SIX FURIES AND A ROSE

CHAPTER 1

RAPHELLA’S POV

The hallway of our old house on Long Island Sound felt like a canyon at night. Especially when you were two years old, barefoot, and being chased by monsters.

They weren’t real monsters, of course. They were Dante and Gabe.

But at that moment, with their growling and thundering footsteps behind me, the distinction was meaningless.

My little nightgown swished around my legs as I sprinted, a sob catching in my throat.

“We’re gonna get you, Rafe!” Dante’s voice, already rough for a thirteen-year-old, echoed.

“Tickletorture!” Gabe, the ten-year-old traitor, sing-songed.

I burst through the double doors of my father’s study without knocking.

The room was a fortress of dark wood and leather, smelling of cigar smoke and sternness. And there, behind the massive desk, was my fortress.

Papa looked up from his papers, his sharp eyes finding mine instantly. Without a word, he held out his arms.

I scrambled across the Persian rug, and he scooped me up, settling me onto his lap as if I were made of glass.

I buried my face in the rough wool of his suit jacket, the fear melting into safe, hiccupping tears.

“The bambini are chasing me,” I wailed into his chest.

The doors swung open again. Dante and Gabe skidded to a halt, their playful bravado evaporating under Papa’s gaze. It wasn’t anger, not exactly. It was something heavier.

“Out,” he said, a single, quiet command. They vanished.

He let me cry for a moment, his large hand smoothing my hair. “Raphaella, my little star,” he murmured. Then he reached for the phone on his desk. “Vincenzo. Luca. Marcello. My study. Now.”

Within minutes, my brothers filed in.

Vin, already nineteen and trying to look as solemn as Papa. Luca, seventeen, with his ever-watchful eyes. Marcello, fifteen, Dante and Gabe were brought back in, looking sheepish.

Papa didn’t raise his voice. That was the thing about papa. The quieter he was, the more you listened.

“You chase her. You make her cry. You think this is a game?”

He looked at each of them, his gaze lingering on Vin.

“The world is full of men who would chase your sister. Not for play. But to hurt her. To hurt me. To hurt this family.”

I didn’t understand the words, not really.

“She is light,” Papa said, his arms tightening around me. “In our world, there is much darkness. She is the only pure thing in it. And so, she will be a target.”

“Today, it is a tickle. Tomorrow…” He let the silence hang. “It will not be.”

He leaned forward, addressing the five of them as if they were his soldiers, not his sons.

“This is your most sacred vow. Beyond any oath you will ever swear. You will protect her. You will shield her.

“You will stand between her and any danger, any enemy, any man who looks at her with anything but respect.

“Capisce? No matter the cost. No matter what. Her safety, her innocence, is the heart of this family. You protect the heart.”

A chorus of “Sì, Papa,” rumbled through the room, low and serious.

He kissed the top of my head. “You don’t need to understand yet, stellina. They understand for you.”

NEXT DAY

I was in the kitchen, sitting on a high stool while Maria, the cook, let me stir pancake batter. Sunlight streamed through the big windows.

But the grown-ups moved like clouds blocking the sun.

Mama was dressed up, not in her soft home clothes, but in a sharp black suit.

She kept bending down to kiss my cheek, her perfume smelling like roses and worry.

“Be good for your brothers, my star. Mama and Papa have business.”

Papa came in, filling the doorway. He looked bigger than ever in his long coat.

He lifted me right off the stool, holding me up so we were eye-to-eye. His own eyes were dark, serious pools.

“Remember what I said, Raphaella?” he asked, his thumb brushing my cheek. “Your brothers. They are your walls. You listen to gabe today.”

I nodded, clutching the collar of his coat. “You come back for bedtime story?”

Something flickered in his eyes—a tiny crack in the stone. “Always, stellina. I always come back.”

Vincenzo stood near the door, already dressed like a smaller version of Papa.

Then they were gone. The door closed with a heavy sound.

The day got long and echoey. Luca tried to read me a story, but he kept looking out the window.

Marcello just paced. Dante and Gabe weren’t allowed to play loud.

When the sky started to turn orange, I sat by the front window, my stuffed rabbit in my lap, waiting for the cars to come back up the long driveway.

I waited and waited.

Then, very late, when it was dark outside, cars did come. Lots of them.

They didn’t come up to the house quiet. They rushed, lights cutting the dark, crunching on the gravel.

Vin got out of the first car. His suit wasn’t neat anymore. It was messy.

And in the porch light, I saw dark, wet smudges on his white shirt. Not mud. Something else.

His face… it wasn’t his face. It was a mask of something terrible and empty.

He looked right through me as he walked inside, followed by grim-faced men I didn’t know.

Gabe saw it too. He made a sharp sound, like he’d been hit.

He scooped me up from the window seat before I could see more, turning my face into his shoulder.

“No, no, no, no,” he was whispering, not to me, but to the world.

He carried me upstairs, away from the shouting voices, the sudden raw cries that didn’t sound like my brothers.

He took me to my room and just held onto me in the rocking chair, rocking and rocking, his whole body shaking.

I could hear Dante screaming somewhere down the hall, a sound of pure breaking. I could hear glass shattering.

I didn’t see Mama. I didn’t see Papa.

Vincent came into the doorway later. The light from the hall made him look like a ghost.

The dark smudges were still there. His eyes finally found me in Gabe’s arms.

The emptiness in them was worse than the yelling.

“Papa?” I whispered.

Vin’s jaw worked. He couldn’t make words. He just shook his head once, a sharp, horrible movement. Then he turned and left, closing the door on the sounds of our world ending.