They Called Me Difficult, So I Left the Family Chapter 1

I've been a stickler for getting things right since I was a child.

Whenever anyone is vague, I keep asking questions until I get to the bottom of it.

At the children's home, the director used to say that the crying child gets the candy.

I asked, "Why doesn't the quiet child get any? Does a child have to cry to get candy?"

The director had nothing to say to that.

After I became a lawyer, my supervisor assigned me a case she claimed was guaranteed to win, despite there being no evidence.

I asked, "With no evidence at all, how can we possibly win?"

"That isn't for you to worry about. Just show up in court on time."

I put the file back on her desk. "If I can't get the full picture, I'm not taking this case."

After that, none of my colleagues dared dump another hopeless case on me.

That changed when my birth parents brought me home to the Rossi Family and threw a belated banquet to formally acknowledge me as their daughter.

Bruno, the butler, brought out a case.

Inside was a Browning pistol with the Rossi crest set into the grip.

"This is the keepsake the Rossi Family commissions for each of its children. Your three brothers each have one. So does Letitia."

My father took aim at a vase worth a million across the room and fired a test shot before sliding the pistol toward me. "Yours. "

I picked it up. Neither the magazine capacity nor the curve of the grip had been designed for my hand. I couldn't hold it securely.

I looked at him. "Father, was this made specifically for me?"

"Of course."

I lifted it again with my palm up so he could see the gap between my fingers and the grip.

"Then why was it designed for a hand smaller than mine?

"If I had to use this pistol in the field, the sharp edge at the base would snag when I changed magazines and cost me my best chance to fire."

I turned the pistol over so they could see the tiny letters engraved inside the chamber: L.L.

"More importantly, those are Letitia's initials."

I looked at Letitia. "Or did you swap mine out?"

* * *

Both sides of the long table went quiet.

Letitia bit her lip. "Fiore, you're Father's biological daughter. I thought the pistol should go to you. I thought you'd like it."

I asked her, "You didn't want this pistol because you aren't Father's biological daughter, so you shoved it off on me?"

The color went out of Letitia's face.

Vito, my eldest brother, frowned. "Fiore! Do you have to be like this? It's just a pistol. So what if Letitia switched them?"

I answered, "Maybe not. But Father said each pistol was custom-made. Why did I end up with Letitia's used one?

"If I accept this pistol and take it on an operation, then it jams during a reload and gets me killed, what's the real loss? My life, or the Family's reputation?"

Vito had no answer.

My mother stepped in to smooth things over. "That's enough, Fiore. Letitia was trying to be kind. Stop picking at every detail."

"I'm not picking at details." I looked at her. "Father said this is a Family keepsake and every child has one. Is that right?"

My mother nodded.

"Then why is Letitia's pistol in my case? If both of them are hers, where is mine?"

Letitia looked at me through her tears. "It's my fault.

"I'll go accept my punishment right now. I'll kneel in the courtyard until you're satisfied."

Her eyes red, Letitia shoved her chair back.

Perhaps she was too distraught. She caught her foot on a chair leg and struck her knee on the rug.

My mother jumped up and helped her to her feet. "Letitia, you aren't well. Don't get worked up."

Lorenzo, my second brother, planted himself protectively in front of her. Rocco, my third brother, rounded on me. "Happy now? You've ruined a perfectly good banquet."

I looked at them calmly. "All I did was ask for what belongs to me. How did that become my fault?"

Rocco's face darkened. "You know how sensitive she is about her place in this family. Why would you mock her for not being Father's biological daughter?"

I was confused. "I never mocked her. She's the one who said it. If she said it herself, why am I being blamed for it?"

Rocco opened his mouth, but no words came.

Letitia suddenly clutched her knee, her voice thick with tears.

"I'm sorry, Father, Mother. And I'm sorry to all three of you. This is all my fault. I shouldn't have come to the banquet.

"I'm not your biological daughter. I had no right to come. I'll leave right now."

She turned and limped away as though the fall had badly injured her.

My mother and all three brothers went after her.

My father sat at the end of the long table and gave me a heavy look. "Fiore, I'll have another pistol custom-made for you.

"Letitia may not be my blood, but she is a daughter I have raised for twenty years. You need to learn to get along with her instead of humiliating her in front of everyone!"

"I only wanted to know the truth," I said.

My father brought his hand down on the table. "Enough!"

I nodded. "All right."

He blinked.

In the year since I'd returned to the Rossi Family, this was the first time I hadn't pressed until I got an answer.