“An obedient woman.”
“Valentina.” The way he says my name, stretching it slightly, stirs something in me, but I ignore it. “In the Mafia, even men must be obedient. Many are so bound to it that they can’t breathe without an order.”
“A good wife, a good mother, a hostess…” I summarize everything a woman in the Cosa Nostra must be—everything my father says I must be—trying to understand Lorenzo’s point.
The obedience demanded of men is not the same as what is demanded of us.
“What woman in high Italian society is not like that, even those outside the association?”
“You’re right,” I say with a smile, choosing a seductive tone instead of embarrassment. The world is masculine enough to define the perfect woman just as my father imagined her—whether in the mafia or not.
“I understand why h
