The Rocchetti Queen - Bree Porter Page 0,76

Papa tried. “This is the only way I will know you are cared for. I will not be alive forever to care for you.”

“Of course not.” I smiled tightly at him. I did not have a lot of family left, and speaking about my father’s death did not make me feel better. “But…the Rocchettis?”

Even saying their name made the air in the room feel colder.

“You will be treated well,” he said. Then added, “Just do not give him a reason to punish you and you will be safe.”

I had lived my life that way. Avoiding punishment, whether it be punishment of violence or disappointment. Whether just by behaving or acting stupid enough to get away with a bit of rebellion. Either way, I knew what was expected of me. I knew my father would only punish me if I broke his rules…but what about my husband-to-be?

He might just punish for me for fun.

Nausea rose up in me.

Papa was getting impatient with me. I could see it in his eyes. “You should be very happy, Sophia. There are many younger women that have been offered to the Rocchettis, and yet it was you who was chosen. They are a very powerful family and any marriage to one of them will guarantee luxury and safety.”

Those young women’s families would be upset they did not make the match, but the young women themselves would be relieved.

I straightened. “I know, Papa. Forgive me…I was just afraid. There are rumors about women…”

“You will do yourself good by ignoring those,” Papa said. But his tone and the position of his body told me he believed them himself. “I know you are afraid, my dear. But you are a good girl and will be a good wife. What do you have to fear?”

His words fell flat.

I tried to smile. If it was any other man, I might have been grateful. Though my desire for marriage had lessened after my sister’s death, I understood that I was growing older and marrying so fast after a death in the family was seen as quite inappropriate. A large part of me just wanted to stay with my father, but he would die soon enough, as morbid as that was, and then what would I do?

But to marry into the Rocchettis…

“Which Rocchetti?” I managed to ask.

Papa looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Alessandro Rocchetti.”

My blood went cold. “What.”

“You do not say what, Sophia. That is bad manners.”

I was flabbergasted. “But—but he’s horrible! He’s a monster! You don’t even like to talk to him at events, Papa, because he’s so terrifying!”

Papa suddenly looked furious and I knew I had gone too far. “You do not speak like that to me, Sophia Antonia. Marrying into the Rocchetti family will bring you a life of luxury.”

And my father a lot of money and business deals.

“I’m sorry, Papa.” I slumped back into my chair.

Alessandro Rocchetti…was a man to be reckoned with. They called him The Godless, a not so subtle hint about all the unholy atrocities he had completed over the years. I was not privy to Outfit business, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t overheard the gruesome tales that followed the youngest Rocchetti brother.

I gripped the chair, steadying myself.

Papa apparently had no comfort left in him and stood. He loomed over his desk and down at me. The huge overbearing figure in my life who I had gone from resenting to loving back to resenting in one day. Sometimes even multiple times a day.

You shouldn’t hate your father, I told myself.

And I didn’t, not truly. Cat had hated him, hated our stepmothers. Even the housekeepers, she had resented. But I had never found it in myself to hate them—after all, they were just doing what they had been trained and taught to do. Especially our Capo father.

Even if he has sold me off to a monster, with little care of my wellbeing.

“You’re very lucky the Rocchettis have decided to let you marry their son, Sophia. I know they are looking for someone very different for Salvatore.” Which meant they wanted someone younger and who wasn’t in a time of mourning.

I looked over at the empty chair beside me. Cat would’ve said something. She had never been prone to doing anything she didn’t want to do.

“I know he is a hard man,” Papa said, trying to sound soft but failing miserably. “But you are a good girl, when you’re quiet, and your good behavior will let you remain unpunished.” As it had always done with him. “I had