Chapter 5

Liam’s POV

“You have to do it, mijo,” I remembered Mom saying with teary eyes. “You have to do this… for the sake of the family.”

She was talking about taking Miranda’s place at the wedding altar with Donatello.

“That is ridiculous, Ma!” I had shouted.

But what was even more ridiculous was the fact that it was my father who had brought up the outrageous idea first.

After the doctor pronounced Miranda dead, Mom collapsed, and I was too shocked to react.

The doctor immediately tried to revive Mom, and thankfully, she came to. But when I lifted my head, Father had walked out.

Mother and I sat in Miranda’s room throughout the night, mourning her. I couldn’t even process my thoughts because I was in too much shock.

My sister had been so full of life when I last saw her. When I had asked her if she didn’t want to marry Donatello, she claimed that she wanted to. Who would have thought that she was planning on ending her own life?

Mother was crying on my chest when we heard footsteps coming into the room. Judging by the sound of the walking cane that accompanied it, we both knew it was Father.

Mother sat up, wiping her tears because she knew her husband hated to see tears.

I thought that was crazy, considering we just lost someone dear to us.

“We can’t just sit here and cry all night,” Father said, and I turned to look at him. Was he being serious right now?

“That’s your daughter’s cold, lifeless body!” I snapped in a loud voice, pointing at Miranda’s stiff frame on the bed.

“You and I need to talk,” he said, ignoring my words. “In less than two hours from now, Donatello Moranno will be standing at the altar, waiting for a bride.”

I was speechless. “You just lost your daughter, and that’s all you care about?” I asked him when I managed to find my voice.

“I would lose everything if this wedding doesn’t happen!” Father raised his voice.

“Why should we care about this Donatello man anyway?” I asked, spreading my arms.

“If you stayed at home more, you would know what goes on around here and why your sister had to marry Don,” he answered in a deep voice before turning to my grieving mother. “Talk to your son.”

And that’s exactly what she did.

“Our family is in debt, Liam,” Mother cried. “We owe Donatello hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“Well, pay him!” I suggested a very obvious solution that they were somehow missing. But Mother let out a throaty sob, shaking her head.

“We do not have that kind of money anymore,” she said. “We’re in so much debt and mostly to Donatello. We’ve been owing him for ten years!”

My eyebrows shot up and my eyes widened in disbelief. I couldn’t even blink as I processed this reality. My family… The LaRosa mafia family… was going bankrupt?

I turned to look at Miranda’s body. So she was the sacrificial lamb to Donatello in exchange for our debts?

“Your father offered Miranda to Don all those years ago out of desperation,” Mom informed me. “The bullet lodged in your father’s hipbone… Donatello did that because your father wanted to run away to Italy when we couldn’t pay him.”

“And Miranda was a peace offering,” I whispered, fighting the tears that were stinging my eyes. “Why did no one tell me?”

Mother sighed sadly. “Even Miranda did not know until three years ago,” she answered. “You were in Europe and we didn’t think we should bother you.”

“And now she’s gone,” I choked out. “Miranda is never coming back.”

“Donatello would kill us all,” Mother whispered, tears pooling in her eyes.

I knew what Don Morranno was capable of. I’d heard stories about him, and each one chilled me to my bones. The man was ruthless, and he only cared about one thing—his money.

If my family owed that much, we’d all join Miranda in purgatory before the day ended.

“What must I do?” I asked my mother, eager to save the rest of my family.

“The plan is simple,” my father said when I entered his office, telling him I was ready to help. “You and Miranda are identical. The only difference is that you’re a man. We cannot leave Don at the altar, so you would go to him, and once he sees that you’re a man, you would explain the situation.”

I looked at my mother, wondering if I was the only one hearing this ridiculous plan.

“He would kill me right on the spot,” I argued, and my father nodded.

“That’s one thing that might happen,” he said. “Another possibility is that he could be too shocked to react. Donatello isn’t used to surprises.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t like them either,” I murmured under my breath.

“You want to stay alive?” Father asked seriously, leaning forward. “You just have to know when to start talking to him as soon as you have the chance.”

Whether I liked the plan or not, I didn’t have much of a choice.

My sister lost her life because she refused to go through with this. And now, here I stood, stepping into her shoes, donned in the white dress meant for her, preparing to marry a man! A man just like me.

“For My mother,” I said to myself as the doors to the church opened. “For the LaRosa family.”