Chapter Text
VII
“Vincenzo.”
“Hm?”
Vincenzo looks away from the ring of men around him to see Violetta standing at the doorway, a small smile on her face. “Go, son,” Fabio says, clapping Vincenzo heartily on the shoulder. “Celebrate with your wife.”
A few of the men make approving sounds. Uncle Enzo asks what’s the point of having a beautiful wife if not to celebrate victories with anyway, and Uncle Ricky presses another glass of whiskey into Vincenzo’s hand for ‘l’Angela’.
Paolo mutters that he might want to get showered first, and Fabio tsks when Vincenzo smacks him good naturedly against the head as he passes by.
“I’m sorry,” Vincenzo says immediately, upon reaching Violetta.
“For which part?” She asks, amused and he shrugs helplessly. All of it.
“They’re just… excited,” he says, making to move further down the hall so they can head towards ‘their’ wing of the estate. Oddly, she stays where she is, only turning her back on Fabio’s ‘sitting room’, leaving the door ajar.
“Mm, I heard,” she says quietly, lifting her arm to pat at his side; or rather, the now-bandaged, ugly knife wounds that delayed his return from Rome till today. “A successful victory getting the Morettis to cede ground and suffer embarrassment. But is this very painful?”
He shakes his head, tilting it to one side to study her. Something’s up. She won’t even take the whiskey glass he’d proffered, something she usually never turns down, especially if it’s from Fabio’s personal stash.
Then he remembers she’d been unwell when he and the crew had departed a week ago.
“Ah, are you feeling better? I apologise, I would have asked sooner, but you know how it is - we had to greet Fabio first-”
She shakes her head to quell him, her eyes now gleaming with something a little unsettling. It looks like barely repressed… glee?
“I went to a doctor about that.”
He frowns. If it was bad news, surely she wouldn’t seem so…
“It turns out, I’m pregnant.”
Vincenzo blinks.
Then does some very quick math. It’s been only two months since he graduated law school, which makes it six and a half weeks since they started trying.
“Already?” He blurts out, and knows he’s probably looking and sounding extremely stupid right now.
Violetta shrugs, smile now turning a little wry. “Looks like you’re efficient at this too, Consigliere.”
Automatically, he looks around them to make sure nobody hears her. “Not yet.”
She rolls her eyes. “Everyone knows it will come. You’re already being mentored for it.”
She’s not wrong.
She’s been not-wrong about a lot of things.
Like trying for a baby.
She can probably tell where his mind has wandered back to and grins mischievously, sliding her hands up till her palms are flat against his chest. They stand like that, him holding two glasses of amber liquid aloft, looking down at the woman his family has nicknamed l'Angela dei Cassano.
Little do they know that she is much more than the cherubic being she’s looked like since they were kids.
“Vincenzo. This is it. Don’t you see?”
He does, actually. It’s just that he’s operating a little slow. Maybe it’s the painkillers in his system mixing with the celebratory whiskey. Or maybe, he thinks, it’s the fact that you’re going to be a father.
“Soon to be the youngest Consigliere in the family, and now the first Cassano grandchild on the way. It doesn’t matter what Paolo does now. This is it: we wanted legitimacy, and we’ve got it. You’ve done it.”
He feels a smile begin to break through, then something else pierces the fog of surprise in his mind.
“You have, Violetta,” he says quietly. “You knew the right time to start. And none of this would have happened if you hadn’t come to me two years ago in the first place.”
She accepts the compliment with a pleased little nod, then manhandles him to head towards the door.
“Go. Tell Don Fabio the news.”
-
Cha Young calls him.
“Did you hear about Detective… ah, sibal, what was her name… Iannicelli?”
Vincenzo frowns. “The one who just got arrested for planting evidence in a homicide?”
It’s been all over the news: a decorated detective arrested and her high-profile husband in the Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna making public statements that it was all planted to discredit her. He knew, from his network of contacts, that she was one of the few who had been squeaky clean. Which most likely meant she’d pissed off one of the bigger mafia families.
“Bingo. I don’t know if you know, but there are a number of legal gossip forums and I noticed in one that the husband’s apparently desperately trying to find a lawyer to help them, but nobody wants to touch them. Because everyone’s guessing this seems like a mafia problem.”
Vincenzo hums his assent, switching Cha Young to speakerphone so he can text Greta to get to his office.
“And you’re suggesting, byeonhosa-nim, that you…” He waits for her to finish what he’s fairly certain is her plan.
“Well, really Greta. But nobody knows me, and Iannicelli is probably not going to want to talk to anybody who seems connected to the mafia. So I can get to them and… make offers, if Greta and you think there are any to make. I'd just be the gorgeous face.”
Vincenzo smirks, settling into his seat and swivelling to look at the view outside. “Feeling comfortable enough to suggest criminal strategy now too, are we, Hong Cha Young byeonhosa-nim?”
“If you think it’s a sh*t idea, go ahead and ignore me. You’d be wrong, but it’s okay.”
He snorts. “Didn’t I give you enough to do, with buying me an island? Do you somehow have a lot of free time?”
“It’s taking a while to relocate the monks. Besides, you also told me to come up with the eventual extraction plan for when the island is ready. And you know who would be really helpful at that time?”
He doesn’t need her to complete the thought, but chimes in anyway. “A high-ranking member of the domestic security agency.”
“Do I get another huge bonus when I complete all this excellently?”
-
Isabella Cassano turns eight and it means a very lavish birthday party is in the books, populated by a number of young excitable children, their parents who still seem to want to impress her rich father, and folks Cha Young now knows to be mafiosi.
It’s all very hush-hush, because they’re out in public at a restaurant Isabella loves, and the guest list includes people like Don Fabio.
If even one rival family hears about this event, Cha Young thinks idly, they’ll all be sitting ducks for a spectacularly tragic shootout.
Immediately, she tries to shake the thought out of her mind and focus on the party in front of her. Or, more specifically, the oddly endearing view of Vincenzo corralling a number of tiny people towards a big chocolate cake that’s been wheeled out, complete with sparkling birthday candles.
Isabella looks thrilled as she stands next to him, eyes gleaming, hair prettily arranged in complicated-looking plaits and shiny new glittery butterfly clips that Cha Young had gifted the girl that morning.
She’s been trying not to preen at how successful her birthday gift has been.
“Tanti auguri a te…” starts up in the room, and Cha Young eyes even the grizzled ‘uncles’ in the far corners seated around a beaming Don Fabio, singing along enthusiastically.
He’d been a surprise.
Being Vincenzo’s own hire, and not, you know, a member of the mafia, she’s had no reason to meet Fabio till today. She’d been unsure of what to expect: Izzy made it sound like her grandfather was a cuddly teddy bear, while Vincenzo usually made him out to be a logical businessman whose business just happened to be crime. And yet, everyone else spoke of him with a tinge of fear.
Fabio had turned out to be a jovial Santa Claus type with shrewd eyes who had greeted her with a courteous bow, and seemed to know everything about her, from exactly how long she’d been in Cassano employ and her presence at football matches to her father's job and her new friendship with Izzy.
In hindsight, Cha Young should have expected this.
The song ends and Izzy is fed a piece of cake by her dad, and she offers one back to him immediately, then picks up another and runs over to aforementioned Santa Claus, who amiably eats it and hugs her.
“Come on,” Olivera mentions in Cha Young’s ear, looking gorgeous in a dark green dress that matches little Catalina’s green frock. “It’s time for cake. If I know Vincenzo, he’s dropped a lot of money on getting some decorated pastry chef to make it and it’ll be the stuff of dreams.”
Cha Young grins and follows, as they watch children dutifully lining up to take cake from the waiters now handing out pieces on small paper plates.
“He wouldn’t compromise on quality for Izzy,” she agrees, and Olivera looks at her mischievously.
“He wouldn’t, but when it comes to desserts, you’ll find Vincenzo takes matters seriously.”
Cha Young gapes at her. “Really?”
Olivera nods and gestures at their host, now standing to the side with Luca and discreetly wiping his mouth with a napkin. “He’s probably already had a second piece when nobody was paying attention.”
Frustratingly, this revelation is yet another endearing point in his favour.
-
If someone had told Vincenzo years ago that he’d spend a shocking amount of money every year on a child’s birthday party, from the food to individual party favours to venues to gifts and eventually security to keep them all safe, he’d have never believed them.
But, here he is, now in year eight for God’s sake, having signed cheques for an elaborate party. At least he’d wisened up right from the start and hired party planners. He’s not sure what he would have done, had he been a poorer man.
He tries not to think of blurry memories of provincial little cupcakes and seaweed soup, of a tired voice saying saengil chukahae! the moment he woke up, or the darker memory of crying in a nun’s arms.
Instead, he focuses on the beaming smile on his daughter’s face.
All the money in his bank account is worth making sure she never has a bad birthday.
-
“Goodnight, darling,” Cha Young murmurs, hugging Isabella. She’s surprised at her words; they’ve come out without plan, and she doesn’t know why or how they feel so natural to say. Nor, does she think wryly, does she understand why Izzy’s cake-sticky fingers don’t make her want to recoil as she usually would from children.
“Thank you for coming, imo,” Izzy says dutifully, clearly having had the words drilled into her in both Italian and Korean.
After one last ‘happy birthday’, Cha Young leaves with Alicia and Cece, because Alicia’s offered to drive Cha Young home on their way. So amused is she with Alicia attempting to stop Cece from diving into her party favour bag in front of everyone, that she almost misses Luca calling her name until his fingers are gently wrapping around her elbow.
“Cha Young,” he breathes, looking apologetic. Whether this is at his customary ‘Miss Hong’ having disappeared or the brief manhandling, she’s not sure. Either way, she sends him a reassuring smile. He’s supposed to be inside, where the inner circle of the family seems to be gathering for a nightcap before bundling Isabella, her various gifts, and themselves home.
“You’ve been asked to join us,” he says and she blinks at him.
“Inside?” She asks dumbly.
Next to her, Alicia brightly interjects. “I’ll see you at the office, then, Cha Young. Goodnight you two.” Her final words lilt up in a way that warns Cha Young she will be grilled the next time they meet, while Cece mumbles a vague goodbye, head still focused downwards on the bag in her hands. Off they go, while Luca kindly steers Cha Young back inside.
“Luca, are you sure?” She hisses, eyeing the distant figure of Fabio next to Paolo Cassano. Who, of course, wouldn’t have showed up for the first part of this evening. “I’m not - I’m not really, you know.” She waves her hand, hoping the gesture conveys the necessary meaning.
Luca, instead of being understanding, just infuriatingly looks like he wants to laugh.
“Tonight, Cha Young, there is only one person who decides who is and isn’t a part of the family.”
And then they’re inside, and she is neatly deposited next to Olivera, who links a friendly arm with Cha Young’s.
The room feels different now. It's a much smaller crowd than before, obviously, and there are only two children present, barring one sottocapo’s baby-in-arms. But it's beyond that; this feels like something is happening. And Cha Young is a part of it.
“It’s overwhelming, I know,” Olivera mutters quietly, smiling as champagne is wheeled to where Izzy nestles comfortably into her father’s side. “But once you’re invited in, you get used to being on this side.”
-
Vincenzo thinks the evening’s been pretty perfect, which should have been his first sign.
The second, should have been the fact that Paolo brought his girlfriend of six months, Lydia Molinaro, to their little post-birthday nightcap to ‘introduce to Papa’.
Nothing good comes of Paolo doing whatever he wants.
But so happy is Izzy, and so sprightly has Fabio been despite a few weeks of chemotherapy, that Vincenzo had been lulled into a false sense of security. It was only exacerbated by the way Hong Cha Young looked tonight, with her caramel hair gleaming and perpetually perfect lipstick red for the occasion.
He’d given up on pretending like she wasn’t often one of the most beautiful people in the room.
They pop champagne just before Fabio’s speech, Izzy squealing behind Vincenzo’s legs as the cork shoots out, and toast to the birthday girl. She and Catalina amenably drink apple juice after tasting a few sips of champagne and deeming it ‘bad’, while Fabio begins his speech and Vincenzo allows himself a moment to relax, congratulating himself a little on a child successfully alive, healthy and happy for eight whole years.
He finally finds a moment to talk with Olivera and Cha Young, enjoying the way they two seem to get along, the way Cha Young feels comfortable poking sly fun at how right she’d been about many things since he’d hired her.
She has, in fact, been an asset. A compliment he’d pay her if he thought she wasn’t well aware of it herself. Her last little machination with the Iannicellis too had paid off, and he now has a pissed off detective who had otherwise sworn herself to a life of ethical righteousness and a vengeful intelligence-agency husband on his payroll.
She's here tonight as one of the few real ‘outsiders’, but has no idea of the gravitas of how she came to be invited in. Of course, she works for him, is quite friendly with Luca and Olivera now. Even Greta. But that's never enough to gain an invite.
She needed to be invited in by a key member of the familia, and a freshly minted eight year old member had done it. Exercising, for the first time and entirely unknown to her, her power as a Cassano.
Izzy had insisted her Cha Young imo should attend. And Fabio had taken one look at Izzy earnestly asking Vincenzo and seen… something there.
Luca had been dispatched within seconds.
Now, Cha Young stands and does her usual thing where she flirts outrageously, using it as cover to doubtfully take stock of the people in the room, dropping her bravado everytime she thinks Vincenzo can't see it.
It's endearing, seeing this side of her. It's not that he takes pleasure in seeing an extremely confident and brash woman get nervous. Instead, it speaks to her bravery. Here she is, in the heart of one of Europe’s biggest crime families’ private event, standing her ground out of sheer curiosity and the will to not disappoint his daughter.
“You're doing well,” he mutters under his breath in Korean, taking a risk.
She immediately schools her face and retorts, matching his language and tone: “I always do well, Cassano byeonhosa-nim.”
But she sends him a tiny smile and he knows his message was received and appreciated.
Good, because that is when Paolo decides to indelicately smack a fork against a glass and make an announcement about how his new girlfriend, a minor Russo cousin, is five weeks pregnant.
-
She calls him.
“What does this change?”
He sighs down the phone line. There's a twinkling sound and something liquid, which tells her he's pouring himself a drink.
Whiskey, maybe. It's been a while since everyone would have reached home, but maybe he's not had time to change yet from his suit. Maybe he's taking his drink to one of those terraces or balconies at the estate, leaning against a railing in the moonlight with shirt half buttoned… focus, Cha Young. Prioritise.
“Nothing. A lot. Izzy, of course, doesn't understand why the adults in the family aren't happy about a new baby the way she is.”
Cha Young smiles. Isabella is too precious for this rough and political world she's been born into. Or rather, born to lead. She waits for Vincenzo to speak.
“If this was some years ago, it would have changed everything immediately. But he's taken his time, and in the intervening years the elders of the family and anyone worth a damn has seen my work.”
“And you still have your father's approval, I assume?”
Another sigh.
“Yes, but now...”
Ah. She had her suspicions about this.
The entire night, certain members of the family had hovered around Fabio. Not like sycophants waiting to earn praise, but in that one particular way Cha Young knows very well. A seemingly hale, if slightly tired man, being treated like glass on the verge of shattering.
It had been far too close to what she herself had been guilty of doing as a teenager to her mother.
“So if he… I'm sorry. Once he's gone?”
She doesn't know if she should apologise or not. Vincenzo doesn't openly show his affection for people unless they're his tiny mini-mes with too-long hair and a penchant for shiny things.
But everything he's said about Fabio… she can only assume there is real respect there. And with respect can easily come some affection.
“It's alright,” he says softly before falling silent, not bothering to ask her how she knew about Fabio’s condition. She’s grateful for it; she’s not sure if she can ever talk about why she knows.
Then, Vincenzo clears his throat, voice even softer, like he’s keeping secrets from the walls of his opulent estate.
“I am still too yellow. Too different. And my daughter is only a living reminder of me, with next to none of her mother visible in her countenance. Paolo has not only found someone white, but a minor cousin from the same family Violetta was a part of. Which might just be enough to appease the, ah-”
“Racists?” Cha Young supplies, mostly because she doesn't want to hear him peddle in cruel words that felt so wrong in his voice.
Vincenzo snorts. “Yes, them. But I might be wrong. I’ll have to pay a few discreet visits to some people over the next few months. The elder Russos. My… ah, in-laws. Other allied families with power. See where loyalties seem to lie.”
They subside into silence again and she hears the quiet sounds now and then of a sip taken from a glass.
“What can I do to help?”
She asks without even planning it. She'd called him, she'd promised herself, out of curiosity. Not because they're friends. Not out of concern.
But now she's here implying she would like to do something to wade knee deep, or worse, into this battle of succession.
Of a crime family.
So maybe they are friends, and maybe she is concerned.
This time, Cha Young can hear a smile even clearer in her ear. “All I need you to do is focus on those monks and the gold worth billions of won under their… seats.”
She tries not to laugh but can't help bursting into giggles at Vincenzo's attempt to stop himself from sounding crass.
He joins in, which jolts through her pleasantly. He's got a rich laugh, and it melts through the mobile in her hand to her. A pity he doesn’t let himself do it more.
