Soap opera

 

Chapter 1

 

Robert was sitting at the desk in his office, flipping through the last issue of Forbes magazine. He looked with wistful envy at the photos of the rich and famous.

His appearance was mediocre—today you might see him, the next day you will hardly remember. His oval face had a smallish straight nose, faded lips, and a distant gaze of brown eyes under cropped light-blond bangs. Yet he possessed a certain charm; he was able to make an impression on others.

An affirmed bachelor, Robert sometimes had close relations with women, but had no intention of marrying.

***

His parents were originally from Sicily. The mother was, as they say, a woman of the patriarchal nature. Melissa tried to raise her two sons with simple ideas about life, where there were God and the Devil, heaven and hell. She regularly went to church and brought her boys, Joseph and Robert, along.

Rough times awaited Melissa; first her husband disappeared without a trace under mysterious circumstances, and a year later her nineteen-year old son Joseph (her eldest) was shot. Her husband was never found (it was said that he was connected with the Italian mafia in New York and he was taken out by his own).While the son’s killer was quickly arrested, it turned out that Joe died for nothing, by mistake. At that fateful moment, he sat in a car with his drug-dealer friend, the bullet’s intended target.