Married to the Mafia Heir, Working Three Jobs to Survive

Donna Isotta Balestri has spent forty years building an empire from a food cart outside the Newark docks, and she rules the family's docks and nightclubs with an iron hand. Her son Leonzio, the heir, cannot run the business, and his wife Nelia Venn seems to repay the Donna's generosity with nothing but coldness and a table of cabbage on Thanksgiving.

When Isotta raises her hand to strike her daughter-in-law, she suddenly hears Nelia's thoughts: the house and car were financed, the promised monthly allowance never arrives, and Nelia works nights to pay it all off. Isotta begins to see the sunburned neck, the split cuticles, the red mark of packing straps, and to question who has truly been living off her money.

As Leonzio hurries to explain away his wife's silence, Isotta must decide what the family name is really worth.