Page 14 of Serendipity
But, if I refused to stay, what if I regretted it for the rest of my life?
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as we rounded the corner and entered a room with a long dining table. Plates and cutleries were already set up for two.
“Nothing and everything, you know?” I let go of his hand and walked toward the chair on the right side from the head of the table, and pulled it out, settling myself down. “I’m thinking about you, this, and how crazy it is even to think about staying.”
“But you are, thinking about staying?”
He sat at the head of the table, unfolded the napkin and placed it on his lap.
“I am, but I have questions.”
“Then ask.”
He seemed so sure, so convinced of this, and I hated that I couldn’t carry the same feelings.
A chef, clad in a white uniform and a black apron, entered the room, carrying two large platters, and approached the table, placing the covered dishes in front of us. He simply nodded at Nico and hurried out from the room, while Nico lifted the lids, revealing pastries and sunny-side eggs on the plate.
“Are you the boss of this, whatever this is?”
“I am,” he answered without hesitation, placing a couple of croissants on my plate. “And this thing, as you like to call it, is called the Mafia. I think that mynonnoturned in his grave every time you called our family business a gang.” He chuckled and took a bite of one of the croissants, looking straight at me.
“Nonno?”
“My grandfather.”
“Ah. And this, family business, does it involve killing people?” I wasn’t sure what my stance was on murder, and maybe my moral compass stopped working the moment I entered this world, but if innocent people didn’t suffer, I could ignore everything else.
“It does,Tesoro, butfamigliaworks with honor. We promise not to harm the innocent and helpless. Hell, half of mysoldatiwere homeless children when I found them and took them in. Most of them didn’t have families, didn’t have anywhere to go to. They were starved, beaten, almost dying.”
Dammit. When he put it like that, it was hard arguing with him about all the reasons why I shouldn’t stay.
“Okay. And what about children and women?”
“We don’t touch them,cara mia.”
“But you guys kidnapped me?”
“No, they thought they were kidnapping Alessia Morreti, who is nowhere near innocent. She’s been involved in racketeering, extortion, as well as human trafficking, and her father is even worse. So, innocent people are not the ones we are targeting. Am I a saint? Absolutely not. But I never claimed to be one. Am I involved in things that would make a regular man puke his guts out? Yes, I am. For my twelfth birthday, I got my first knife from my father, and I never looked back. And one day, when we have children—”
“The what?”
“Children,Tesoro. I believe that you’re familiar with the concept, or do I need to explain to you how it works?”
“I’m well aware how making children works, but—”
“Tesoro,” he murmured and took a hold of my hand placed on top of the table. “You are mine as much as I am yours. In my world, when you find somebody who makes your blood sing, and your heart soar, you never let them go. And yes, I do believe that if you stay with me, which I hope you will, that one day you will be my wife and mother to my children. So don’t look like I just told you that Santa isn’t real. I need you to understand that what I’m offering isn’t just a roll between the sheets, where I’m going to forget all about you, and you will hope never to see me again. I am offering you forever, and if you’ll have me, I’ll show you how beautiful life can be when two people love and care for each other.”
Was I about to cry? I was. I so fucking was.
He said all the right words, all the things I wanted to hear so many times, but that elation quickly dwindled down, taken over by fear and my own insecurities that were always there with me.
I pulled my hand away from his, placing them in my lap, and looked down at the chipped nail polish on my thumb.
“You don’t really know me, Nico. I mean, it wasn’t like we went on a couple of dates before you decided that you wanted to have me forever. Where I’m from, things like this never end up well. And I mean, I’m nothing special, you know. My life is boring. I talk too much, or I don’t talk at all. I have anxiety over the stupidest things, but I am extremely confident in the other ones where I’m supposed to have anxiety. I have no idea what I’m doing in my life, but I also know that what I’m doing right now isn’t all there’s supposed to be. And don’t get me started on the collection of useless information floating in my brain. That shit could give you a headache.”
He kept quiet for a moment, and I thought that this was it. This was where he was going to tell me that I was too much or too little—it was always one or another. Men were usually fascinated by my weirdness, at least for the first two or three dates, but when they figured out that my brain worked on a completely different wavelength, they distanced themselves until they would completely disappear, leaving me behind in the ashes of the future I thought I would be able to have.
“So, you want to talk about the Universe and creation,Tesoro? You want to talk about Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology and the poets from the time long forgotten? Do you want me to tell you that what you just expressed repulses me? Would that make you feel better?”
