Balance of Power, 30
How was it that in just a matter of minutes Sabrina found herself freshly off one plane and onto another? She kept her gaze focused on a shiny silver plaque just beside the emergency exit. Sabrina knew that if she didn't, she would unleash a scathing tirade about Michael Corleone and his willing henchman Thomas Hagen. Instead, Sabrina mentally reviewed every lesson she had ever learned from Cassandra DeLane or Roberto Texador. Two in particular kept playing in her mind.
Cassandra DeLane lived by a credo of detachment. Cassandra moved from man to man and the only injured feelings, she claimed, belonged to the empty shells that once were the men she drained dry. She constantly reminded her young daughter that there was nothing but heartache to be gained from emotional involvement. Her cardinal rule was ‘ never allow them to make you feel .'
Thankfully Roberto ‘Bobby' Texador came along with a credo that was a bit more realistic. Upon first hearing Sabrina dutifully recite her mother's most important lesson, Bobby shook his head in amused pity and then proceeded to give the teenaged girl her first true lesson of ‘the street'. “All your life your old lady has taught you never to let the other guy get under your skin. Well, sometimes,” Bobby insisted, “it ain't that easy. Even the toughest guy on earth loses his cool. What you got to do is make sure that when it happens, you don't let ‘em see it.”
Well, Michael Corleone and his henchman had gotten underneath her skin. Now Sabrina had to concentrate on making sure they didn't get satisfaction of watching her anger. There was no point in stewing angrily over the way things had gone down. Michael Corleone and company had succeeded in maneuvering Sabrina into a trip to Italy. The ball was now in her court.
Sabrina nearly smiled. It was time for her to regroup and begin making some plans of her own. She hadn't lived a lifetime on her own terms just to turn around and meekly surrender control of her life to Michael Corleone and his family.
Her gaze shifted across the plane's cabin to Tom Hagen. The powerful Corleone family lawyer stared impassively back at her. His face was devoid of expression and his eyes were unreadable. Sabrina fancifully compared his eyes to the deeply tinted car windows of a drug dealer's Cadillac – looking out was easy, looking in was impossible.
Sabrina arranged her beautiful features into a credible imitation of Tom Hagen's stoic expression. From that moment on she would fight fire with fire. Instinctively she sensed that the consequences of losing her fight for independence from the Corleone family would be far too dear a price to pay.