jumped in right after. "Ten years out of high school. If you'd worked half as hard as Isabella and gotten into an Ivy, you'd have your foot in the Marchettis' door by now instead of pulling espresso shots in some Queens hole in the wall." I scrolled down. Then I stopped on a message from Melanie Ricci, the girl who used to be my best friend. "Hazel, Isabella's going to be a Marchetti in five days. If New York isn't working out, come home. Ask Isabella to put in a word. The Marchettis can place you somewhere respectable. Hostess at the club. Something. Anything is better than what you're doing to your family's name." I looked down. The Marchettis. Over the last three months, Don Salvatore Marchetti himself had reached out to me three times, requesting a thirty-minute meeting. I couldn't be bothered to read any more of it. I typed back, "OK. I'll be there." Isabella sent a Venmo request within seconds. $0.01 The memo read: "For your flight home ❤️ Can't wait to see you, Hazel!!" Elliot's voice message came in immediately after. "With everything Isabella's spending on this wedding, how do you have the nerve to actually accept that? Send it back." Ethan: "Just because Isabella pulls two hundred grand a year at McKinsey doesn't make her your personal ATM. Have some pride. You're a Vitale." I was about to type a response. Melanie dropped in with a sighing emoji. "Come on, you guys. Can we stop coming at Hazel every chance we get?" "Out of all of us, she's the one who tried the hardest and ended up bringing the most shame on the Family. Now, she's finally coming home. Let her come home." I looked down again. At eighteen, yes. I really had been hiding. Senior year of high school, Isabella had transferred back from her Catholic prep school in Los Angeles and slid effortlessly into my little circle of three. Me, Ethan, Melanie. My mother had sent Isabella there for etiquette lessons, French, and everything she'd need to one day carry the Vitale name into a Five Families ballroom. Getting into an Ivy was part of the plan, too. The Vitale Family needed someone with a flawless public record—someone the Five Families would accept as its public face. Just like at home, I quickly became the invisible one. We'd be walking down the hallway, and out of nowhere all three of them would stop at the same time. Ethan would tip his chin up slightly. Melanie would follow his eyes. Isabella would look down and smile. I'd just be standing there. At first, I'd ask what they were laughing about. A few times. They always said it was nothing. Eventually, I stopped trying to force my way into a circle that didn't want me. I started avoiding them instead. Then MIT's early admission letter came, and every waking hour of mine went into the lab. I didn't have time to avoid anyone anymore. A DM from Isabella pulled me back. "Hazel, don't take the Venmo thing personally." Her tone was all soft edges. "I know rent in New York is brutal and things are tight for you. I just wanted to help cover your flight. That's all I meant by it." A teary-eyed emoji followed. Right on cue, the group chat filled up with people praising how thoughtful she was. I screenshotted the Venmo request and sent her $0.01 back. The chat went quiet for a few seconds. Elliot was the first to snap. "Hazel, what the hell? You think it's not enough?" "You didn't even finish college. Isabella's still willing to seat you in the main ballroom instead of at the overflow tables. And you have the nerve to nickel-and-dime her over a Venmo?" Ethan: "A penny's still a gesture." Melanie: "And you actually screenshotted it and sent it back. Do you have any idea what a position you're putting Isabella?" I leaned back in my chair and took a sip of coffee. At eighteen, that kind of one-sided defense would've kept me up all night. At twenty-eight, I didn't feel a thing. Isabella sent a voice memo. Careful, apologetic. "Hazel, I got so excited when I heard you were coming home, my hand slipped. Please don't be upset, okay?" "I really do worry about you out there in New York on your own. I already talked to Matteo about finding you a place with the Family. Maybe hostess at the Newport club. Or the front desk at the restaurant on Bellevue. Given that you never finished college, we can't exactly put you in a high-profile position. Don't take it the wrong way." Elliot scoffed. "What right does she have to take it the wrong way? She's the one who dropped the ball. Every time someone in the Family asks about her, I'm too embarrassed to answer." Ten years ago, on the day college decisions came in the mail. Isabella got into Yale. I got one rejection letter and a waitlist notice from the local community college. My parents booked a two-week trip through the Amalfi Coast with Isabella and Elliot. They handed me $50. Said it was two weeks of living money. They didn't even pretend to feel bad about it. "You couldn't even get into a community college. You embarrassed the Vitale family. You don't deserve to come on this trip with us." I wanted to tell them that a family shouldn't rank its children by how useful they are. But i didn't say it. The coffee mug had hit my forehead the year before. I still had the small scar above my eyebrow. That was answer enough. I never told them about the USAMO gold medal. I never told them about the MIT letter, or the full Presidential Scholarship that came with it. None of it. Let Isabella be the one they marry into the Five Families to serve as the family's public face. A knock at the door. Emma, my assistant, stood in the doorway, her voice careful and respectful. "Dr. Vitale. Dr. Langley called personally this time. Don Salvatore Marchetti is asking for thirty minutes. Any location. Any time this month." The clean side of the Marchetti operation had already sunk half a billion dollars into a defense subcontracting venture, routed through a Delaware shell. The Pentagon contract they were desperate to win required a highly specialized neural signal decoding architecture capable of defeating the FBI's voice-recognition system. They had been stalled for two years on the algorithm. I happened to hold the patent. Emma hesitated. "Do you want me to decline again?" I laughed softly. "No. Tell Don Salvatore Marchetti I'll be in Newport this weekend."
Friday. I flew into Providence, and a black car service picked me up at the terminal and drove me down to Newport. No one from the Family came to meet me. The car dropped me off at my parents' house on Bellevue. Melanie opened the door. She did a small double take, something flickering behind her eyes. "Hazel… I almost didn't recognize you.That coat doesn't exactly say 2000 a month behind a coffee counter." I didn't respond. I walked past her into the house. Isabella's eyes tracked to the watch on my wrist, then swept over my coat. She pressed her lips together. "Hazel, come on. We're Family. You don't need to put on a show like this. How many credit cards did you max out?" Elliot glanced at me. "Ten years away, and you haven't picked up a single useful skill. Just the attitude." Ethan chimed in, laughing. "Impressive, Hazel. You used to be so plain in high school. At least you've learned how to dress the part." I looked at them. Ten years, and none of them had really changed. Elliot had put on weight. Melanie had lines at the corners of her eyes. Ethan's hairline had retreated visibly. Isabella was the exception. Porcelain-smooth, immaculate, styled to within an inch of her life. A Cartier watch on one wrist, a Marchetti engagement stone catching the light on her finger. But one thing was the same across all four faces. That same faint, casual contempt when they looked at me. I raised an eyebrow. "From the day I graduated until now, I have never once mentioned my income to any of you. I have never sent any of you a private message complaining about money. So where exactly are you getting your numbers from?" Nobody had an answer. My mother came out of the sitting room, wine in hand. The housekeeper followed behind her, carrying a tray toward the dining room. She glanced at me. "No college degree. Not even a place at the Family's table as a consigliere or a bookkeeper. Whatever she's doing out there in New York, God only knows. Ten years, and not one thing to show for the Vitale name." My father clapped me on the shoulder. "Alright, alright. We're blood. Nobody here's going to judge you. Let's just eat." Eight dishes, brought out one by one by the housekeeper and set carefully on the table. Ethan and Melanie both cooed over them. "Mrs. Vitale, you remembered I love the osso buco." "You had them make the branzino again. Mrs. Vitale, that was my favorite last time." I glanced across the table. Every person at the table had their favorite in front of them. Even the Cane Corso curled up by the fireplace had a small bowl of veal. Every person except me. At the table, my mother personally cut Isabella's steak and placed it on her plate. "We've been investing in property along the Newport coast these past few years. Elliot and Isabella both graduated from top schools and have contributed to this Family. They've each earned a house." She looked up at me. "As for you, Hazel... someone who's done nothing but bring shame to the Vitale name doesn't deserve a thing." I set down my fork and let out a small laugh. "So that's how the Vitales divides its property. Not by blood, but by who's been the most useful to the Family." The table went dead silent. My mother's face flushed red. Her palm came down on the table hard enough to rattle the glasses. "Hazel! Ten years, not so much as a phone call, and you walk into this house and throw that in my face?!" "If I'd known you'd turn out this ungrateful, I should have left you on the church steps in a basket the night you were born!" Exactly like ten years ago. The day my mother saw my SAT score report. The mug flew straight at my forehead, hit hard enough to split the skin above my eyebrow. Blood ran down the side of my face and dripped onto the hardwood. She'd worn the same expression. "The one thing I regret in this life is not leaving you at the church that night. Would've spared this Family the embarrassment." Ten years was long enough to give up on whatever thin sliver of a mother's love I'd once hoped for. Right now, I didn't feel a thing. My father tried to smooth things over. "You know how your mother is. She says things she doesn't mean. Don't take it personally." He forced a laugh and changed the subject. "Isabella,tomorrow we will bring that construction contract which Providence holds to the wedding. As a gift from the Vitales to the Marchetti operation. Don Salvatore Marchetti will remember it." Isabella's smile went tight at the corners. "Dad… Don Salvatore Marchetti might not be at the wedding."
My father froze. "What do you mean, he's not coming? It's Matteo's wedding. Don Salvatore Marchetti doesn't show up for his own grandson?" Isabella sighed. "Matteo said Don Salvatore Marchetti has a guest flying in this weekend. Someone he has to sit with personally. He can't get away." Elliot frowned. "Who? Who's more important than his own grandson at the altar?" "I don't know exactly," Isabella said, shaking her head. "Matteo just said someone from up the coast. Apparently Don Salvatore Marchetti has been working every angle he has for three months just to get this meeting on the calendar." Melanie looked genuinely baffled. "Who makes a Marchetti wait three months?" Ethan scoffed. "You sure? Nothing tops Isabella's wedding to a Marchetti. Nothing." Isabella waved them off quickly. "Don't say that. Matteo told me this person is sitting on something the Family has needed for two years. Don Salvatore Marchetti said if the deal closes, the Marchettis don't have to worry about the Feds for a decade." She paused. Then, with studied casualness, she glanced at me. "Hazel, you've been out there a while. You hear anything about who this might be?" I shook my head. "Not really." Elliot let out a short, derisive laugh. "She never finished college. She's not even useful enough to keep the Vitale honor. What would she have heard? Isabella, stop dragging her into every conversation. She can't keep up." I kept eating and said nothing. What was I supposed to say? That the person Don Salvatore Marchetti had been chasing for three months was me? They'd laugh in my face and hit me with a "Come on, don't flatter yourself." After dinner, I sat around for a while and was about to get up when my father stopped me. "Hazel, your mom had the housekeeper air out your old room a few days ago. You haven't been home in ten years. She won't say it, but she's missed you." He added, with a small smile, "New sheets. New pillowcases. Your mother picked them out herself." Right on cue, my mother came out of the sitting room, her voice flat. "Melanie's taking the guest room tonight. Hazel, you can take the couch." My father's smile stiffened on his face. Melanie looked up from the couch, glanced at me, and the corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Mrs. Vitale, please, I couldn't. I can just book somewhere in town." My mother's tone left no room for discussion. "You barely come around anymore. I'm not letting a Ricci girl stay at some stranger's inn. Hazel is Family. She can take the couch." I stood next to the dining table and said nothing. The summer after I finished the SAT, Melanie stayed over. I gave her my room and curled up on the living room couch all night. The AC broke that night. In August. I woke up sweating three times. By morning my shirt was soaked through and my neck was cramped from the couch arm. When my mother saw me the next morning, all she said was, "You should've grabbed a blanket from the closet and slept on the guest room floor. Guest room has the window unit." Melanie stayed over a few more times after that. Once, I stood in the doorway of my own room and watched my mother stand at the foot of the guest bed, instructing the housekeeper as she smoothed fresh sheets. A soft, contented smile on my mother's face the whole time. I stood there thinking I looked like a guest who'd wandered into the wrong house. "Hazel?" My mother's voice pulled me back. She was frowning, apparently annoyed that I hadn't immediately agreed. I stood up. "That's alright. I already booked a hotel." Her face darkened. "So you'd rather sleep in a hotel than under your father's roof? What is a Vitale girl doing checking into a hotel in her own town?" I picked up my coat and started toward the door. "I sleep better in a bed." Behind me, I heard my mother mutter to my father, "Ten years away, and her attitude's out of control. Every single thing has to be a fight." The door closed behind me. Ten years ago, the girl who spent that August night on the couch would have cried into her pillow, unable to understand why her mother was kinder to a Ricci girl than to her own daughter. The Hazel of ten years later doesn't cry over that. The deposits kept coming in. Patent licensing fees. Equity distributions. Federal contract royalties. Each one trailed by so many zeros I'd stopped counting. She'd stopped needing anyone else to be good to her. She was good to herself. Generously.
Watch? https://cps-front.novelix.live/app-api/ext/new/20260728GMOhdVycr5 ? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "Novelix" app ? search for "ni999845", and watch the full series ✨! #Novelix