Black everywhere.

A sea of black, really.

Cella Marcello felt like everything had become painted with the color. Tainted. Maybe that was the better word for this day and what was happening. Everything was tainted with blackness because wasn’t that the only appropriate hue for grief?

Especially grief like this.

One so hollow.

Empty.

Lonely.

From the suits and dresses surrounding her, worn by people with faces she recognized and—some—she loved to even the clouds above her head. Her emotions. The hole in the ground. The shiny granite headstone with her husband’s name carved with white lettering.

All black.

She saw other colors, of course. The green of the grass, and the gray of the sky. The light rain from earlier in the day left a mist in the air, curling up from the ground and disappearing all around her. A few people dared to wear shades of gray and even navy blues for the day instead of the standard black clothing that accompanied funerals. The silver bangles on her wrist jingled with her trembling, and it didn’t seem to matter how tight she held her child, the shaking didn’t relent.

If anything, it became worse.

How much longer could she hold it in?

How long would it be before she could breathe?

“Want me to take her?”

Cella looked to the side, peering through the black veil that hung down from the rim of her large hat, finding her mother trying to offer her a smile. It didn’t reach Jordyn’s wet eyes, and there in the glistening tears, she found her own reflection. She looked like her mother—soft-featured, round face, a small, sloped nose, high cheekbones, and full lips shaped like a curvy bow. All her sisters, the two of them, took after their mother whereas their brother, John, looked far more like their father.

Except right then, all Cella saw in the reflection was her sadness. How despite the fact that her eyes felt so dry, as though she’d cried far too many tears and couldn’t produce more, wetness still coated her cheeks. She found pain there.

Only pain.

“Cella?” her ma asked again.

She shook her head and tightened her hold on eight-month-old Tiffany when the baby squirmed a bit under her thin cotton blanket. Surely, the girl didn’t need a blanket in this August heat, but with the occasional rain and slight breeze, she didn’t want to take a chance. So, she wrapped her up.

Because that was the thing.

It didn’t matter her husband was dead.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to get out of bed.

That her heart broke.

She was empty.

Life had stopped.

None of that could matter to Cella when she was still a mother. Her child depended on her constantly. Sure, Tiffany didn’t understand why when she called out for Dada in the mornings, William wasn’t there to pull her from her crib for their daily routine, but she made do with her mother. No doubt, she thought her father would be back—he would never be back—but she still had her ma.

And that left Cella to do everything when all she wanted was to do nothing. Except life didn’t work that way. And this wasn’t Tiffany’s fault.

So, she put on her fake smile for her child day in and day out. She tried not to cry in front of her as much as she could, because then the baby would wipe away her mother’s tears, and nothing felt worse than that.

She kept on going. Moving forward. The world continued turning. It was just hers that felt dead now.

“Pretty girl,” Cella’s older sister, Liliana, said as she reached out to fluff the bottom of her pretty summer dress that had peeked out from beneath the blanket. “Just a few more minutes, Tiff, okay?”

She refused to put her daughter in black. Little Tiffany. Named for her father’s sister who had passed as a young girl from childhood cancer. With her head of golden curls that she took from her father, and big blue eyes she took from her mother—compliments of Cella’s own mother, Jordyn—Tiffany wore the brightest yellow dress Cella could find in her closet that would make anyone smile who looked at her. She even added a headband with a big yellow flower to the girl’s head.

Because God …

At least, she thought, if today couldn’t be a day that she smiled … then she wanted others to find a reason to do it. Her husband would have appreciated that. Respected it. Loved it, honestly. William, with his heart of gold and his easy disposition, always tried to make someone laugh first and foremost. He made friends easier than most, and it was hard not to want to be in his presence.

Everybody thinks lawyers are boring, he told her once, so I like to surprise people.

It was exactly why she fell in love with him.

Why she started this life with him.

And then someone took it away.

A handful of dirt was tossed into the hole in the ground, dragging Cella from her thoughts with a vicious intent. She was just close enough to the edge to be able to see her husband’s casket resting down below, yet another item that gleamed black that day.

Still so fucking black.

Like her heart, now.

She found it easier to stare at anything else except things with that color. It was why she missed the priest’s final words as her husband was laid to rest in his grave, and the reason for her distraction as people started flooding out of the graveyard. She heard their condolences, sure, saw their familiar faces as they stopped to give their sympathies before leaving, but it was all just background noise to her grief.

The pain lingered.

Even when she was alone.

More so when she wasn’t.

Still, she tried to thank people. She attempted to put on her brave face with each of their I’m so sorrys or the please call me if you need anything. The platitudes didn’t mean anything to her, but they made them feel better, she supposed.

And besides, this was their way.

The Marcello way.

Even when her soul felt like it was being ripped out of her chest, even if her husband’s young life had ended far too soon all because of the lifestyle all these people here today chose to live when William hadn’t even been a made man, she was a Marcello daughter at the end of the day.

A mafioso principessa. And so, she would smile like one. Say thank you like one. Die quietly inside like one.

Because there wasn’t a soul in this graveyard who cared to hear how Cella blamed them for this—for her heartache, and her daughter’s loss.

She never wanted to marry a made man. So, she didn’t. Her husband died anyway.

It taught her a lesson she wouldn’t forget: one couldn’t be not in with this life. There was no from a safe distance when it came to her family. She was who she was. And she sacrificed for it, too.

“Mrs. Gagnon? It’s Cella, right?”

Cella turned her attention away from the spot she’d been focusing on over the top of her daughter’s head to find yet another person had come to say goodbye and give his condolences. His face seemed familiar with all it’s strong, classically handsome lines, and his dark brown eyes only reflected empathy when he stared at her.

Another day, and she might have recognized him.

Today, she only said, “And who are you?”

“Marcus Guzzi—I came in place of my father to pay respects.”

Ah.

Another crime family. A Canadian one, this time. Funny how they all gathered at times like this.

“Well, thank you,” she whispered. “And it’s Marcello. Cella Marcello.”

She’d decided that if only because going back to her maiden name felt less painful than having to explain to each new person she met that her last name belonged to her dead husband.

Marcus nodded once. “My apologies. And my sympathies on your loss, as well.”

“Of course.”

Someone called the man’s name, and he was quick to give her an apologetic smile before stepping away. She might have watched him go, but her attention was back on the hole in the ground and her mind strayed to the man resting in his casket.

Here she was … twenty-five. A mother to one. Widowed and broken. Would it ever get better?

Not for a long fucking time.