Cruel Prince
1
In the Beginning
Another Sunday evening, another family dinner.
Over the course of the last twenty-nine years of my life, the faces around the dinner table changed, but the large oak monstrosity my late mother had sourced herself from the Canadian forests remained the same. Sure, the table had suffered a few scuffs here and there, but it still looked the same as my earliest memories could recall.
Everyone else was irreparably altered. My father, though always stern, used to have a lightness in him. It happened rarely, but he used to offer up a smile here and there, or chuckle at one of my younger brother’s ill-timed jokes. Now, he remained still and stoic at the head of the table. None of us could pinpoint what had triggered the change in our father, the head of the Varasso drug empire. Perhaps it was the cold, cruel world of the family business that hardened him over time, or maybe it was the death of Valentina Varasso, our beautiful mother. Or, possibly, he was destined to become like this all along. Regardless of the reason, Angelo Varasso’s presence at the dinner table had become chillier and grayer over time; it was almost as if he was turning to stone.
My younger brothers, Marco and Alessandro, changed the least over the years. Marco was still quiet, obedient, and willing to please. Alessandro was still the jokester, always the one to bring humor into the least appropriate situations. Both of them were still bumbling fools, if you asked me, but I loved them. They took on their respective roles in the family business with diligence and pride; I knew that when the day came for me to inherit everything, they’d be loyal partners by my side, just as brothers should be.
And me? When I think of how I’ve changed since the first Sunday evening we sat down at this table for dinner, I can only picture a growing hardness. Maybe I’m like my father in that way, but I’m also more optimistic than he is. Although the nature of our work was rarely lighthearted, I sought to always seek out the rays of sun peaking through the shadows. My father said I lived up to my name well in that regard. Luca. Light.
Of course, as the past three decades passed by, there were countless additions and subtractions to the table. It was incredibly large, after all, and could accommodate many.
The first person to go missing from the table permanently was our mother. Valentina died when I was only fifteen. Marco was thirteen and Alessandro was seven. The space opposite my father at the other head of the table had remained vacant since then, except for three consecutive Sundays that had occurred about ten years ago.
Because, as it turned out, my father was not the incurable romantic that everyone thought him to be, endlessly faithful to the beautiful Valentina Varasso. About a year after my mother’s death, Angelo revealed to us that, soon after the birth of his second son, he began a love affair with another woman. Her name and her origin were irrelevant, though I did feel sorry for the unfortunate situation her heart had led her to. Being Angelo Varasso’s mistress surely could have never ended well.
The love affair had produced my half-brother Gabriel. It was he and his mother, my father’s mistress, who had attended dinner all those years ago after my mother’s death. Gabriel was only twelve years old at the time, born right in between Marco and Alessandro. His m
other had sat down in Valentina’s chair, at the insistence of Angelo Varasso himself.
I hadn’t liked that very much. At sixteen, I wasn’t interested in entertaining the idea of anyone replacing my mother in any shape or form. It was the first of many times that I lost my temper, losing my sense of self awareness along with. I didn’t remember much from that third Sunday evening all those years ago, except that the sight of Gabriel’s mother, who looked nothing like my mother, and yet sat in her place and behaved as if she was the new Varasso family matriarch, turned my stomach.
I’d thrown the priceless porcelain dinnerware against the walls, smashed the crystal wine glasses, and I would have overturned the entire table if the stupid thing hadn’t been so huge and heavy.
My father’s mistress never showed her face at a Sunday evening dinner ever again. A few months later, she was reported missing. I didn’t look into it.
Gabriel stayed, though. He became a permanent fixture of those dinners, a fourth son for Angelo to prove his masculine power to the rest of the world. And, even though the three of us brothers hated our father’s mistress, we grew to love Gabriel as our own. If anyone ever asked, he was a pure Varasso.
Other faces came and went. Back when grandfather was still alive, he frequented the oak table. Various aunties and uncles and cousins showed up intermittently over the years. As us boys grew older, girlfriends who had been deemed trustworthy enough also appeared, disappeared, and sometimes reappeared. Marco and Alessandro were notorious playboys, though, and the girls they brought to dinner were usually short-lived affairs. Gabriel had yet to bring any girl with him to dinner, but he was serious about relationships, just like me. He didn’t date for fun. He dated to find a loyal life partner.
I’d been lucky enough to find mine, and I was keeping my fingers crossed for Gabriel to find his sweetheart soon.
Tonight, it was a small, typical Sunday dinner. Angelo sat at the head, sipping his whiskey and not touching a bite of his food. Marco and Alessandro bickered over something mundane on our father’s left, with Gabriel minding his business at the end of the table.
I sat at my father’s right. It was an honorable place to sit, especially in a family like ours. Leadership in the Varasso clan was patrilineal. My father, Angelo, had been his father’s oldest son when the business was first growing roots in the rougher neighborhoods of Philadelphia. He’d been trained to take over the emerging empire upon his death, just like a Prince would lead a country after the death of the King. Now, Angelo was King and I was the Prince. When my father died, as all parents eventually did, the vast underworld of influence, power, and money that he had helped to nurture would be my responsibility.
I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
Next to me at the dinner table sat Alana Rhodes. Beautiful, charming, witty Alana Rhodes. She was a nurse at the walk-in clinic I’d had no choice but to stumble into one night after a particularly nasty “business meeting.” I saw her long red hair, big blue eyes, and angelic smile and was an absolute goner. I’d been too much of a pansy that night to ask for her number and spent weeks hating myself for it. I even contemplated giving myself another injury so I would have an excuse to go back to the clinic and see her.
In the end, Gabriel got sick and tired of my moaning and marched right into the clinic, demanding to speak with the red-headed nurse named Alana.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about how handsome you were,” she’d told me on our first date. “And I kept wishing you’d come back to the clinic! Not that I wished you’d get injured again, of course, but just so that I could… see you.”
It had taken me mere seconds for me to fall in love with her.
And now, three years later, not only was she sitting beside me at the Varasso family table, but she was also nine months pregnant with our first child. Rosy-cheeked and glowing, Alana wore the pregnancy well. She was like mother earth incarnate, heart-achingly beautiful and graceful as she brought new life into the world.
The pregnancy was a point of controversy in our family. Times had changed since Angelo and Valentina married at just twenty years old, and the Varasso family had grown to be a little looser with their traditional Italian morals. However, even now, a pregnancy outside of a marriage was cause for shocked whispers in the corners of family gatherings. Being the untouchable heir to the Varasso family fortune certainly helped to quell a lot of the gossip.
Yet, despite that, the fact that Alana was carrying my child and was still not my wife seemed to be destined to become the hot topic of conversation that Sunday. Fate had a way of frowning on our dinners, and our family in general, like that. Our moods and our luck twisted unexpectedly; a moment of calm could become a heated family argument in seconds.
My father was the one who started it.
“Has my son given you the ring yet?” grumbled Angelo, setting down his whiskey glass on the oak table with a muted thud.
Alana bit her lip and glanced at me nervously. Three years, and she wasn’t quite sure how to communicate with the head of the Varasso family. No one did, really.
The ring my father was referring to was the engagement ring he’d given to Valentina when he proposed thirty years ago. It was a massive emerald set in a crown of tiny white diamonds, and the band was a perfect, shining white gold. For years, it had sat in the large locked vault my father had hidden in the back of the closet in his home office. Only just last year had he dug it out from under neat stacks of cash, various family documents, and who-knows-what-else so that I could give it to Alana as an engagement ring. We’d barely been together for two years at the time, but marriage happened fast in the Varasso family. It was clear to my father that Alana was the only one for me, and I suppose he figured I might as well tie the knot sooner rather than later.
But, I didn’t think like that. Coming from a home with a dead mother and an exiled mistress made me mistrust the sanctity of marriage a little bit. Not to mention, I had countless uncles and male cousins who’d had torrid affairs of their own. So, sure, marriage came quick for the Varassos, but the love tended to die soon afterwards.
And, even though I knew I loved Alana with every cell in my body, and that I would never stop loving her as long as I lived, I didn’t want to risk it. Not with the family curse and all that. Not with the Varassos being inexplicably prone to tragedy.
“We’re going to wait a few years,” I said for the thousandth time. The truth was, neither Alana nor I had any concrete plans for marriage in the next handful of years or beyond that. All we knew was that we wanted to be together.
Alessandro snorted quietly. “That’s what you said a few years ago,” he countered. His tone of voice was playful, but the sentiment still made me prickle. I shot him a glare and he instantly broke his gaze, lowering his eyes to his plate. Next to father, I was the alpha, and I had to be respected.
My father humphed softly, mostly to himself. “Son, marriage is the right thing to do. Look at that beautiful girl next to you, about to give birth to your child. Why wouldn’t you want to marry her?”
I was used to this conversation. We had it nearly every week. Still, I was growing tired of explaining myself time and time again. Alana remained quiet beside me, one hand resting gently on the round bump of her stomach. I offered her a small smile and placed my hand over hers. Ever so softly, our child kicked against our hands as if to say hello, I’ll be here soon. Then everything will be okay.
I clear my throat and locked eyes with my father sternly. It was a daring move, but challenging him respectfully was expected of the heir. It meant that I would be ready to take over his role when the time came.
“Alana is about to get a promotion at work. Once she gets back from maternity leave, they’ll want her to step in, and her hours will increase,” I explained. “And we really want to get settled in our own place before we start thinking about planning a wedding. For us, it just makes sense to wait.”
Angelo pursed his lips. “You don’t need your own place. Like I’ve said
, take the carriage house in the West gardens. Just private enough for newlyweds and just big enough to raise a baby.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes at the insistent mention of newlyweds. My father was stubborn as a bull; that was where I’d gotten my own hardheadedness from.
The carriage house he was referring to was an old converted cottage on the vast Varasso estate. Traditionally, it would have housed servants, but our maids and butlers and chefs lived in their own homes in other parts of the city. For Alana and I, it would have admittedly made a charming starter home, but neither one of us wanted to be that close to the heart of the Varasso empire with a newborn baby. Even though I was destined to become the patriarch one day, I wanted at least some small semblance of freedom before then.
“Father, I told you that Alana and I found a lovely apartment downtown for ourselves,” I replied.