Tempted By The Mafia Boss

Gabe

I race down the stairs taking them two at a time.

That woman… her presence…

I know I’m crazy but the presence… it felt like her and she looked like my girl.

Charlotte… but how?

I can’t imagine that it would be her and here.

I get to the dance floor and it’s the one fucking time I wish the place wasn’t packed because I can’t see for shit amongst this crowd. I rush over to the archways where she would have gone and I run into Nick and Mia out by the staircase kissing.

They’re here again tonight. Their babysitter must be loving them because these two are always out and look at them making out, like a pair of teenagers.

Mia gets that rosy expression on her face when she sees me and Nick has it too, like his doll’s rubbed off on him.

Fuck.

“Hey Gabe –” Nick starts but I cut in.

“There was a woman, long brown hair wearing a black dress and a gold mask. Did you see her? She would have come this way.” I blurt.

Nick furrows his brows. “Nope didn’t see her, but I’m probably the wrong person to ask.” He glances at Mia who flushes as he gives her a scandalous look.

Fucking prick. I’d grab him in his throat if his wife wasn’t in his presence and we’d probably end up fighting on the stairs. I just don’t want to embarrass him in front of his girl and I’m not in the mood to take a beating from my kid brother who gives as much as he’ll get from me if I decide to lose my shit on him.

So I don’t answer him.

“Gabe, come on man.” Nick smirks.

I don’t answer. I continue down the steps and of course I’m too late. There’s no one around and I was a whole two flights above her, she’s long gone. Whoever she was.

Fuck, I’m fucking losing my fucking mind.

Of course it’s not her.

But… what if it was?

I’m not in touch with her family. I didn’t go back after that encounter I had with Antonio. I didn’t go back because I knew if I did I’d end up killing her father. Seriously. That was my rage.

The man lost out on his business and so many lives were either taken or affected by what happened to him. I stopped factoring in long ago that the whole shit with his business wasn’t his fault.

To me it was, it was his fault that I lost Charlotte and I couldn’t go back in her family’s presence for fear of what I’d do.

I’m for damn sure tempted to go see her family now as I stand on the street side contemplating whether I saw Charlotte or if I am really losing my mind.

I manage to tamp down the idea but I lose sleep over it and find myself on the way to Salvatore’s place at the crack of dawn.

I can’t talk to Nick anymore because he annoys the shit out of me and Vincent is… Vincent is Vincent. It’s enough of an explanation.

Salvatore answers the door a few seconds after I ring the bell.

He’s as flashy as the rest of us but opted for a penthouse suite because he likes the view of the city. The rest of us guys have manor-style homes and mansions.

He lives like the bachelor he is and I can see I just caught him working out because all he’s wearing is a pair of sweatpants and his hair is damp. His chest is a mirror of my own with a Japanese dragon on the right side of his hip. We also have the Roman numeral ten on our left breast in memory of the day Frankie was killed.

It’s in memoriam to him.

“You look like shit. Don’t tell me you’ve been on a bender.” He scowls.

“I haven’t, Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with everybody on my ass and annoying the fuck out of me?” I hiss and walk in.

Of course my little remark has won me a glare from him because my answer was completely uncalled for.

“Okay, good morning to you too.” Salvatore shakes his head. “What happened?”

I’m about to answer when Mimi walks through the door from his bedroom wearing nothing but his shirt.

My mouth fucking drops wide open. She doesn’t say anything to either of us though. She just looks me up and down like she’s daring me to say something and continues her path into the kitchen.

I want to stop looking at her but find I can’t.

I’m not stupid. Far from it. Stupid didn’t get me anywhere in life and it won’t come to fuck me over now in this scenario by making me think there’s nothing going on here. I drag my eyes back to Salvatore who has that wild playboy smirk on his face. It grows wider when Mimi comes back out of the kitchen with a bag of Cheetos.

“Don’t worry I won’t dirty the bed,” she says in a nonchalant manner.

“Don’t worry baby, you can dirty that bed however you wish, just save some for me.” Salvatore replies but he’s looking at me.

Motherfucker, if he wasn’t my damn brother I’d shoot his fucking dick off right the fuck now. Right fucking now.

I’m stunned to shit, but brother or no I can still hand him his ass.

My hands fly to his throat and I shove him hard up against the wall he’s always so careful not to dirty up because of the specially imported wallpaper. He can go fuck himself with his fucking wallpaper today.

I messed with Mimi enough and I won’t allow him to do it too.

“Fucking prick!” I yell.

I’m not sure what pisses me off more, that my hands around his neck do nothing to him because the fucker looks unfazed in every essence of the word, or… that this fucker who is my brother is smiling at me and he knows how much I hate that.

The problem with all of us in the fucking family is we’re all alpha. So I should have expected his next move.

One hand clamps down on my arm and finds a pressure point. He presses hard into it and my hands come free from his neck. That allows him his next move which is to grab his guns from… wherever the fuck they come from. I don’t know how he whips them out so fast I don’t see where they came from, he just shoves them in my face, which is fine because I was ready for him with my own guns.

This is how we are and it may seem like crazy from hell or some nightmare world but it’s the only way we know the other is serious as fuck.

Pa pulled a shot gun on me once and I knew from then not to fuck with him.

Now I stand before Salvatore and he’s still fucking smiling because he knows I wouldn’t kill his ass but he knows that I know I’m not sure he won’t kill me.

“Damn you,” I hiss. “Damn you. I’ve done enough to her, why would you do this?”

“Do… what Gabriel?” He tilts his head to the side and regards me with crude eyes.

“You fucking around with Mimi.”

“Do I look like I’m fucking around with Mimi?” he challenges.

I open my mouth to answer him but she comes out again, stops when she sees our debacle, shakes her head and goes back to the kitchen.

“Yes,” I finally answer him.

He lowers his gun but the smirk is still on his face. “I’m not. We play poker.”

“And she wears your shirt after with nothing more?”

“Fuck you Gabe, I’m not you okay,” he hisses.

She comes back out of the kitchen and ignores the two of us. It’s when I see how he looks at her as she goes back into the bedroom that I lower my guns.

There was something in his stare that got me and I see instantly he’s right. He’s not me. I never looked at her like that.

“I’m not you but just once in our fucked up universe do I wish I could be you when it comes to her. Not the part of her that hates you though,” he confesses.

I swallow hard and shake my head. “You don’t want to be any part of me when it comes to her. Be you. It says a lot that she’s here.”

Because Mimi is as badass as the rest of us and there’s no way she would be padding around his place in his shirt the way she is if she didn’t have some type of feelings for him.

“Yeah?” The shine comes back to his eyes now and the craze from moments ago gone.

“Yeah.”

“So, what the hell brings you to my place at this time of the morning?”

I sigh and walk in, lowering onto his sofa. I rest my elbows on my knees and he joins me, sitting opposite in the arm chair.

“Is this about you going to The Caribbean? Have you come to some conclusion that it’s a bad idea?”

I frown. “You think it’s a bad idea?”

“No, it will just be strange without you. Not watching my back, or me watching your back, or having you pull guns on me every half second.”

“It’s not fucking every half second.”

“It was how you greeted me this morning so I’m inclined to think otherwise.” He chuckles and reaches over to the coffee table to pull a Cuban cigar from the little drawer on the side.

He offers me one but I don’t take it, don’t feel like it today.

“Salvatore,” I begin. I’m just going to cut to the chase and get into the reason I’m here. It’s the same reason I came to him and the same reason why I’ve always run my ideas past him first. “What would you say if I told you I think I saw Charlotte at The Dark Odyssey last night?”

His brows knit together and his eyes narrow. “Tell me more.”

I almost smile. This is why he’s different from everyone else.

“There was a woman looking up at me, long dark hair and … she looked like her, had on a mask but come on, it’s not that hard to distinguish someone in a mask you already know. She had that same… presence.” I run my hand over my beard realizing that actually sounds weird.

He lights up his cigar and draws in a breath.

“Go to her family Gabriel. It’s the only way you’ll know for sure. Calm yourself and go see her family. That’s the best advice I can give you. There’s no point sitting here and talking shit on whether it’s her or not.”

I bite the inside of my lip and nod.

Blowing out a ragged breath I get up, deciding the answer really is to go see her family.

“Thanks bro.” I glance at the bedroom door, thinking of Mimi. “You’re a better man than me.”

He shakes his head. “We’re the same kind of men, brother. You’ve just had your heart crushed and there was fuck all you could do. Makes people behave in different ways. Go … see if it’s her.”

I nod, appreciating his encouragement.

I can tell anyone now that it’s hard to walk up the path leading to the Revello’s drive and try to remain calm.

The angst that builds within me is like a war raging inside.

It’s a reminder of something I failed and worse, the life I knew my girl was going into.

I may have stayed the fuck away like I was warned but that didn’t stop me from doing what I could to see what info I could find about De Lucca’s place in Italy. What I did find was hardly worth anything to give me comfort.

He was listed as married to her, all a nice façade and that’s it, nothing more, which only left me to my deepest fears. Antonio De Lucca was a man who did not treat women well.

Married twice before Charlotte and both women were killed.

Bullet to the head.

Bullet to the chest.

I heard one said the wrong thing and lost him a business deal. I don’t know what happened to the other except that she was found in a church dead on Easter morning.

The man took wives as trophies and never married for love. Charlotte was taken for the debt payment. Whatever it was, was still bad and should have never happened to my girl.

I get to the door and ring the bell. In my head I’m thinking of all the scenarios that could play out here.

I dare not actually think what I want most though… that it’s her. I’m erring on the side of disappointment because that’s better than hoping and feeling disappointed after when I learn it’s not her.

Footsteps echo on the other side of the door. The lock clicks and then the door opens.

Cordelia stands before me with a wide eyed expression on her face, her thin gaunt face, and I notice her hair. It’s the kind you’d say something about – just acknowledge you noticed it. If this were years ago and she was playing nice on the rare occasion that she was nice and not trying to steal me away from Charlotte, I’d tell her, her hair looks nice.

However, today is today, and the look in her wide-eyed expression tells me something like it did that day ten years ago.

I look at her and I just know.

I just know the woman I saw last night was Charlotte.

Her lips part to say something but I’m already moving past her and going up the stairs.

Charlotte’s room was down the hall and the last one.

I almost fall over my feet as adrenaline takes over. I push forward and see the door open.

When I get to the entrance I stop short when I see the beautiful young woman standing by the long mirror holding a book.

Just like last night, long dark brown hair flows down her back. Those high cheek bones get me the same way they got me the first time I ever saw her. And those eyes. Warm like autumn and against her dark brown velvet hair they look striking.

It takes me a moment to realize I’m not fucking breathing, but I couldn’t care less if I don’t take another breath.

It’s her.

I move to her, my heart carrying me and I cup her face. Her beautiful, beautiful stunned face. Part of me wonder if this is another dream. If she’s real. Will she fade from before me in a few seconds like every other image I conjure of her.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

Her skin, her satin smooth skin feels real.

She’s real. Really here and I’m touching her.

It’s her.

It’s really Charlotte.

Her lips tremble and her hands shake, but we move to each other at the same time, moving in for the kiss we’ve both been starved of for the last ten years.