Mob Princess - Tess DiRosa's Story
Copyright© 2025 by Argon
Chapter 1: Crossroads
The sound of the air pump was muted enough and the hot water was soothing for her sore muscles. Tess DiRosa leaned back in the Jacuzzi tub and let the water jets and the air bubbles work their magic on her body while the excitement of the day ebbed away. Three hours earlier, at the Dojo, Master Ryoki Tanaka, 4th Dan, had formally awarded her the black belt and skirt — the hakama — of the 1st Dan in Aikido. She had performed a kata for him with a real katana, which she now had the right to use, and the event closed with a tea ceremony performed by Tess’s 2nd Dan sensei.
Even more than her college graduation a week before, this ceremony ended a distinct phase of her life. Come the fall, she would finally move out of the Victorian town house in the Powelton Village neighborhood of Philadelphia where she had grown up. She and her brother Joseph – Joey – would keep the house, but like Joey, she would move away. Joey was still working on his PhD at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and she, Tess, was headed for law school at Cornell University in Ithaka, NY. She’d had offers from other schools, but Cornell was relatively close to home and to what was left of her family.
Her last name – DiRosa – still rang the chimes in law enforcement circles and in the upper echelons of organized crime. Her great uncle, Vincent DiRosa, now approaching eighty years, was supposed to be one of the last Cosa Nostra capos, or Dons, and her cousin Felix, the old man’s grandson, was rumored to be the Numero Uno Martello, the Nº1 hammer or chief enforcer, of the DiRosa syndicate.
Seven years earlier, a group of misguided Albanian thugs had thought it a good idea to assassinate Tess’s parents to send a message to Don Vincente. Tess and her brother had been caught in the bullet hail. Tess suffered partial palsy for the better part of a year from a glancing head shot that had caused a cerebral hemorrhage. Joey had fared even worse, catching three slugs in his chest when he had thrown himself over his little sister.
The siblings had overcome the injuries and caught on with their lives. Joey was married to his high school sweetheart Deirdre, another science geek, albeit one with a harrowing history herself. Tess had associated a little more with her great uncle and her cousin, and she would follow the old man’s suggestion to aim for law school, expecting a role within the DiRosa organization.
The DiRosa empire, the legitimate part at least, was huge and varied. Construction companies, a drug store chain, car dealerships, a security firm, and many other enterprises were all run by close and distant relatives. By a conservative estimate, Vincent DiRosa was a billionaire or very close to it. Somewhere in that huge conglomerate, there would be a worthwhile job for Teresa DiRosa J.D., Attorney at Law.
During the last years, she had already interned at a prestigious Philadelphia law firm, getting to know contract law, tax law, and family law. This summer, she would intern with Maureen Darling, the litigation partner in the firm. This would be interesting. Firstly, Maureen was family. She was Joey’s mother-in-law. Even weirder, she was the mother of Joey’s daughter after a brief fling when Deirdre had left Joey for all intents and purposes. To complicate things even further, Maureen was openly lesbian and living with a female police sergeant. Apart from this muddled family situation, Maureen was a top notch litigator who had made a name for herself as a fearsome prosecutor in the District Attorney’s office. Now on the other side of the courtrooms, she was known to reduce young prosecutors to tears. Tess expected to have fun with her.
She relaxed further now, just floating in the hot water and trying to envision her future. She would receive a top-notch education at Cornell. Normally, graduating from an Ivy League School, she would be recruited by the top law firms in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. Chances were however that her choices would be very limited. Uncle Vincent would plan her early career to fit his interests. That was okay with Tess. It was part of the deal she had struck with him in those dark days, six years ago, when her brother Joey had to pledge himself to their great uncle.
Joey’s sweetheart Deirdre had been kidnapped by a pair of drug-crazed dealers, and the connections and resources of the DiRosa had been the only hope to get the girl back alive. Even that was achieved only barely so, with Deirdre suffering through a three-day rape orgy that left her an agoraphobic and recluse for years thereafter. Joey had planned to be a microbiologist, but being pledged to his uncle in return for Deirdre’s rescue, he resigned himself to following whatever course of education the old man saw fit.
It was then that Tess made her plea to their great uncle. She offered herself instead of her brother, offered her allegiance and loyalty, and her future. She did it because she owed Joey her life. He had caught the slugs that would have killed her. Now it was her turn. She also felt attracted to a life in the DiRosa organization. The power, the wealth, the thrill, all that seemed like the life she wanted to lead. That was her real reason to enter the martial arts. That was why she tended to hang with the qualified men on family holidays, picking up their language and trying to fit in.
She had no regrets. Felix would follow Don Vincente, and she would be his loyal side kick. She and Felix were great friends anyway. She suspected that to be part of the innermost circle of the DiRosa organization she would have to make her bones one day, to be the hammer during a hit. She was uncertain how that would play out. She hoped that she would not chicken out.
She never learned the real facts about it, but she strongly suspected that her brother had gone through this grim initiation six years before. The dealers who had abducted Deirdre disappeared off the face of the earth after the ransom drop, and their bodies were recovered four years later near the Mexican border. Joey had disappeared during the night after Deirdre’s rescue, and when he returned the next morning, he was shaky and pale. For days, Tess slept in his bed to hold him and to give him comfort. He never talked about that night, and Tess never asked him, but she was certain that it was he who put two rounds each into the heads of the two rapists. It was also obvious from the respect senior family members showed him afterwards that he had done so a bella figura, like a true DiRosa.
Tess was curious whether Deirdre knew. Her sister-in-law had been a sheltered girl and shy, the original miss-goody-two-shoes. Somehow, Tess could not see how she could deal with the truth. Then again, it was right after the bodies of her rapists had been recovered from the desert sand, when she flew down to Texas to view the corpses. It must have been quite a scene. From what Tess heard later, shy, soft-spoken Deirdre had called the mummified cadavers every bad name in the book, and she even spit on their shriveled-up genitals. Tess had a hunch that Deirdre had learned about Joey’s role. Only weeks later, the two were back together, and the entire family had to fly down to Las Vegas where an impromptu wedding was held.
All that would have been impossible had her uncle held Joey to their bargain, and Tess felt good about freeing her brother from that obligation.
Lifting up her hand she saw that her finger berries were starting to wrinkle up, and with a sigh, she switched off the jets and stood up. With quick, precise movements she dried herself and put on her pajamas. She covered the Jacuzzi and went upstairs where she vegged out on the big sofa watching a re-run of an old movie. During a commercial she got up and prepared a cup of hot chocolate, and then she fell asleep and never woke up before the morning.
The sofa was comfortable, and Tess felt no ill effects from falling asleep in the living room. In the kitchen she started the coffee maker and went upstairs to repair her hair. She kept it in two wiry, black braids most of the time, and this day was no different. Once she was dressed, she had a bagel with her coffee before she hopped into her Mini Cooper for the drive to her great uncle’s place. This was where she spent most of her weekends. Even when she had to study, she often did that somewhere in Vincent Di Rosa’s large mansion.
The old man received her in his study and she gave him an affectionate hug and kiss.
“Good morning, Uncle Vincent!” she beamed.
“Ah, Teresa, how is my little flower?” Uncle Vincent smiled back.
His voice was still strong for one so old, and his body was thin but erect.
“I received the First Dan yesterday.”
He smiled politely. The martial arts were not something in which he took much interest.
“You must be proud of yourself, Teresa. I know that I am. To think how Joseph had to push you around in a wheelchair back then ... You have come a long way. So, you will start your internship with Maureen next week?”
“Yes. I’m looking forward to seeing her in action,” Tess grinned.
“Learn from her, Teresa. Here is a woman who made her way against all odds.”
“Hey, I know that. We’re really good friends. So, what’s up today?”
“Nothing, Teresa. Just a weekend spent in peace. Felix is in San Francisco, but Gabriella will come over with the children.”
“Cool. What’s up in San Francisco?”
“Felix and Peter will sign a distribution deal with a local drug store chain. They want a franchise deal with Certus.”
“Oh,” Tess uttered not even trying to mask her disinterest.