Late, very late, one night - Isabella had her driver take her to her father's home.  So late, in fact, she came over in jammies and slippers.  She couldn't sleep.  She probably should have gotten dressed... but the flannel pajammas and slippers seemed acceptable attire when she was coming to talk with her father and not the Godfather of the city.  Perhaps the change of clothing would make it clear to Salvatore that for once he could turn off that 'cool mother fucker' attitude of his and just be real with her for a little bit. 

Sometimes, Isabella hated to admit, it felt like the only time she ever saw the real face of her father was when she was taking (or had took) bullets for him.  In those rare times when she was looking at the reaper she could see the face of the boy her mother talked for hours and hours about in her youth.  Salvatore... not Lucky, was a warm human... but the man who had become Godfather was as unforgiving as the steel in his .45 - not that she could blame him.  She knew what this world was like now.  She knew why he wore it like armor... she wondered how often he took that armor off for Marie.  Did she have to be in danger to see it too?

The guard at the door took her into the living room and told her that he'd let Sal know she'd come.  Isabella sat down on the sofa and looked at the photo that Elie dropped during his celebration.  How young they both looked!  Babies really.  So innocent.  Sadly, not so much now.

Sal was working late at his desk. He was dressed in his suit pants and a white silk shirt that had the top couple of buttons undone. Tiny knocked on the door and informed him that his daughter was here to see him. Sal nodded to the man then put his cigarette out and grabbed his drink before heading out of his office and out to the living room. 

When he entered the living room he saw his daughter was dressed in her pajamas and he smiled. This wasn't business this was personal. Although he wasn't sure what it was about he was happy to have some quality time with her. 

Sal walked over to Isabella and kissed her on the top of her head before he sat down on the couch next to her. 

"What brings you by so late?" he asked her. 

She leaned into him and sighed.  "I miss being here.  I do like my place but your place feels like home now... even after everything."  She rubbed her ribs to make her point.  "I was hoping we could talk about mom and you for a bit?  I know that... it's odd what with Marie and you being married now and the baby coming, but maybe just this once?"  She looked up to him hopefully.

"I can't tell you how much it meant to me that you took care of her at the end.  She loved you ... so much."  She got a far away look in her eyes.  "Sometimes, I would dream about you rolling up in a black car with men in suits flanking you.  That you'd walk into the kitchen and tell mom she didn't have to work anymore and that she and I were coming to live with you in some great house on the ocean with a vineyard and horses."

"Silly what little girls dream about... but the way Mom talked about you, I always felt like you were there... even though you weren't.  It seemed as likely to me that you might one day come home for dinner as not.  I use to tell my friends at school that I had a dad and I made up stories about you.  It was pretty easy being that I was so far from home."  It occurred to her that she'd never told her father that part of her life, though she supposed he found out about her education when he looked into her after their first contact.

"Mom put every penny into sending me away to school... and I hated it.  I hated being sent across the United States to live at a school for so much of the year.  It was lonely and I fear I was always in terrible mischief.  I never understood the value of what she gave me until I was grown.  Until now to be honest."

Sal held his daughter as she talked. 

"I am sorry I was not there and that you had to make up stories. I wish I could have been there," he said to her. 

"And taking care of your mother, in the end, was the least I could do. I did care a lot about her."

Sal thought back about when he found out about his daughter and all the things he missed. He really wished he could of known and been there for Isabella. 

"I had a good life."  She admitted and showed the photo to Salvatore a photo of two little girls.  One was obviously a younger Isabella, just before she lost the cuteness of childhood and bloomed into a radiant Sicilian beauty.  The other girl, who also was Italian but had fairer hair, was a few years younger. 

"This is me at age 12, I think, with my very best friend in all the world... Eleonora.  She use to hate that name. I've always called her Elie.  I met her out in LA while I was in boarding school.  She made that place tollerable for me.  This wasn't long after we met actually.  I remember that day... God it had been unbearably hot.  I got out into town for an afternoon, skipping classes ... and shoplifting."  She chuckled.  "I was always acting out to show how angry I was at my lot in life."  She scoffed at her own foolishness.

"Elie saw me lift some rouge from a make-up counter and we were inseparable after that."  Isabella touches Elie's face fondly.  "She asked me if she could have something too - you know, if I'd steal it for her?  Well, I asked her where her mom was... I didn't need some little brat getting us caught."  She shook her head. 

"Elie was living at an orphanage back then... spent her whole young life in one.  Which probably would have been enough to have made me look out for the little scrub... being that she was only 8.  She needed someone who knew the streets to protect her."  She offered the photo to Salvatore.

"But... what really drew us together was something I always took as one hell of a twist of fate."  

On the back of the photo is some hastily written words as follows...  

Eleanora Luciano

Salvatore

Chicago

Detroit (Detroit is circled.)

Izzy and I are Sisters!!

She looked to her dad, "Her last name is Luciano... and I've long suspected that, make that prayed, that it wasn't chance which brought us together in LA.  That maybe there had been some purpose to it all."  She shrugs.  "She's here in town.  Came to your celebration to pay her respects actually.  She... she was the young girl who curtsied like she was meeting a king."  Isabella laughed.

"I can't remember mom having been pregnant again... but she says she tracked her birth records back to mom.  I told her I thought that was impossible but... I would have been four at the time so, maybe I didn't realize?" She arched an eyebrow at Salvatore.  "This... this could be a cruel attempt to hurt us on the part of our enemies.  Paperwork can be faked... but you would know the truth.  You would know if you saw my mother in September of 1914.  Maybe she never told me about it... of course she wouldn't, would she?  Especially if she did give up a second daughter - though it seems like madness." 

She turned herself to look at Salvatore who was looking at the photo still.  "I know that mom tracked you through the years, she use to talk about you all the time as if she knew how to find you if she had to and that turned out to be true when I came looking.  So... did she?  Did you and her ... ever...?"  It was hard asking this.  It would mean that her mother and father had been together while she was alive and old enough to have been known about.  It would mean her mother never told her father about her... it would mean she got pregnant a second time and suffered in silence as she gave up a baby for reasons Isabella couldn't fathom.  

For all the pain it might cause she hoped it was a lie.  That her father would dismiss it and say it was impossible.  And yet... for all the joy it might bring her, a real sister after all this time... she desperately hoped that it was true.

Sal sat and looked at the picture and thought to a time so long ago it might as well have been a different life. He had gone to NY for business and ran into Elena again. They had met and went to dinner and drinks. The night was like he never left and they did... 

"Another daughter?" he says to know one in particular. 

"I can't believe off that one night..." he says lost in thought. 

Isabella's mouth hangs open.  A barrage of thoughts race through her mind, some happy and some heartbreaking.  She was having a lot of self-pity in this moment, but her thoughts were broken by the look on her father's face.  The steel wasn't there... the armor protecting the man was shed as if it never existed at all and he was raw and honest and truly himself before her.

She could see the wonder in his eyes as he looked at Elie.  Who did he see in her face?  Some family member long forgotten?  Someone near and dear... surely not her mother, Isabella had her mother's looks of the two of them, but surly he could see his family in the young girl's face.  She realized then that her father wasn't here.  He was in New York, 18 years ago... in a place and time where her mother wasn't just alive, but likely more happy than she'd been in years!

The thought that her father had been with her mother while she was... God alone knew where... and that he never knew about her, well... it stung.  And yet, the thought of her mother laughing, dancing and ... well, OTHER THINGS with the only man she ever loved one last time?  The two of them, together after all the world had done to keep them apart?  Well, she really couldn't stay mad or selfishly sad about any of it. 

Her mother hadn't gone to the grave never having seen her father again... in fact, from the sound of things, she had one more night with him than Isabella ever knew about.  Apparently it was a blissful night, one where she pretended none of the past mattered.  Not the mob.  Not her family.  And... not Isabella herself.  Her saintly mother (God rest her soul) had one a small selfish streak after all, and it's name was Salvatore Luciano.

Isabella put her hand on her father's leg.  "I'm so happy ... not just about Elie but about you and Mom.  That she... that you both had more time together than I knew about.  I suspect it was memories of moments like that which kept her going through the rough times."

She leaned in and kissed his cheek.  "If you'd like to meet her, I can make that happen... when you're ready."

Sal was lost in that night back in NY when Isabella's touch pulled him back to the present. 

"Of course I would love to meet here," he says still dazed. 

"I want you to know. That night she found out what I did for a living. I think that is why she never told me about you." he says. 

"I also know that's why we never met up again. We loved each other but it would never of worked."

She whispered, "I know."  She took hold of his hand and squeezed it.  "This thing of ours ... it's not for people like her." Her voice was a bit sad but she forced a smile.  "She was too good for either of us."  She chuckled, but then her laugh faded.  Her mother might have been too good for a couple of criminals like her and her father - but what about Elie?  How could Elie ever come to grip with the fact that she had a father who never knew she lived and a mother who had chose to keep one daughter and sent the other away?  

"She's always wanted a father too and I know she's very excited to meet you.  She's... sweeter than I am.  She's got this way about her that's perpetually childlike... innocent almost.  I've never seen her commit a crime that hurt anyone.  I'm not sure that her getting mixed up in our endeavors is the best thing for her really - but she's here now and I don't think she'll leave us now that she knows she's got a family.  It's all she's ever wanted."

She drew a breath, "Not that I could bear to let her go.  She's as good a person as I've ever known.  I love her dearly and I know you will too, but ... we'll need to protect her.  Keep her safe from some of the... darker shit we have to do from time to time, you know?  That stuff... it's not for people like her.  In a lot of ways, maybe, she's like mom."

Sal smiled at his daughter. 

"so know lessons on getting information from people. or how to collect from someone not wanting to pay?" he asked her. 

He knew she was right and being protective. Although Sal had to figure out how to involve her in their lives. Marie him and Isabella where all in the life. Not like there was much else for her to do. 

"Maybe not... but she's not going away easily either.  Not now that she's found you."  She sighs.  "She was with one of the Ligambi men the other night.  I think she's rolling with some of their crew."

She shook her head.  "Not the sort of guys I want my kid sister in with.  I mean, I respect Uncle Joe, but those guys are high rollers and the women who usually spend time with them are NOT at all like Elie."  She wet her lips, she hoped Elie hadn't become like THAT. 

"Maybe, considering what you've just discovered... we could.. I don't know, maybe we could ask if she might be released to come home.  To her blood.  We can set her up with some legit businesses and maybe some basic stuff on the side.  Doctoring books... blue collar things.  Safe business.  That way she feels a part of the operation, but maybe she keeps out of the bloodier side of the family affairs?"

Thinks about it for a few. 

"How did she get tied up with the Ligambi's?" he asks her 

"I am not sure how we get them to let her come here to Detroit?" 

She shook her head.  "I got no idea... but I think I see where your head is on this."  She noticed then, as she began thinking about business, that her father's demeanor had shifted too.  This was a curious thing to feel and watch reflected back at her.  Were they so much alike?

"If the Ligambi family is using Elie... she has skills we don't know about, you think she's already a wise guy... not made, clearly, but she's no stranger to the work?"

Sal pulls out a cigarette and lights it taking a long drag and slowly letting out the smoke as he thinks. 

"Well I don't see us solving this tonight," he says 

"Why don't we get some sleep. I take it you will be staying in your room?" he asks her 

She gave her father a kiss.  "I'll see you in the morning Daddy."  After quick hug, Isabella went upstairs to sleep in her old bed, at least one more time.