Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
To think, I was once considered a daddy’s girl. These days, I didn’t speak to him at all. He saw it as a sign of rebellion. I saw it as an act of defiance. There was a slight difference.
Nevertheless, I ran out of time and had to devise a plan today. I’d met Adriano several times over the years, and even though he’d been nice, I felt no attraction to him. I said as much to my mother, but of course, she told me I was being ridiculous. “Attraction has very little to do with this arrangement, Lenora,” she’d said. Of course, it was easy for her to say such things. Her marriage to my father wasn’t arranged, per se, but it might as well have been. She caught my father’s attention during a visit to the Dominican Republic, and my grandfather, being the businessman he was, insisted that it was a great match. After all, not many men had enough money to marry her, an heiress to a billion-dollar empire.
Even though we were extremely well off, Dad was nowhere near a billionaire. Knowing my mother would be one someday was the icing for him. So, yeah, I should be used to the idea that I would one day be sold off like cattle in the 1800s, but I wasn’t. I've read too much, watched too many programs, and dreamt of a life free of all this. I took off my boots and walked into my parents’ Connecticut home. Instead of going to the kitchen or to my room to pack for my trip to New York, I quietly walked toward my father’s office. I needed something, anything, that I could use to delay this. The fact that I was resorting to blackmail proved that I was a De Luca. My last name had never bothered me. Most of the boys stayed away from me in school because of the stories they’d heard about my older brother, Dominic. They stayed away from me in Italy because of what they’d heard about my father. It annoyed me, but I knew nothing I could do about it, so I adjusted. I always focused on boys who didn’t go to school with me. Once in college, where no one knew who I was, I was free to see whomever I wanted, even if it was in secret.
After an exhaustive search of the office, I seated myself in the chair behind the desk with a defeated sigh. I needed something more useful for me here. I scanned the room, and my eyes came to rest on the monitor. I clicked on the keyboard to power it up, but I couldn’t access it without a password. I tried several times to no avail. As I let out an exasperated groan, I sunk further into the chair, giving into its embrace. I looked up and found myself staring directly at the security camera in the corner of the room.
I wanted him to know I'd been here without confronting him. I didn’t have the courage for that. I lowered myself to the floor and scoured his desk for something that could give me an advantage. After a few minutes of searching, a small black box caught my eye. When I opened it, a tiny gold key fell out. Relief washed over me as I picked up the key, tried it in the lock, and finally pulled the drawer open.
I don’t know what I expected to find inside, but there was a black notebook and a USB drive. I pulled out the notebook and skimmed through it. It was a ledger, like Dad’s accountant Andrea always carried. On every page, names and dollar amounts were written on each line. The top of each page was dated. I went back to the beginning of the book. The logs started in 1980. The last page was dated just one month ago. Was this money he’d loaned people? What was on the USB drive? I picked it up and shut the drawer, locking it and setting the key back where I’d found it. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, and I knew I couldn’t show it to my brothers. They weren’t supportive of my impending nuptials, but they wouldn’t do anything to go against my father. I’d figure it out alone like I always did.
2
LENORA
I had to play it cool. Calm, cool, and collected. That was me. Totally. Champagne flute in hand and a smile plastered on my face, I walked around the ballroom my father had reserved for the night. I listened while people spoke to me, thanked them as they congratulated me on my engagement, and even made small talk with Adriano, who didn’t seem perturbed by any of this. He stood next to me, speaking to anyone who spoke Italian while I half-listened and laughed at the appropriate times (when Adriano did). The only person I spoke the language to, these days, was my father. I sometimes spoke Spanish with my mother and English with everyone else. Immersing myself in these Italian-only conversations with Adriano was a good reminder that even though he spoke five languages, Italian would be the one we spoke at home. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.