Married to the mafia King

Since we were already close to the old part of Florence, we decided to go back there for dinner and to discuss our next steps.

In our baseball caps and sunglasses, we blended in effortlessly with the thousands of tourists walking around. Natural camouflage.

As we looked for a restaurant, I was reminded once again that the old part of Florence really is beautiful.

You have medieval buildings looming over narrow streets…

Masterpieces of Renaissance sculpture around every corner…

Gorgeous public squares like the Piazza della Signoria…

Glorious structures like the Duomo, a massive domed cathedral and the most recognizable building in Florence…

The ancient bridges crossing the Arno river…

It all would’ve been terribly romantic if mafia hitmen weren’t hunting us.

We settled on a restaurant that looked good but was filled with tourists, which allowed us to hide in plain sight.

Adriano and I sat in a booth. He watched the doorway and had me watch the rear of the restaurant in case anyone suspicious came out through the kitchen.

“Tell me more about your father,” he said as we ate. He was having papardelle al cinghiale, or wild boar pasta; I was having tagliatelle funghi porcini e tartufo pasta with truffle and porcini mushrooms.

“What do you want to know?”

“More about his job besides the things he does with judges,” Adriano said euphemistically.

“I think he schedules court cases. That’s how he has so much access to the judges and lawyers he’s constantly contacting them with changes to the docket, so it’s no big deal for him to call them or drop by.”

“Would any of his co-workers know where he is?”

“I don’t even know any of them. He never hung out with them he only went to the gambling parlors. And when he tried to go straight, he would just come home to my mother.”

Suddenly I was overcome with fear. My eyes welled up with tears.

“What’s wrong?” Adriano asked.

“What if he’s already… gone? What if he’s buried out in the woods somewhere ”

Adriano grabbed my hand across the booth and squeezed it. “No. Don’t think like that.”

“But he’s only called me once. Why hasn’t he returned any of my calls or my texts?”

“Maybe he had to ditch his phone. Maybe he lost it. Maybe it got taken away from him.”

“But ”

“Bianca,” he said calmly. “We’re gonna find him.”

“How do you know?” I whispered.

I knew, deep down, that he didn’t know

But I desperately wanted hope, because all of mine was slipping away.

More than anything, I wanted him to tell me it was all going to be okay.

“Because it’s my number one mission,” he said then paused and raised an eyebrow like he’d changed his mind. “Well… number two.”

“What’s number one?” I asked in irritation, sure it would be something about his family business.

“Making sure nothing happens to you,” he said as he stared into my eyes.

I cried a little, but I smiled through my tears.

He smiled back the tiniest bit

And then his phone buzzed.

He pulled it out and read a text. Then he tapped the screen, and his face darkened.

“What?” I asked nervously.

“Niccolo sent me a link. The story hit the newspapers.”

He handed the phone to me.

COSA NOSTRA WAR?

There was a picture of a burnt-out mansion, a giant structure of blackened stone with a caved-in roof.

I scanned the article.

The fire claimed the life of Dominic Agrella, a notorious local figure linked to organized crime. Other victims were members of his family, including his wife Amelia and brother Bautiste. Police believe the fire was intentionally set.

Agrella’s brother Carmine also died last night, killed in the mass shooting at the Patrician Hotel.

The simultaneous nature of the deaths has led police to speculate they were the result of a war in the Cosa Nostra, and that rival families might be behind the murders.

“Your last name’s Rosolini, right?” I asked.

I remembered it from the notification on my phone when Adriano sent me the 5000 euros for Emma.

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t mention you guys. That’s good, right?”

“Not really. They wouldn’t dare name us until they have proof. They’d be too scared.”

“But they pretty much say the Agrellas were in the mafia.”

“Because they’re dead,” Adriano said drily. “So there’s nobody left to sue them or firebomb their offices.”

“Maybe they don’t know your family’s involved.”

“The police know. And they’ll be banging on our door before you know it.”

“I thought you… had friends in the police,” I said, employing my own euphemistic phrasing.

“We do, but it only goes so far. Something like this can’t be swept under the rug… which makes me think that when they didn’t get us last night, they resorted to Plan B.”

“What’s Plan B?”

“Pinning it on us.”

“…oh…”

I handed the phone back and Adriano put it away. Then he sighed.

“Fuck this. Let’s forget all about it for a while and talk about something else.”

“Just a guy and a girl out on a date?” I asked with a smile.

He smiled back. “Just a guy and a girl out on a date.”

Adriano

Other than the hot-as-hell sex last night…

Talking with Bianca was the nicest evening I’d had as far back as I could remember.

She told me she saw The Devil Wears Prada on DVD when she was eight years old, and that it made her want to be a fashion designer.

“It was Meryl Streep’s speech about cerulean blue that did it,” Bianca said with a huge smile.

“Haven’t seen it,” I said wryly.

“Let me guess: you only watch The Godfather,” she teased me.

“Don’t knock The Godfather. What’s the speech?”

“Anne Hathaway is wearing this blue sweater, and she kind of dismisses fashion… and Meryl Streep says what she doesn’t know is that the sweater isn’t blue, it’s cerulean… and that Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns, and then Yves Saint Laurent did cerulean jackets after that, and then eight other different designers used cerulean in their collections… and millions of dollars and tons of jobs were created by Oscar de la Renta’s work… and that everybody is affected by fashion, even when they don’t realize it, because it all filters down to the clothes that everyday people wear. I wanted that… I wanted to do something that people would think is beautiful and that would end up influencing everybody without them knowing it.”

“You decided that at eight years old?” I said, impressed.

She laughed a beautiful sound. “I even learned to sew because I wanted to make ‘evening gowns’ out of my neighbor’s old curtains they left out in the trash.”

“Seriously?”

She suddenly looked embarrassed. “I know… it’s kind of dumb…”

“It’s not dumb, it’s awesome. I never had a choice growing up. It was just assumed I was going to go into the family business, and I never even questioned it. You had a dream at eight years old, and here you are making it a reality. That’s pretty fucking amazing.”

She looked up at me shyly. “…you think so?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“But… the odds of me ever getting to that level…”

“Yeah, well, I know this much: Oscar de la Renta didn’t pop out of the womb designing cerulean blue dresses. He started just like you did like you’re doing right now.”

She sighed. “Yeah, but it’s hard.”

“No doubt.”

“Part of me doesn’t ever think it’s going to happen.”

I shrugged. “After all this is over, maybe I can hook you up with some people.”All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

She stared at me. “You know people in the fashion industry?!”

“I know people who know people. I’m sure I could call in a favor or two.”

“You’d… do that for me?”

I laughed. “Babe compared to you risking your life to help me out, a couple of phone calls is nothing. It’s the absolute least I could do.”

“Yeah, but… it’s more like you’re helping me out right now. Finding my dad, I mean.”

“We’re helping each other.”

Her expression was like the sun came out from behind the clouds.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m gonna take care of you.”

And I meant it, 100%.

“What about me taking care of you, though?” she asked.

“You took care of me plenty last night and this morning.”

“Mm,” she murmured as she bit her lip, which was sexy as hell. “I’d love to take care of you right now.”

I grinned. “When we get out of here.”

“To be honest, though, you took care of me more than I took care of you. I mean, you ‘took care’ of me over… and over… and over… and over again,” she said in a sexy little purr.

“I’ll take care you of you some more when we get back home.”

I was starting to get a little hot and bothered

When suddenly things took a turn for the serious.

She averted her eyes when she asked, “When was the last girlfriend you had?”

I answered honestly: “Never.”

She looked up in surprise. “What?! You’re joking.”

“Nope. Not if you mean anything longer than a couple of weeks.”

She looked a little concerned. “Why didn’t anything last?”

That one took a little explaining.

In my early 20s, my life had been a constant parade of women.

The problem with that was they all wanted something:

Money…

Gifts…

Or access to power.

Usually all three.

They wanted to be the girl that drove around with the mafioso in a Ferrari. They wanted to be seen.

They wanted to lounge around all day, go shopping for $10, 000 handbags, and then have me fly them to Ibiza for a weekend of drugs and booze.

That shit gets old fast.

Yeah, the chicks enjoyed the sex… and some of them had actually been pretty good in the sack. I’d hooked up with a few of them from time to time.

But they all wanted something from me.

They didn’t want me.

Not really.

And when you’ve got a limitless supply of hot chicks in your life, why settle for just one?

But that had been my early 20s.

Now that I was 28, I was tired of the party lifestyle.

And with everything that had happened since my father died, I had no time for women who wanted to fuck me for what they could get out of me.

Honestly, my patience for it was down to zero…

Now that I’d seen what Dario had with Alessandra.

She was a good girl… a good person.

Beautiful, yes…

But she was with Dario because she wanted him.

In fact, she was totally uneasy with the whole Cosa Nostra thing.

If she could have ditched the mafioso lifestyle including the money and the mansion and just moved with Dario out to some shack in the middle of nowhere, I think she would have jumped at the chance.

That was the kind of woman I wanted.

Now that I’d seen it firsthand, I hungered for it.

And it felt like there was an empty hole where that part of my life should be.

Fucking a bunch of women was like taking shots lined up on a bar:

Fun for a while…

But the next morning, you have a hell of a hangover and nothing to show for it.

I wanted something that would last.

“Well?” Bianca prodded me again.

“Partly because I was fucked up… and partly because I kept going for fucked-up women,” I finally answered.

She raised an eyebrow. “What’s a ‘fucked-up woman’?”

“The kind who wants to be with a guy because he’s in my line of business.”

“Oh,” she said and made a little face. “Yeah, I can see that. But… what kind of woman do you want?”

I just stared at her and thought,

A woman who’s got a sharp little tongue that keeps me on my toes.

A woman who’s beautiful on the outside…

But has an even MORE beautiful soul deep down.

A woman who’s amazing in bed…

But who only sleeps with me because she wants me to fuck her, not because of what I can buy her.

A woman who knows what loyalty is… and who would risk her life to save the people she loves.

A woman who looks like you.

Of course, I didn’t say any of that.

I just kept it simple:

“Ride or die,” I said.

Bianca nodded thoughtfully. “That’s not just something you say, is it. That’s actually a thing for you… because you don’t know what might happen tomorrow.”

“None of us does,” I said quietly.

“No,” she said and smiled sadly. “None of us does.”