Chapter 1
Luca Changretta clicked his tongue angrily and cursed under his breath. The tall, hawkish Italian-American sat in a high-backed chair behind the leather-topped desk in his hotel suite. He was examining the suit jacket he had been wearing earlier that day: there were several pulled threads in its immaculate pinstripe.
The mobster's latest run-in with the Shelbys had ended in a mad dash back to the automobile and he had apparently been sufficiently panicked enough to distress the stitching of his finest Italian suit.
Changretta looked up and barked at Matteo, his second, who was hovering dutifully by the door of his suite. "I need a seamstress."
"Alright, boss." He turned to go, before Changretta spoke again, an authoritative finger pointed at the other, thin tattoos peeking out of the white shirt sleeve cuffed up at his elbows.
"An Italian seamstress, mind. I don't want one of these fuckin' English seamstresses puttin' their ham hands all over my gear."
"We're in England, boss… " Matteo began hesitantly, attempting to point out the problem they were going to encounter if they needed to find a specifically Italian seamstress.
Changretta let out another Italian curse and slammed his hand on the desk forcefully in time with the next words he spoke. "Italian. Seamstress."
The other Italian American man tipped his hat hurriedly and disappeared out the door without further protest.
Later that day, Matteo, having (blessedly) successfully located an Italian seamstress, parked their automobile on the side of the street neatly and led Changretta at a smart pace down the sidewalk.
"Family?" Changretta asked, the usual lone toothpick rolling around the corner of his mouth artfully.
"Immigrants," Matteo replied as they walked, gripping the jacket that needed work tightly in his left hand. "Mangiameli, from Turin. Father runs a deli with his son, and the daughter, Talia, is a seamstress on the second floor with her mother's help. Just here."
Matteo raised a hand and pointed toward a storefront that was all windows, with the name 'Mangiameli's' printed above the door proudly.
After being directed upstairs by the senior shopkeep, Anthony Mangiameli, the pair of men came to a landing with one door open and one door closed. Through the open door, the Italian American men could see an elderly woman in a chair in the furthest corner beside a lit fireplace.
Pocketing the toothpick, stepping forward and rapping smartly on the doorframe, Luca Changretta announced himself by clearing his throat loudly.
Promptly, a petite brunette woman with dark brown eyes and a slightly startled expression appeared on the other side of the doorframe. She was wearing a cream day dress with the sleeves pushed up messily to her elbows, and Luca was amused to see there were no shoes on her feet.
"Good afternoon, miss. My name is Luca Changretta." He touched his hat genially before offering her his hand.
"This is my associate, Matteo. He's recommended you to me after some discussion with your father downstairs."
"I'm Talia Mangiameli." The young woman said levelly as she shook Changretta's hand, then Matteo's. "And this is my mother, Josephine." She indicated the elderly woman by the fireplace.
"We have company, Talia Maree, put your slippers on." The woman's mother chided her daughter reproachfully from where she sat, casting a curious eye across the two strangers but said nothing when both men tipped their hats in her direction.
The younger woman rushed to the other side of the room and put a worn pair of slippers on hurriedly. Luca found himself unable to look away from the English Italian woman whose entire appearance had struck him with a strong sense of the ethereal.
Talia then waved the pair of men over to a large work desk that ran the entire length of the far wall. It was laden with reams of material and reels of thread, with the main piece of equipment being a huge, old-fashioned overlocker.
"What can I help you with, Mr Changretta?" Talia stood dutifully next to a rack full of tagged clothing items currently in her care.
As Matteo began to explain his boss' request, Luca abruptly snatched the jacket out of his associate's hands, intent on drawing Talia's attention back to himself.
"I've pulled some lines in my suit jacket," Luca explained succinctly, moving forward and closing the space between himself and Talia with three paces. "Y'see?" He drawled, taking the opportunity to lean quite close to her under the pretence of showing her his damaged jacket.
"Let me take a look under some better light," Talia offered, outwardly completely unruffled by Changretta's imposing nature. The brunette took the jacket from the man swiftly, allowing her arm to brush against his for a second before turning away.
Luca watched the woman closely as she turned on the bright light positioned above the overlocker and turned her gaze to the stitching of his jacket.
"It has been pulled." She remarked quietly, running a pair of gentle fingers over the material. "I can certainly re-cast this for you, Mr Changretta, but it may take me a couple of days to source the right thread."
"I only want Italian thread." He intoned imperiously from where he still stood, hands positioned in front of him just so that his tattoos were on full display.
Talia had been attempting to keep her glances at Changretta fleeting, but his tattoos made it difficult for her to look away: they trailed out of his sleeves and onto his hands, and there was a large, ornate cross on the side of his neck. All this, coupled with the man's tall, domineering aura, hawkish face and beetle-black eyes, made the woman's skin crawl with something that she hadn't felt in a long time.
"I only use Italian thread." The seamstress countered coolly, head angling just the slightest amount from indignation. If he was expecting her to do a bad job on his suit jacket, she would prove him very, very wrong.
"Grazie, Miss Mangiameli. I look forward to callin' in again by the end of the week." Luca Changretta's beetle-black gaze was unwavering and slightly intoxicating, and Talia could only stare as he tipped his hat at her slowly, and then her mother, before exiting with Matteo close on his heels.
"He's handsome." Josephine Mangiameli commented as soon as Mr Changretta and his associate had left the room.
"Mama…" Talia remarked exasperatedly, still holding the sudden visitor's jacket in her hands. She turned away from her mother in an effort to hide how flustered Luca Changretta had left her. "You say that about every Italian man you see."
The older Mangiameli woman shrugged, unashamed at her desire to find her only daughter a good match: Talia was 26, and already widowed because of the War. It was time she married again.
"It doesn't matter how handsome he is," the younger woman said with a smile as she hung the jacket carefully on a hanger. "It only matters how good his money is. Isn't that right, Da?" Talia asked of her father as he entered the room completely unannounced.
"That's absolutely right, my darling," Anthony Mangiameli agreed, strolling over to the warmest corner of the room to rest his hands placatingly on his wife's shoulders. "Michael's with them now in the deli. Sounds like they've been missing real Italian food."
Author's Note: Please don't be mean to me lol there's just something about him, right? Also, I don't know any conversational Italian so apologies about the lack of legit Italian in here.