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rainbowfic2013-12-17 01:50 am
bookblather) wrote in rainbowfic2013-12-17 01:50 am
Patriarch Purple Saturation with Admin Yellow 14: Rosemary and Rue
Author: Kat
Title: Rosemary and Rue
Story: In the Heart -- Mafia AU
Colors: Patriarch purple saturation with admin yellow 14 (I don't particularly like killing people, but I'm very good at it.)
Supplies and Materials: Eraser (Mafia AU), brush (pinnacle), stain (Fall not in love, therefore; it will stick to your face. - National Lampoon), glitter ("All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. And that’s the tragedy of living." – Iain S. Thomas), portrait, sculpture (pretty much all of the preceding Mafia AU pieces), novelty beads ("Don't Fall In Love", Beauty and the Beast; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PF4X45hI-c)
Word Count: 5003
Rating: R
Summary: You can't always get what you want.
Warnings: looooots of death, lots of violence, death of a child, swearing, sexism, homophobia
Notes: Blame Kelly. Forever.
6. five families
Gina Caravecchio was five years old when she first understood that Daddy was a criminal.
Before that, she just thought that was the way life worked. She lived in a big house in the city and Daddy drove her around in nice cars, and every other week he would come home with a new toy for her or a piece of jewelry for Mommy. Sometimes big, scarred men in nice suits would come to the house, shake Daddy's hand, pat Gina on the head and tell her "how pretty you're getting, your pop must be so proud." Mommy would make them dinner, and then she and Gina would go upstairs and play. Daddy usually left with the men, and didn't come home until after she was asleep.
When Gina turned five, all the big, scarred men came to her birthday party. They brought her really nice presents, pretty dresses and hair bows and even real jewelry like Mommy had. Daddy laughed, and ruffled Gina's hair when she thanked the big men prettily, and Mommy stood in the corner and frowned.
Daddy left with the men after the party. Mommy slept in Gina's room that night.
Daddy came home bloody and dazed, shook Mommy awake and woke Gina up too, and swayed over them. "I love you," he said, and he sounded like... he sounded wrong. Gina huddled back against Mommy, scared.
"What do you think you're doing?" Mommy hissed, clutching Gina against her chest. "You're scaring her!"
Gina was scared, but Mommy sounded really scared too, and that, more than anything else, was making her shake. But she didn't say anything, she didn't dare, and Daddy just swayed above them, bleeding.
Mommy took Daddy away, and left Gina sitting there in the dark, clutching her blanket against her chest.
Next morning Mommy cut bread for toast and told Gina to act like nothing ever happened. Gina nodded, and ate her breakfast, and understood.
3. structure
After that, well, what was there to do?
She grew up. She went to school. She learned the names of the big, scarred men, Italian syllables rolling off the tongue—Gallo, Costa, Bugiardini. They still patted her head, but now they told her "how smart you're getting, how quick, how clever, your pop must be so proud." It was because of Daddy, of course.
He wasn't the boss. When Gina was little she'd thought he was, because of course she did, Daddy was the center of her world and so it was only natural he was the center of everyone else's. But he wasn't the boss then. Still, he was on the way up, working his way through the ranks, or at least that was what Dante Costa told her—Daddy wouldn't talk to her about it. Girls didn't have any place in the business.
"It's why everyone's so nice to you," Dante said, as they sat on the wall outside their school, swinging their legs, holding unlit cigarettes. "Your pop's going to be the boss pretty soon, so they want to get in good with him."
Gina rolled her eyes. "Sure, and that's why you're nice to me."
"No," Dante said, seriously. "I'm nice 'cause Pop told me to."
She dropped her hand to the wall and looked at him, startled. She knew Dante's father; he was one of the big, scarred men who worked with Daddy. "Your dad told you to be nice to me?"
"Yeah," he said. "Pop said we're going to get married someday so I can be the boss, so I should get to know you before your pop makes it. I'm glad I did. You're nice."
"I'm not going to marry you," Gina said, and slid off the wall. Dante called after her but she ran home, backpack bouncing all the way.
She didn't talk to Dante again, and Daddy was the boss by the end of the year.
12. New York
Daddy told her to go to college in New York City. "Any college," he said, "you pick one and I'll get you in, pay for it all, but you have to go in the city."
She'd hoped to get away from the city, from her family and Daddy's business and Dante, who worked for Daddy now and still made a pass at her whenever he saw her. Not that it really mattered—he wouldn't dare go beyond stupid pickup lines, not with the boss's daughter. The business didn't have to affect her, though, not if she didn't let it. There were good colleges in the City, and she wouldn't have to live at home. Westchester was too far away for commuting, even if she took a car.
Gina told Daddy that, and he nodded. "Of course, baby. I'll get you an apartment."
"No," Gina said, and took a deep breath. "I want to live in the dorms."
Daddy's eyebrows hit his hairline, but he didn't explode. "Why in God's name would you want to do that?"
So many reasons. To meet people who weren't in the business or related to people who were, for one. She'd never lived anywhere that people didn't know the name 'Caravecchio.' She'd never lived without that automatic recognition and the automatic fear or greed that followed. It would be nice to have someone treat her as a person, rather than a mob princess.
Anyway, what did it matter if she didn't live at home, if people here forgot who she was? She couldn't be Daddy's heir. Women weren't bosses. Women married the bosses, and Gina had no intention of doing that.
Of course Daddy wouldn't like any of that answer, so she gave him another, equally true. "It's part of the college experience, isn't it? I want all of it."
Daddy chuckled, indulgent, and kissed her forehead. "Whatever you want, baby. Whatever you want."
11. friend
Her life changed for good in senior year. Shakespeare's Tragedy—it was a 200-level course, but they hadn't offered it since her freshman year and she was desperate to take it, so she signed up even though all her other courses were 300 and up. For the first few weeks it seemed like any other class, if slightly easier. And then.
The third week of class their teacher returned the second weekly paper—short reaction pieces on the week's reading, nothing too strenuous. Gina aced the first two without even blinking.
The girl who sat behind her, on the other hand—"All right! C+!"
Gina blinked, and turned around. "You're proud of that?" she asked, incredulously.
The girl, redheaded and young, wrinkled her nose at Gina. "I flunked the first one, so yeah, actually, I am. What's it to you?"
Gina flushed, suddenly embarrassed, and... a little aroused? "I'm sorry," she said, off-balance, confused. "That was rude."
"You think?" But the girl looked more curious than mad. "Why, what'd you get?"
"It doesn't matter," Gina said, and turned back to her paper. "I'm sorry."
The girl caught up to her outside class, hauling her books in a messenger bag. She was tiny, wearing baggy clothes, her red hair pulled back in a slipshod ponytail, makeupless. She was the opposite of everything Gina had been taught to be.
She was gorgeous. Gina swallowed.
"It's cool," she was was saying, about the paper probably, but Gina was distracted by her eyes, deep and blue and endless. "Hey, I heard you get straight A's, can you maybe help me with mine? It's not that I suck exactly but... well, okay, I suck, I'm a scientist, not an English major. I was supposed to take math, but all the classes I need were full."
"You got Macbeth instead," Gina said. "At least it's alliterative?"
She winced, but the girl laughed, sudden and delighted. "It kinda rhymes, too. Guess that'll have to be good enough. So how about it? Would you mind giving me some pointers? I'll buy the coffee."
"I'd love to." Gina's mouth said that without her brain's input, but she couldn't bring herself to regret it.
It was almost a month before she realized that had been their first date.
5. omertà
There had been other girls, before. India, dark-haired and sultry; they'd used each other shamelessly and thrown each other aside. Alex, sarcastic and clever; she'd been almost unbearably sweet. Lily, too, Madonna-like with soft brown skin, but Gina had left her pretty quickly. She couldn't stay. She tried to avoid the girls who'd want that.
Daddy would be livid if he knew. She didn't want to risk one of those girls in that. Why she thought Ivy would be different...
But she did.
The attraction was immediate, electric, Ivy's smile and the subtle curves of her breasts, the hollow of her throat, those endless, gorgeous eyes. They'd brush together and Gina's skin would start to prickle and tighten, arousal fizzing pleasantly at the back of her neck. But it was more than that too—it was the way Ivy looked when she was concentrating, biting her lip, and how gentle her hands could be, rubbing Gina's shoulders or brushing her hair. It was the way they touched, casually, perfect.
It was just... it felt dishonest, that Ivy didn't know about her family. If they were going to have any kind of a future together—and oh, how Gina wanted them to have a future together—Ivy would have to know about that, and sooner rather than later. And Gina, coward that she was, did not want to tell her.
She could just picture how it would go. The horror on Ivy's face, turning to disgust and then rage. And even if somehow, miraculously, she was fine with Gina's family being the mob, how in God's name could she possibly be all right with being a constant secret? Gina would never dare tell Daddy about Ivy—he would kill her. How could Ivy reconcile herself to that?
But Ivy had to know. She had to. It was inexcusable that she did not know.
Tomorrow, Gina kept telling herself, as she stroked Ivy's hair, kissed along her browline. I'll tell her tomorrow. One more day.
Tomorrow.
10. associate
Gina went home for spring break, reluctantly. She had wanted to stay, to spend the week in Central Park with Ivy, having picnics and lying lazily in the sun, but if she was going to stay in the city after she graduated she had to lay the groundwork now. It seemed to be going well, too. She brought it up casually while cooking with her mother, while playing cards with Daddy—"I was looking at apartments the other day," and "this publishing company is looking for people, what do you think?" Neither one batted an eye. Her mother even seemed pleased.
Then Daddy came home and said, "Regina," in an icy voice, and everything changed.
She'd been sitting on the couch, doing reading for one of her classes, and she dropped the book on the floor, bolted to her feet. "Daddy? What is it?"
Her father stripped his gloves off and dropped them on the side table. "Dante went down to see you last week."
Ugh, of course he had. Gina managed not to roll her eyes. "Really."
"He was telling me," her father continued, steadily, "about this girl." He pulled a picture from his pocket and held it out.
Gina's insides went cold.
Ivy was looking up at her, smiling, her hair wisping around her face, her nose dotted with new freckles. Gina's own face was obscured, but she was gesturing, leaning in, one hand cupped casually around Ivy's elbow. It could have been any one of a thousand conversations, a thousand last exchanges before they separated for class.
Gina usually kissed Ivy after one of those moments, on the nose or cheek or forehead. Never the mouth, not in public; thank God she'd kept that small rule.
"What, Ivy?" she asked, as casually as she could. "What about her?"
Her father's voice lost a little of its ice. "You admit you know her."
"Of course I do." Gina laughed. It didn't come out as airy as she'd hoped. "I used to tutor her in English. She's really very funny."
Her father snapped the photo back and put it in his pocket. "I hope," he said, in very stiff tones, "that you aren't up to anything... unnatural."
"I don't know what you mean." She knew exactly what he meant. Ivy's mouth curving under hers, the silk-soft skin under her breasts and inside her thighs, the little noises she made when she was about to come. But if he knew that... She opened her eyes as wide as she could, innocent.
Her father looked hard at her, then nodded, once. "Good," he said, and left.
The chill in the pit of her stomach didn't subside until she got back to school, three days later, and held Ivy tight against her body, warm and breathing.
1. icepick
Gina had met Summer two or three times in the months she'd been dating Ivy. She was a sweet girl, Gina thought, shy and socially maladept, but so eager to be good. Easy to like, easier tolove. Ivy adored her. Gina thought maybe she could too.
And then.
Ivy had surprised her that day, and the afternoon took a predictable turn, hands on skin and mouths on mouths. They were cuddling in the afterglow, Ivy's head nestled against Gina's breast, and Gina was just thinking how to lure her girlfriend into staying for dinner when Ivy's phone rang. Ivy grumbled, and swore, and fumbled for the phone among her discarded clothes. It stopped ringing before she found it, and she frowned when she pulled up the missed calls list.
"It's my mother," she said, already calling back.
Gina had seen someone die, once—a man in her father's car in the driveway of their house, Dante in the back seat and Paul Castro in the front. He'd turned to smile at Paul and jerked forward when Dante pulled the trigger. She'd been watching from an upstairs window, too far to see any details, but she had seen the way every muscle went slack, the way his body suddenly seemed uninhabited.
Ivy went stiff, at first. Her eyes turned glassy and empty, her face drained of any expression, and then she just—collapsed, sideways into Gina, her hand falling to the bed.
Shot in the street, she told Gina later, when Gina was driving her home. Summer had died instantly, she said. Hadn't felt any pain, hadn't even known what was happening.
Of course not, Gina thought, distant. That was for her family.
15. black hand
Ivy looked as if she'd been shot, when Gina finally told her.
"You?" she asked, faintly, after a long, frozen pause.
Gina's hands were suddenly cold. She stuffed them deep into her pockets. "Yes," she said, the words clogging her throat. "Or... my family, really. We're... we're quite famous. I was surprised when you didn't know."
"And you didn't tell me," Ivy said. Gina braced herself, but there was no anger in Ivy's voice, not yet anyway. She was still so pale, still so shocked.
"No," Gina said, when Ivy said nothing more. "I... it's hard. To tell people."
"It's hard," Ivy repeated, and started to laugh, hysterically, on and on until she bent over and it turned into sobs. "It's hard!" she sobbed, clutching her stomach, kneeling on the ground. "Oh, God. Oh, God."
"Ivy—" She reached out to touch Ivy's hair.
"Don't!" Ivy almost shrieked it, flinching away, and Gina felt a sharp stab of pain. "Don't. Don't. Don't touch me. God, no."
Gina swallowed past the hurt, and pulled back. "I... I can..."
"Don't," Ivy said again, almost too softly to be heard.
Gina closed her eyes, then stepped back, and walked away.
9. soldier
The triggerman's name was Gennaro. Gennaro Luciani. It was surprisingly easy to find him.
He wanted so badly to be loved. He wouldn't have put it that way, of course, but it was what he wanted. So of course when they needed something morally reprehensible done, they had gone to him.
Gina had wondered at first if it was a mistake. Ivy usually walked Summer home, and Ivy was an adult. Men who wouldn't kill a child wouldn't necessarily flinch at killing a woman. But Gennaro... he would do anything to get what he wanted. Fame, fortune, promotion, even just the affection of his capo. Who knew what exactly it had been?
She asked him if it had been a mistake. He laughed at her, and tried to reach down her dress. He didn't make mistakes, he said. He'd shot precisely who he meant to. Boss wanted to send a message, he said.
Of course. Of course he did.
Gina shot him twice, once in each knee, then gagged him, cut his belly open, and left him to bleed out, staring at his intestines winding across the floor. She didn't bother to watch him die.
He wasn't really worth the time.
7. capo
Dante still jumped when she called him. It was almost funny, in a sad way.
"I'm so glad to hear from you," he told her, when he picked her up from her dorm. She'd dressed well, a short black sheath with the slimmest of straps, classy but understated. "You looked—well, when I saw you at school. With that... girl." He spat the word. "You looked..."
Happy, she wanted to say, wanted to grab him by the throat and throw him against the car, but she didn't. "Yes, well. That was then and this is now." She granted him a smile, and seated herself in the passenger's seat.
"Of course, of course," he said, hastily, and hurried to the driver's seat, turned to smile at her when he'd got situated. "Where do you want to go?"
They ate at a nice little place Dante knew, where the maître'd hurried to seat them and the chef himself brought food to their table. So many witnesses to their little tête-à-tête, and the food was excellent besides. She would have to come back here, Gina thought absently. After.
Dinner ended and she coaxed Dante into driving her back to his place for coffee and maybe, she hinted, a kiss or two. Nothing more than that—Dante was no stupid soldier, to fall for a bare shoulder and a flash of leg—but nothing more was necessary. She smiled at him and laughed, traded banter as she made the coffee. She insisted, she told him. He'd treated her to such a nice dinner. And if she cracked his bathroom window when she went to freshen up, well, he didn't need to know that.
She left after two cups and a chaste kiss.
She came back in three hours, found him paralyzed on his bed, terror in his eyes.
Gina left his head on the table, facing the door, his genitals stuffed in his mouth. It didn't really do anything for her, but it would give the police a thrill.
8. underboss
Paul Castro was shockingly easy, and he shouldn't have been. Maybe it was for the better, Gina thought rather cynically, touching his shoulder as he wept. If he could be undone so easily, so quickly lured to a private place by a harmless-looking woman, she was really doing the business a favor by killing him.
Be fair, she told herself, while she murmured comforting noises. His son had just died rather horribly.
"He loved you so much," Paul said, and looked up at her, through his tears. "I'm glad he got that one day with you, before."
"Yes," Gina said, and gave him a smile that she wobbled very carefully at the edges. "So am I. He was a dear boy, really, even if we did have that rough patch."
He nodded, and dropped his head into his hands again. "I'm sorry," he said, voice muffled through his palms.
"Oh?" She stiffened a little in excitement, even as she rubbed his shoulders. Did he know... did he understand? "What for?"
"I should never have told him to court you," he said, and she deflated a little. He didn't understand.
Ah, well. "You two would have come together on your own. You were meant for each other, Gina. He was so happy when he called."
He'd called his father after she left? Of course he had, Dante never could resist bragging about a conquest. "I tried to make him happy," she murmured. "I'm glad that it worked."
"He was happy, the last day of his life." Paul inhaled, a shuddering breath. "I'm grateful for that."
The words crowded at Gina's mouth, poked and prodded, but not yet. She couldn't say it quite yet. "Yes. Uncle Paul, did he..." She hesitated. "Was he happy before that, do you know?"
"He was all right," he said, and lifted his head. "When you came to your senses about that girl, though. That was when he was happiest."
"Yes," Gina said, flatly. "That girl. She was the one who was supposed to die, wasn't she? Not the little one, but her sister."
He must have heard something in her voice, then, because he tried to pull away, but she already had the knife out, had already cut his vocal chords.
It was so easy. Painfully easy, in the end.
2. godfather
"Tesora," her father said, when she knocked on his study door. He rose and walked to her, kissed her cheek, then turned away, walking back to his desk. "It's lovely to see you, but I really don't—there's a problem at work. Can we do this later?"
Gina shrugged one shoulder, and sat down, put her purse in her lap. "You mean the Castros, I suppose. And that solider... what was his name?"
Her father swung around to look at her, one hand resting atop his big leather chair. They'd sat together in that chair so many times when she was small, Gina in his lap or squeezed in next to him while he worked. "Yes. That's it. You see why I need to concentrate."
"I suppose, but..." She reached into her purse. "I know who's been killing them, Daddy." The handles of the garrote slipped into her hands, smooth and cold.
Her father snorted, sat down in his leather chair, and spun away from her, scooting into his desk. "Do you really."
"Yes." She stood up, leaned over the back of the chair, and met his eyes, reflected in the window. He sat forward in the chair, his elbows propped on the desk and his hands folded in front of his face. A bubble of painful affection swelled in her chest. "It's me."
He tried to spin the chair around to face her, but it had been too long since he'd been on the streets, and Gina had worn shoes with good traction for this very reason—her heels dug into the carpet, and the chair remained where it was, her father trapped against the desk.
"It's my fault really," she said, and slipped the garrote around his neck. He fought her, uselessly. "I knew I was a danger to her. I knew I should have walked away once Dante found out. But I love her, Daddy. I really do."
"Sick," her father rasped out. Gina tightened the garrote a little.
"Maybe," she said. "Maybe I'll burn in hell for this. I know you will, but not for love." Tighter, before she could think about it. "You ordered the death of an eight-year-old girl, Daddy, and worse than that, you made all this happen. You made me, and then you made me unacceptable, and then you killed an innocent little girl because of something you did." Tighter, tighter... "I'm sorry, Daddy. This is just how it has to be."
He gurgled once more, some incomprehensible words, before he died.
Gina let the garrote drop. She felt no urge to weep, only a deep and hollow loneliness.
13. Chicago
Gina went to Summer's funeral. It hurt that Ivy would not look at her, but she could hardly begrudge the emotion. Of course Ivy blamed her, she blamed herself. Of course Ivy didn't want to see her again. She didn't want to see herself.
It was a funeral much like any other funeral: people cried, the eulogies were long, the pastor murmured platitudes that meant absolutely nothing. Gina listened without speaking, and now and again bowed her head in the prayers of her own family, the things they would say at her father's funeral in two or three days.
She did not follow the family to the graveside—she knew she would not be welcome there. But she did wait as the crowd swirled out to the cars, and pulled Ivy aside just as she came out of the church.
Ivy's eyes were dry, her whole posture collapsed inward as though she carried a weight too heavy for her to bear. Gina ached for her, but dared not show it. Ivy would welcome no feeling from her now.
"They're dead," she said, bluntly, without touching Ivy as she longed to. "The men who did this. They're all dead."
Ivy didn't meet her eyes, only looked at the cars and her parents, leaning quietly on each other. "Does that matter?"
Gina supposed it didn't, at that. "No. I just... I thought you would want to know."
"I didn't."
They stood quietly together for another moment. Gina watched Ivy, hardly daring to breathe, memorizing every angle and plane of her body, every little movement she made. She would never see Ivy again, and she knew that, knew that she didn't deserve to, and yet...
"We're leaving," Ivy said, abruptly. "We're moving to Chicago. I don't know what we're going to do there."
There were a hundred things Gina could say to that, and none of them at all helpful. "I'm sure you'll do wonderfully," she said, at last. Her stomach hurt, inexplicably.
"Sure," Ivy said, and shook her head. "Well, goodbye then." She walked down the stairs towards her parents, waiting at the cars.
"Goodbye," Gina whispered.
14. the old country
It was very easy to take over the business. The men were thrilled to have a leader again, even if she was a woman. It wasn't what Gina had wanted, but what else was there for her now? No one argued with her. She gave orders and they were obeyed. There was a sort of happiness in that.
Besides, it wasn't as if she was alone, exactly. She had lovers, pretty girls who looked good in a club and moved on in a matter of weeks. On and off there was Vanessa—they didn't love each other at all, but she was good in bed, and she asked for nothing beyond the occasional shopping spree.
So there it was. She was rich and busy, with work that kept her occupied if it did not exactly capture her heart. She had lovers when she wanted them, and could be alone when she wanted. And... really, when she thought about it, she was making things better, a little. It was safe to be gay now. Months into her management, one or two of her more devoted men shyly introduced their boyfriends.
And there was that. Her people were happy. She didn't ask too much of them, she didn't kill her own people unless active treachery was involved. They liked her, after a fashion.
So what if her own mother refused to speak to her? Gina wasn't sure she wanted to speak to her mother either. So what if she'd lost Ivy? It was better this way, safer for Ivy. Black leather and dried-blood red, guns and spike heels, it was a glamorous life, dangerous, exciting enough to keep her from getting bored. As long as she wasn't bored, she wouldn't think too much. As long as she didn't think too much...
It wasn't really a good life, but she pretended it was.
It was enough.
4. family
She wasn't theirs, and perhaps she never really had been, but they were still hers. She looked after her own.
Not that they needed her help, really. They earned everything they got. Aaron had excellent credentials and was wonderful with children—so what if Gina knew the librarian who worked at his school? All Lena did was bring his application to her principal's attention. Aaron did the rest.
Chicago politics weren't corrupt enough anymore for Gina to get Gail a job, but a word in the right ear, and she had first consideration. Nathan's portfolio went straight to the top at a premiere architectural firm. Ivy's full-ride scholarship at her veterinary school was all her.
And Lena used to be in the business, bodyguard for some of the people Gina knew. She was much happier as a librarian, but she was still willing to do little favors for an extra fee, so Gina could see how they were doing. She knew when Aaron got married—she sent a present, anonymously—and when Gail and Nathan took one of their infrequent trips back to the city—she made sure they had good hotel rooms, and that their cab drivers were her men.
She knew when Ivy met someone, a warm-skinned woman with clever hands and a wry smile. She knew when they got serious.
The day Lena sent her pictures, she called one of the girls, and fucked her so fierce and hard that the bruises lasted for weeks.
And then there was Summer, little Summer, forever eight years old. Gina visited her grave every day, cleaned the marble tombstone herself when she needed it, and always brought fresh flowers—roses red as Summer's hair, orchids and carnations, rosemary and rue. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember...
She remembered.
She'd always remember.
Title: Rosemary and Rue
Story: In the Heart -- Mafia AU
Colors: Patriarch purple saturation with admin yellow 14 (I don't particularly like killing people, but I'm very good at it.)
Supplies and Materials: Eraser (Mafia AU), brush (pinnacle), stain (Fall not in love, therefore; it will stick to your face. - National Lampoon), glitter ("All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. And that’s the tragedy of living." – Iain S. Thomas), portrait, sculpture (pretty much all of the preceding Mafia AU pieces), novelty beads ("Don't Fall In Love", Beauty and the Beast; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PF4X45hI-c)
Word Count: 5003
Rating: R
Summary: You can't always get what you want.
Warnings: looooots of death, lots of violence, death of a child, swearing, sexism, homophobia
Notes: Blame Kelly. Forever.
6. five families
Gina Caravecchio was five years old when she first understood that Daddy was a criminal.
Before that, she just thought that was the way life worked. She lived in a big house in the city and Daddy drove her around in nice cars, and every other week he would come home with a new toy for her or a piece of jewelry for Mommy. Sometimes big, scarred men in nice suits would come to the house, shake Daddy's hand, pat Gina on the head and tell her "how pretty you're getting, your pop must be so proud." Mommy would make them dinner, and then she and Gina would go upstairs and play. Daddy usually left with the men, and didn't come home until after she was asleep.
When Gina turned five, all the big, scarred men came to her birthday party. They brought her really nice presents, pretty dresses and hair bows and even real jewelry like Mommy had. Daddy laughed, and ruffled Gina's hair when she thanked the big men prettily, and Mommy stood in the corner and frowned.
Daddy left with the men after the party. Mommy slept in Gina's room that night.
Daddy came home bloody and dazed, shook Mommy awake and woke Gina up too, and swayed over them. "I love you," he said, and he sounded like... he sounded wrong. Gina huddled back against Mommy, scared.
"What do you think you're doing?" Mommy hissed, clutching Gina against her chest. "You're scaring her!"
Gina was scared, but Mommy sounded really scared too, and that, more than anything else, was making her shake. But she didn't say anything, she didn't dare, and Daddy just swayed above them, bleeding.
Mommy took Daddy away, and left Gina sitting there in the dark, clutching her blanket against her chest.
Next morning Mommy cut bread for toast and told Gina to act like nothing ever happened. Gina nodded, and ate her breakfast, and understood.
3. structure
After that, well, what was there to do?
She grew up. She went to school. She learned the names of the big, scarred men, Italian syllables rolling off the tongue—Gallo, Costa, Bugiardini. They still patted her head, but now they told her "how smart you're getting, how quick, how clever, your pop must be so proud." It was because of Daddy, of course.
He wasn't the boss. When Gina was little she'd thought he was, because of course she did, Daddy was the center of her world and so it was only natural he was the center of everyone else's. But he wasn't the boss then. Still, he was on the way up, working his way through the ranks, or at least that was what Dante Costa told her—Daddy wouldn't talk to her about it. Girls didn't have any place in the business.
"It's why everyone's so nice to you," Dante said, as they sat on the wall outside their school, swinging their legs, holding unlit cigarettes. "Your pop's going to be the boss pretty soon, so they want to get in good with him."
Gina rolled her eyes. "Sure, and that's why you're nice to me."
"No," Dante said, seriously. "I'm nice 'cause Pop told me to."
She dropped her hand to the wall and looked at him, startled. She knew Dante's father; he was one of the big, scarred men who worked with Daddy. "Your dad told you to be nice to me?"
"Yeah," he said. "Pop said we're going to get married someday so I can be the boss, so I should get to know you before your pop makes it. I'm glad I did. You're nice."
"I'm not going to marry you," Gina said, and slid off the wall. Dante called after her but she ran home, backpack bouncing all the way.
She didn't talk to Dante again, and Daddy was the boss by the end of the year.
12. New York
Daddy told her to go to college in New York City. "Any college," he said, "you pick one and I'll get you in, pay for it all, but you have to go in the city."
She'd hoped to get away from the city, from her family and Daddy's business and Dante, who worked for Daddy now and still made a pass at her whenever he saw her. Not that it really mattered—he wouldn't dare go beyond stupid pickup lines, not with the boss's daughter. The business didn't have to affect her, though, not if she didn't let it. There were good colleges in the City, and she wouldn't have to live at home. Westchester was too far away for commuting, even if she took a car.
Gina told Daddy that, and he nodded. "Of course, baby. I'll get you an apartment."
"No," Gina said, and took a deep breath. "I want to live in the dorms."
Daddy's eyebrows hit his hairline, but he didn't explode. "Why in God's name would you want to do that?"
So many reasons. To meet people who weren't in the business or related to people who were, for one. She'd never lived anywhere that people didn't know the name 'Caravecchio.' She'd never lived without that automatic recognition and the automatic fear or greed that followed. It would be nice to have someone treat her as a person, rather than a mob princess.
Anyway, what did it matter if she didn't live at home, if people here forgot who she was? She couldn't be Daddy's heir. Women weren't bosses. Women married the bosses, and Gina had no intention of doing that.
Of course Daddy wouldn't like any of that answer, so she gave him another, equally true. "It's part of the college experience, isn't it? I want all of it."
Daddy chuckled, indulgent, and kissed her forehead. "Whatever you want, baby. Whatever you want."
11. friend
Her life changed for good in senior year. Shakespeare's Tragedy—it was a 200-level course, but they hadn't offered it since her freshman year and she was desperate to take it, so she signed up even though all her other courses were 300 and up. For the first few weeks it seemed like any other class, if slightly easier. And then.
The third week of class their teacher returned the second weekly paper—short reaction pieces on the week's reading, nothing too strenuous. Gina aced the first two without even blinking.
The girl who sat behind her, on the other hand—"All right! C+!"
Gina blinked, and turned around. "You're proud of that?" she asked, incredulously.
The girl, redheaded and young, wrinkled her nose at Gina. "I flunked the first one, so yeah, actually, I am. What's it to you?"
Gina flushed, suddenly embarrassed, and... a little aroused? "I'm sorry," she said, off-balance, confused. "That was rude."
"You think?" But the girl looked more curious than mad. "Why, what'd you get?"
"It doesn't matter," Gina said, and turned back to her paper. "I'm sorry."
The girl caught up to her outside class, hauling her books in a messenger bag. She was tiny, wearing baggy clothes, her red hair pulled back in a slipshod ponytail, makeupless. She was the opposite of everything Gina had been taught to be.
She was gorgeous. Gina swallowed.
"It's cool," she was was saying, about the paper probably, but Gina was distracted by her eyes, deep and blue and endless. "Hey, I heard you get straight A's, can you maybe help me with mine? It's not that I suck exactly but... well, okay, I suck, I'm a scientist, not an English major. I was supposed to take math, but all the classes I need were full."
"You got Macbeth instead," Gina said. "At least it's alliterative?"
She winced, but the girl laughed, sudden and delighted. "It kinda rhymes, too. Guess that'll have to be good enough. So how about it? Would you mind giving me some pointers? I'll buy the coffee."
"I'd love to." Gina's mouth said that without her brain's input, but she couldn't bring herself to regret it.
It was almost a month before she realized that had been their first date.
5. omertà
There had been other girls, before. India, dark-haired and sultry; they'd used each other shamelessly and thrown each other aside. Alex, sarcastic and clever; she'd been almost unbearably sweet. Lily, too, Madonna-like with soft brown skin, but Gina had left her pretty quickly. She couldn't stay. She tried to avoid the girls who'd want that.
Daddy would be livid if he knew. She didn't want to risk one of those girls in that. Why she thought Ivy would be different...
But she did.
The attraction was immediate, electric, Ivy's smile and the subtle curves of her breasts, the hollow of her throat, those endless, gorgeous eyes. They'd brush together and Gina's skin would start to prickle and tighten, arousal fizzing pleasantly at the back of her neck. But it was more than that too—it was the way Ivy looked when she was concentrating, biting her lip, and how gentle her hands could be, rubbing Gina's shoulders or brushing her hair. It was the way they touched, casually, perfect.
It was just... it felt dishonest, that Ivy didn't know about her family. If they were going to have any kind of a future together—and oh, how Gina wanted them to have a future together—Ivy would have to know about that, and sooner rather than later. And Gina, coward that she was, did not want to tell her.
She could just picture how it would go. The horror on Ivy's face, turning to disgust and then rage. And even if somehow, miraculously, she was fine with Gina's family being the mob, how in God's name could she possibly be all right with being a constant secret? Gina would never dare tell Daddy about Ivy—he would kill her. How could Ivy reconcile herself to that?
But Ivy had to know. She had to. It was inexcusable that she did not know.
Tomorrow, Gina kept telling herself, as she stroked Ivy's hair, kissed along her browline. I'll tell her tomorrow. One more day.
Tomorrow.
10. associate
Gina went home for spring break, reluctantly. She had wanted to stay, to spend the week in Central Park with Ivy, having picnics and lying lazily in the sun, but if she was going to stay in the city after she graduated she had to lay the groundwork now. It seemed to be going well, too. She brought it up casually while cooking with her mother, while playing cards with Daddy—"I was looking at apartments the other day," and "this publishing company is looking for people, what do you think?" Neither one batted an eye. Her mother even seemed pleased.
Then Daddy came home and said, "Regina," in an icy voice, and everything changed.
She'd been sitting on the couch, doing reading for one of her classes, and she dropped the book on the floor, bolted to her feet. "Daddy? What is it?"
Her father stripped his gloves off and dropped them on the side table. "Dante went down to see you last week."
Ugh, of course he had. Gina managed not to roll her eyes. "Really."
"He was telling me," her father continued, steadily, "about this girl." He pulled a picture from his pocket and held it out.
Gina's insides went cold.
Ivy was looking up at her, smiling, her hair wisping around her face, her nose dotted with new freckles. Gina's own face was obscured, but she was gesturing, leaning in, one hand cupped casually around Ivy's elbow. It could have been any one of a thousand conversations, a thousand last exchanges before they separated for class.
Gina usually kissed Ivy after one of those moments, on the nose or cheek or forehead. Never the mouth, not in public; thank God she'd kept that small rule.
"What, Ivy?" she asked, as casually as she could. "What about her?"
Her father's voice lost a little of its ice. "You admit you know her."
"Of course I do." Gina laughed. It didn't come out as airy as she'd hoped. "I used to tutor her in English. She's really very funny."
Her father snapped the photo back and put it in his pocket. "I hope," he said, in very stiff tones, "that you aren't up to anything... unnatural."
"I don't know what you mean." She knew exactly what he meant. Ivy's mouth curving under hers, the silk-soft skin under her breasts and inside her thighs, the little noises she made when she was about to come. But if he knew that... She opened her eyes as wide as she could, innocent.
Her father looked hard at her, then nodded, once. "Good," he said, and left.
The chill in the pit of her stomach didn't subside until she got back to school, three days later, and held Ivy tight against her body, warm and breathing.
1. icepick
Gina had met Summer two or three times in the months she'd been dating Ivy. She was a sweet girl, Gina thought, shy and socially maladept, but so eager to be good. Easy to like, easier tolove. Ivy adored her. Gina thought maybe she could too.
And then.
Ivy had surprised her that day, and the afternoon took a predictable turn, hands on skin and mouths on mouths. They were cuddling in the afterglow, Ivy's head nestled against Gina's breast, and Gina was just thinking how to lure her girlfriend into staying for dinner when Ivy's phone rang. Ivy grumbled, and swore, and fumbled for the phone among her discarded clothes. It stopped ringing before she found it, and she frowned when she pulled up the missed calls list.
"It's my mother," she said, already calling back.
Gina had seen someone die, once—a man in her father's car in the driveway of their house, Dante in the back seat and Paul Castro in the front. He'd turned to smile at Paul and jerked forward when Dante pulled the trigger. She'd been watching from an upstairs window, too far to see any details, but she had seen the way every muscle went slack, the way his body suddenly seemed uninhabited.
Ivy went stiff, at first. Her eyes turned glassy and empty, her face drained of any expression, and then she just—collapsed, sideways into Gina, her hand falling to the bed.
Shot in the street, she told Gina later, when Gina was driving her home. Summer had died instantly, she said. Hadn't felt any pain, hadn't even known what was happening.
Of course not, Gina thought, distant. That was for her family.
15. black hand
Ivy looked as if she'd been shot, when Gina finally told her.
"You?" she asked, faintly, after a long, frozen pause.
Gina's hands were suddenly cold. She stuffed them deep into her pockets. "Yes," she said, the words clogging her throat. "Or... my family, really. We're... we're quite famous. I was surprised when you didn't know."
"And you didn't tell me," Ivy said. Gina braced herself, but there was no anger in Ivy's voice, not yet anyway. She was still so pale, still so shocked.
"No," Gina said, when Ivy said nothing more. "I... it's hard. To tell people."
"It's hard," Ivy repeated, and started to laugh, hysterically, on and on until she bent over and it turned into sobs. "It's hard!" she sobbed, clutching her stomach, kneeling on the ground. "Oh, God. Oh, God."
"Ivy—" She reached out to touch Ivy's hair.
"Don't!" Ivy almost shrieked it, flinching away, and Gina felt a sharp stab of pain. "Don't. Don't. Don't touch me. God, no."
Gina swallowed past the hurt, and pulled back. "I... I can..."
"Don't," Ivy said again, almost too softly to be heard.
Gina closed her eyes, then stepped back, and walked away.
9. soldier
The triggerman's name was Gennaro. Gennaro Luciani. It was surprisingly easy to find him.
He wanted so badly to be loved. He wouldn't have put it that way, of course, but it was what he wanted. So of course when they needed something morally reprehensible done, they had gone to him.
Gina had wondered at first if it was a mistake. Ivy usually walked Summer home, and Ivy was an adult. Men who wouldn't kill a child wouldn't necessarily flinch at killing a woman. But Gennaro... he would do anything to get what he wanted. Fame, fortune, promotion, even just the affection of his capo. Who knew what exactly it had been?
She asked him if it had been a mistake. He laughed at her, and tried to reach down her dress. He didn't make mistakes, he said. He'd shot precisely who he meant to. Boss wanted to send a message, he said.
Of course. Of course he did.
Gina shot him twice, once in each knee, then gagged him, cut his belly open, and left him to bleed out, staring at his intestines winding across the floor. She didn't bother to watch him die.
He wasn't really worth the time.
7. capo
Dante still jumped when she called him. It was almost funny, in a sad way.
"I'm so glad to hear from you," he told her, when he picked her up from her dorm. She'd dressed well, a short black sheath with the slimmest of straps, classy but understated. "You looked—well, when I saw you at school. With that... girl." He spat the word. "You looked..."
Happy, she wanted to say, wanted to grab him by the throat and throw him against the car, but she didn't. "Yes, well. That was then and this is now." She granted him a smile, and seated herself in the passenger's seat.
"Of course, of course," he said, hastily, and hurried to the driver's seat, turned to smile at her when he'd got situated. "Where do you want to go?"
They ate at a nice little place Dante knew, where the maître'd hurried to seat them and the chef himself brought food to their table. So many witnesses to their little tête-à-tête, and the food was excellent besides. She would have to come back here, Gina thought absently. After.
Dinner ended and she coaxed Dante into driving her back to his place for coffee and maybe, she hinted, a kiss or two. Nothing more than that—Dante was no stupid soldier, to fall for a bare shoulder and a flash of leg—but nothing more was necessary. She smiled at him and laughed, traded banter as she made the coffee. She insisted, she told him. He'd treated her to such a nice dinner. And if she cracked his bathroom window when she went to freshen up, well, he didn't need to know that.
She left after two cups and a chaste kiss.
She came back in three hours, found him paralyzed on his bed, terror in his eyes.
Gina left his head on the table, facing the door, his genitals stuffed in his mouth. It didn't really do anything for her, but it would give the police a thrill.
8. underboss
Paul Castro was shockingly easy, and he shouldn't have been. Maybe it was for the better, Gina thought rather cynically, touching his shoulder as he wept. If he could be undone so easily, so quickly lured to a private place by a harmless-looking woman, she was really doing the business a favor by killing him.
Be fair, she told herself, while she murmured comforting noises. His son had just died rather horribly.
"He loved you so much," Paul said, and looked up at her, through his tears. "I'm glad he got that one day with you, before."
"Yes," Gina said, and gave him a smile that she wobbled very carefully at the edges. "So am I. He was a dear boy, really, even if we did have that rough patch."
He nodded, and dropped his head into his hands again. "I'm sorry," he said, voice muffled through his palms.
"Oh?" She stiffened a little in excitement, even as she rubbed his shoulders. Did he know... did he understand? "What for?"
"I should never have told him to court you," he said, and she deflated a little. He didn't understand.
Ah, well. "You two would have come together on your own. You were meant for each other, Gina. He was so happy when he called."
He'd called his father after she left? Of course he had, Dante never could resist bragging about a conquest. "I tried to make him happy," she murmured. "I'm glad that it worked."
"He was happy, the last day of his life." Paul inhaled, a shuddering breath. "I'm grateful for that."
The words crowded at Gina's mouth, poked and prodded, but not yet. She couldn't say it quite yet. "Yes. Uncle Paul, did he..." She hesitated. "Was he happy before that, do you know?"
"He was all right," he said, and lifted his head. "When you came to your senses about that girl, though. That was when he was happiest."
"Yes," Gina said, flatly. "That girl. She was the one who was supposed to die, wasn't she? Not the little one, but her sister."
He must have heard something in her voice, then, because he tried to pull away, but she already had the knife out, had already cut his vocal chords.
It was so easy. Painfully easy, in the end.
2. godfather
"Tesora," her father said, when she knocked on his study door. He rose and walked to her, kissed her cheek, then turned away, walking back to his desk. "It's lovely to see you, but I really don't—there's a problem at work. Can we do this later?"
Gina shrugged one shoulder, and sat down, put her purse in her lap. "You mean the Castros, I suppose. And that solider... what was his name?"
Her father swung around to look at her, one hand resting atop his big leather chair. They'd sat together in that chair so many times when she was small, Gina in his lap or squeezed in next to him while he worked. "Yes. That's it. You see why I need to concentrate."
"I suppose, but..." She reached into her purse. "I know who's been killing them, Daddy." The handles of the garrote slipped into her hands, smooth and cold.
Her father snorted, sat down in his leather chair, and spun away from her, scooting into his desk. "Do you really."
"Yes." She stood up, leaned over the back of the chair, and met his eyes, reflected in the window. He sat forward in the chair, his elbows propped on the desk and his hands folded in front of his face. A bubble of painful affection swelled in her chest. "It's me."
He tried to spin the chair around to face her, but it had been too long since he'd been on the streets, and Gina had worn shoes with good traction for this very reason—her heels dug into the carpet, and the chair remained where it was, her father trapped against the desk.
"It's my fault really," she said, and slipped the garrote around his neck. He fought her, uselessly. "I knew I was a danger to her. I knew I should have walked away once Dante found out. But I love her, Daddy. I really do."
"Sick," her father rasped out. Gina tightened the garrote a little.
"Maybe," she said. "Maybe I'll burn in hell for this. I know you will, but not for love." Tighter, before she could think about it. "You ordered the death of an eight-year-old girl, Daddy, and worse than that, you made all this happen. You made me, and then you made me unacceptable, and then you killed an innocent little girl because of something you did." Tighter, tighter... "I'm sorry, Daddy. This is just how it has to be."
He gurgled once more, some incomprehensible words, before he died.
Gina let the garrote drop. She felt no urge to weep, only a deep and hollow loneliness.
13. Chicago
Gina went to Summer's funeral. It hurt that Ivy would not look at her, but she could hardly begrudge the emotion. Of course Ivy blamed her, she blamed herself. Of course Ivy didn't want to see her again. She didn't want to see herself.
It was a funeral much like any other funeral: people cried, the eulogies were long, the pastor murmured platitudes that meant absolutely nothing. Gina listened without speaking, and now and again bowed her head in the prayers of her own family, the things they would say at her father's funeral in two or three days.
She did not follow the family to the graveside—she knew she would not be welcome there. But she did wait as the crowd swirled out to the cars, and pulled Ivy aside just as she came out of the church.
Ivy's eyes were dry, her whole posture collapsed inward as though she carried a weight too heavy for her to bear. Gina ached for her, but dared not show it. Ivy would welcome no feeling from her now.
"They're dead," she said, bluntly, without touching Ivy as she longed to. "The men who did this. They're all dead."
Ivy didn't meet her eyes, only looked at the cars and her parents, leaning quietly on each other. "Does that matter?"
Gina supposed it didn't, at that. "No. I just... I thought you would want to know."
"I didn't."
They stood quietly together for another moment. Gina watched Ivy, hardly daring to breathe, memorizing every angle and plane of her body, every little movement she made. She would never see Ivy again, and she knew that, knew that she didn't deserve to, and yet...
"We're leaving," Ivy said, abruptly. "We're moving to Chicago. I don't know what we're going to do there."
There were a hundred things Gina could say to that, and none of them at all helpful. "I'm sure you'll do wonderfully," she said, at last. Her stomach hurt, inexplicably.
"Sure," Ivy said, and shook her head. "Well, goodbye then." She walked down the stairs towards her parents, waiting at the cars.
"Goodbye," Gina whispered.
14. the old country
It was very easy to take over the business. The men were thrilled to have a leader again, even if she was a woman. It wasn't what Gina had wanted, but what else was there for her now? No one argued with her. She gave orders and they were obeyed. There was a sort of happiness in that.
Besides, it wasn't as if she was alone, exactly. She had lovers, pretty girls who looked good in a club and moved on in a matter of weeks. On and off there was Vanessa—they didn't love each other at all, but she was good in bed, and she asked for nothing beyond the occasional shopping spree.
So there it was. She was rich and busy, with work that kept her occupied if it did not exactly capture her heart. She had lovers when she wanted them, and could be alone when she wanted. And... really, when she thought about it, she was making things better, a little. It was safe to be gay now. Months into her management, one or two of her more devoted men shyly introduced their boyfriends.
And there was that. Her people were happy. She didn't ask too much of them, she didn't kill her own people unless active treachery was involved. They liked her, after a fashion.
So what if her own mother refused to speak to her? Gina wasn't sure she wanted to speak to her mother either. So what if she'd lost Ivy? It was better this way, safer for Ivy. Black leather and dried-blood red, guns and spike heels, it was a glamorous life, dangerous, exciting enough to keep her from getting bored. As long as she wasn't bored, she wouldn't think too much. As long as she didn't think too much...
It wasn't really a good life, but she pretended it was.
It was enough.
4. family
She wasn't theirs, and perhaps she never really had been, but they were still hers. She looked after her own.
Not that they needed her help, really. They earned everything they got. Aaron had excellent credentials and was wonderful with children—so what if Gina knew the librarian who worked at his school? All Lena did was bring his application to her principal's attention. Aaron did the rest.
Chicago politics weren't corrupt enough anymore for Gina to get Gail a job, but a word in the right ear, and she had first consideration. Nathan's portfolio went straight to the top at a premiere architectural firm. Ivy's full-ride scholarship at her veterinary school was all her.
And Lena used to be in the business, bodyguard for some of the people Gina knew. She was much happier as a librarian, but she was still willing to do little favors for an extra fee, so Gina could see how they were doing. She knew when Aaron got married—she sent a present, anonymously—and when Gail and Nathan took one of their infrequent trips back to the city—she made sure they had good hotel rooms, and that their cab drivers were her men.
She knew when Ivy met someone, a warm-skinned woman with clever hands and a wry smile. She knew when they got serious.
The day Lena sent her pictures, she called one of the girls, and fucked her so fierce and hard that the bruises lasted for weeks.
And then there was Summer, little Summer, forever eight years old. Gina visited her grave every day, cleaned the marble tombstone herself when she needed it, and always brought fresh flowers—roses red as Summer's hair, orchids and carnations, rosemary and rue. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember...
She remembered.
She'd always remember.
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Besides how everything begins and ends in this AU (more or less); how it's unsatisfied from the regular one. I mean GINA IN POWER, but still, it's just missing and longing and.
Ending the last scene as family.
So much more yes.
Thank you.
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Thank you ~ <3
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