DARK KING

A MAFIA ROMANCE
SOPHIA REED
 CONTENTS

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1. Willow
2. Alessandro
3. Willow
4. Alessandro
5. Willow
6. Alessandro
7. Willow
8. Alessandro
9. Willow
10. Alessandro
11. Willow
12. Alessandro
13. Willow
14. Alessandro
15. Willow
16. Alessandro
17. Willow
18. Alessandro
19. Willow
20. Alessandro
21. Willow
22. Alessandro
23. Willow
24. Alessandro
Epilogue
A Message To My Readers
Other Books By The Author
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I’m on the verge of bringing an international drug cartel to its knees.

But... Cole’s irresistible body
brings me down to mine.
I’m an undercover narcotics officer,
 and my job means everything to me.
But Cole’s become an even bigger obsession.
He’s a billionaire. A powerful CEO.
His bulging biceps make my brains melt.
Cole sees the darkness within me.
My own drug addiction.
And he’s the only one who can find me a cure.
Can Cole really save me?
Or will he be my ultimate destruction?
 SYNOPSIS

He’s part of the same family that’s responsible for my father being in
prison.
So, why do I feel such love for him?

Alessandro and I were together as teenagers

before the pressure of being raised
by a mob family got to me.
I needed to move away from the house
to get my life back.
That also meant leaving Alessandro behind.
He begged me to stay, and I asked him
to come with me.
Years have gone by since I’ve seen him.
Now, fate is bringing us back.
And a big decision is on the table.

Can I fit into his family and accept a life of crime?

Or will be hold my hand and agree to start afresh?
 1

WILLOW

“B abe, you’re going to look so good in that dress,” Sasha said to

me, holding up one of the cute white numbers I’d picked out for
my trip. “Like, seriously, those boys won’t be able to take their eyes off
you.”
I sighed, grabbing the dress out of her hand. Maybe I should leave this
one at home, I thought, not wanting to draw any more attention to myself as
it was. This was already going to be a not-so-happy homecoming for me,
and the last thing I needed was the attention of the Varasso brothers.
“I told you, that’s not the plan, Sasha.”
I was on edge, but I couldn’t help it—it’d been years since I’d seen the
Varassos, Philly’s biggest and most undetectable mafia family, and I wasn’t
exactly looking forward to the reunion.
“Besides, I’m going there to see my brother and to pay my respects to
my grandpa,” I said, the last bit giving me pause. I loved my grandpa with
all of my heart, and it pained me that I hadn’t seen him in several years, but
I pushed through the pain and continued packing. Now wasn’t the time for
tears.
Sasha heaved a sigh and scooted closer to me on my queen-sized bed.
“Listen, I know that. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get you to feel a little
better,” she said, gripping my hand.
 She gave it a brief squeeze before returning to her perch on my pink
duvet cover, looking cute as ever with her long blonde hair and blue eyes.
We could have been twins if it weren’t for my own brown hair, but
everyone said we looked related anyway. I gave her outfit a once-over,
straightening her perfect blouse, before winking at her.
“I do know how to dress you and me, it’s true,” I said, trying to break
the tension a little.
“You’re not the number one fashion buyer in L.A. for no reason,” she
said, smoothing out her hair.
“And you’re not the best dressed A-lister on the red carpet for no
reason.” I winked at her again, smiling a little.
Sasha had been my best friend since college when I’d moved across the
country to get away from the very people I was going to see in only a few
short hours. She was also one of Hollywood’s fastest-growing movie stars
under thirty, and we’d been inseparable since that first night we’d met
watching the school’s performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That
night, she knew she wanted to study acting, and I knew I wanted to be in
fashion. The performers’ killer costumes had completely done it for me, and
I hadn’t looked back since.
Still, feelings of fear and dread filled me as I continued to pack while
Sasha updated her Instagram. The black dress I folded into my suitcase
matched my mood aptly—somber yet fashionable, as always. The Varasso
family was the whole reason I’d decided to move to L.A. in the first place. I
thought back about the night my father was arrested. He’d been an integral
part of the Varasso’s well-oiled machine. We weren’t exactly family, but we
were as close as someone outside of the clan could get. I’d spent all my
time with the brothers growing up, and we’d grown close. That is until my
dad was arrested, and I learned what he was really doing for the family. The
police had offered him a deal—give up the names of his employers, and
they’d free him, or he could rot in jail. Little did I know, it was their plan all
along to put him in jail. My own father had chosen the Varassos over his
actual family, and for that, I’d never forgiven him. He could stay in prison
for all I cared.
My grandfather’s death did pose a few problems, though, namely,
Allesandro Varasso. We hadn’t parted on the best terms. My brain liked to
play a fun game where it would randomly remind me of the feeling of his
fingers laced in mine, or the soft caress of his lips. My heart yearned for it,
even though it wasn’t good for me. It’d been the love of a lifetime, and I
hadn’t been with anyone since. He was so much a part of the mafia lifestyle
that it’d eventually driven a wedge between us after my father was
imprisoned. I grew to hate the family, even Alessandro, and we’d broken
things off when I told him it was either them or me. He’d chosen what I’d
already known he would; blood runs thicker than water, especially for a
Varasso.
“So, you’re going to see this mysterious Alessandro you always talk
about,” Sasha said, pulling me from my revelry. When I didn’t respond, she
continued, “A mafia prince. Is it anything like the movies?”
I snorted, closing my suitcase. “It’s worse,” I said. “They’re killers,
Sasha, and fiercely loyal, which means they probably won’t be too happy to
see me after I left.”
“But Alessandro will be happy to see you,” she said hopefully.
I raised a brow and shrugged. “I doubt it. Hopefully, he won’t even
notice I’m there. I missed his father’s funeral last year anyway. He probably
wants me dead,” I said, only half-joking. “Besides, I’m going to be
spending all of my time with Ricky.”
Ricky was my twin brother and a thriving defense attorney in Philly, at
least, he would be if he wasn’t dedicated to being the Varasso’s personal
lawyer. He was still living with my mom, something he claimed he was
doing to keep her company and not for him, but I knew the truth. They led a
comfortable, healthy life, and the only thing I was even mildly grateful to
the Varassos for was continuing to fund my family’s luxurious lifestyle.
They owed my father a life debt, after all, and they paid out their noses for
it through my mom’s lavish spending. Still, it wasn’t like they couldn’t
afford it. I was, however, proud of myself for getting away from them and
out from under their thumb. I’d made a nice name for myself in L.A., and I
didn’t intend to ever go back.
“Tell the kid I say hi,” Sasha said before scooting off the bed. She
walked over to the full-length mirror in my room and took a selfie, posing
like the most expert of celebrities.
I walked over to her and posed with her for one, watching as she added
it to her Instagram story. I continued to pull the image up several times for
comfort over the next day as I trudged through the airport to catch my flight
back to Philly. Any time I passed an exit or even a window that I felt like I
could successfully jump through, I considered leaving and not going back
to Philly. If it weren’t for my brother’s near incessant texts, telling me how
much he missed me and couldn’t wait to see me, I probably would have
leaned into my better judgment. I loved my family dearly, but there was
nothing for me in Philly, and it didn’t take a psychic to know that going
back, even if only for a few days, was going to bring me nothing but
trouble. Through my flight and even as I walked through the familiar PHL
airport, I wished that the world would open up and swallow me whole.
“Willow!”
I turned in the direction of the overjoyed voice that beckoned me almost
as soon as I stepped out of the airport. My eyes sifted through the crowd
until they landed on Ricky. He was waving excitedly and nearly glowing.
He’d beefed up since the last time I saw him. He now stood just over six
feet, and the new lifting regimen he was always going on about had done its
work.
“Hey!” he shouted.
 I couldn’t stop myself from rushing toward him. I loved that little, or
now large, kid. We’d always been close. I wished every single day that I
could protect him from the Varassos, but he was committed to being
involved with them, like my dad.
I threw myself into a huge hug, and he lifted me off the ground. He
smelled of wood chips and cologne that was probably cheaper than what he
could afford. It was comforting and made me slightly less upset to be home.
“Aw. I missed you!” The words left my lips without my command.
“I missed you, too.” He set me down. “You look great. L.A. has been
good to you.”
“It’s an amazing city, Ricky. You’d love it.” Ricky grabbed my bags and
started to approach a luxurious, army-green Ford Expedition. “Whoa. Is this
your car?”
Ricky chuckled. “Yeah. My law school graduation present from Mom.”
Translation, a graduation present from the Varassos.
“Wow,” I said. “I certainly never got anything this nice.”
Ricky scoffed. “Yeah, because you refused to accept anything from her.
Whose fault is that?” He loaded my bag into the truck and rushed back to
the passenger’s side door to open it for me.
I walked over and stood in the opening. “I don’t—”
“I know, I know. You don’t accept anything from the Varassos, I get it.”
He kissed on my cheek. “In you go.”
I climbed into the car and had to admit I was impressed. From the high-
tech LED panel that sat in the center console to the glowing neon green
lights that underlit the lining of the interior, it was a gorgeous car, all
decked out in Ricky’s favorite color. I suppose my mom could be a mom
when she wanted to. Ricky made his way over to and slid into the driver’s
side, and then we were off. He expertly navigated through the menus on the
screen until he got to a selection of music, but he didn’t blast it, which let
me know I wasn’t getting through the car ride without some uncomfy
questions.
“Mom’s excited to see you,” Ricky started.
“Yeah. It’ll be nice to see her.” It wasn’t entirely the truth. I loved my
mom, but ever since my dad went to prison, she stopped being the mother I
knew. “How’s she doing?”
Ricky shrugged. “You know mom. She’s a mess. Her latest buying habit
is birds.”
I looked over at him with wide eyes. “Birds? Like living, winged
creatures?”
Ricky nodded. “Yes. Stupid expensive. These really rare, exotic ones.
She has a fucking toucan.”
My jaw dropped. “The Fruit Loops bird?”
“That’s exactly what I said!” Ricky laughed, and when his laugh faded,
so did all joy in his face. “You know, she doesn’t know herself anymore. If
she isn’t spending money, she doesn’t know what to do.”
I thought of my mother, who used to love to garden and sew and read.
Even though my family had been supported by the Varassos for most of my
life, she was a whole person before my dad met them. She had hobbies,
interests, and even a dream of becoming a professional writer. When my
dad started bringing in six figures, she slowly started to change into this
trophy wife, and then when he went to prison, and she started getting the
Varassos’ weekly anti-snitch stimulus checks, she turned into a woman who
only knew how to be rich. Vila Moretti didn’t exist anymore, only the
Varasso’s lap dog.
Ricky put a hand on my head. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have brought
it up. I guess you’ll see for yourself.”
“No, thanks for the heads up. The fewer surprises I have during this trip,
the better.”
“Then I guess I should also mention that Angelo died. Last year. A hit.”
 I nodded. I wasn’t a monster, even if my trust in almost anyone was
paper-thin. I kept tabs on the people who took care of my mother and
brother, if for no reason other than to make sure my own family was safe.
“Yeah, I heard. I suppose the boys are probably pretty upset with me. I
didn’t reach out to any of them to pay my respects. I thought about sending
flowers to the funeral, but I figured it was best to stay gone.”
Ricky shook his head. “I haven’t heard, but I know Sandro has already
mentioned he wants to see you. He’ll be at the funeral.”
I let out a moan of disappointment. I was hoping that wasn’t the case.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Pop Pop loved Sandro like his own kid, and
that’s not on me. You were the one who brought him over all the time,
telling Pop Pop that Sandro was the man that was going to take care of
you.”
Point taken and fault accepted. “Still.”
“He wouldn’t miss it for the world, even if he wasn’t looking for an
opportunity to see you.”
My heart did a backflip at the thought. Deep down, I wanted to see him
too, but I wouldn’t allow myself to fall back into him again. He made his
choice—when I said we were done, I meant it. “Well, you can tell him not
to expect much. He turned his back on me the day I left for college, so I
turned my back on him. I’ll be cordial because this is about Pop Pop and
not me or Alessandro, but I don’t have anything to say to him. Not him or
the rest of his underhanded family.”
 2

ALESSANDRO

S ometimes, when I stood in my dad’s old office, staring out at the huge,
verdant green yard, I liked to pretend that he was going to walk
through the double cherrywood doors, his square jaw, curly brown hair, and
deep brown eyes an elder depiction of my own. I’d stand at attention and
greet him as sir, and then we would both chuckle at the formality of it all. I
fiddled with the rings on my fingers, the ones he’d left me in his will, trying
to imagine what he’d say if he saw them barely hanging on to my much
more slender fingers compared to the sausages he had.
“At least if you’re gonna wear ‘em, make sure they fit. Only my
bonehead kid would walk around with rings that don’t fucking fit.”
I chuckled at his phantom voice ringing through my head. “Got it, Pa.
I’ll grow into ‘em.”
“You gonna go see Willow with rings falling off your fingers? She’ll
take one look at you and laugh her ass off.”
I nodded. “I know, Pa. I’m good.”
Willow. My eyes landed on the stone fountain in the middle of the
courtyard below, the one my dad had erected in the image of my mom as an
angel. It was the last place I’d looked into Willow’s beautiful, blue eyes. I
had no idea when she asked me to meet that day that she was going to tell
me she was leaving for California, and I either had to leave my family
behind and go with her or lose her for good. I loved her more than myself.
Why couldn’t that have been enough?
“You thinking about Dad or Willow?” Luca’s voice sliced into my
thoughts.
I snickered. “Yeah.” I turned around to face him. “You’re late.”
Luca waved his hand through the air and then situated himself behind
my dad’s—I suppose now his—large marble-topped mahogany desk.
“Whatever. What have you got going on?”
It didn’t usually bother me that Luca was late because he’d always had a
shit grasp of time, but it did bother me that he acted as if his time was more
valuable than mine. He was usually the one setting the meeting times. The
least he could do was be there when he expected himself to be. I chose not
to bring it up. Our relationship was cordial at best. He was my brother, and
I’d lay down my life for him, but as people, we didn’t often see eye to eye.
We just saw the world through different lenses. Before my dad’s passing, I
wouldn’t have even described us as friends, but ever since he took over the
business and admitted to me that he needed my help to do it, we came
around to the idea of at least pretending to like each other.
“How are things going at the border?” I asked, walking over and
dropping down into one of the chocolate leather chairs on the other side of
the desk.
“Better than ever. With Mol on the case, you wouldn’t guess it was the
same operation that was running there a year ago.” He had a small smirk on
his face, ever prideful of his wife.
“She’s a badass, I’ll give her that.”
Molly was Luca’s wife and the head of our drug-running operation. She
came into the family by accident, having earned the wrath of my father, but
Luca took an interest in her and groomed her to work for us. Eventually,
Luca fell for her, and the rest was history.
 “More than that.” He glanced at the picture he had on the desk of Molly
and his kids and then looked back at me. “Anyway. How are things at the
restaurant?”
Ever since my brother, Marco, got arrested and turned state’s witness
with the broad he knocked up, Luca, my half-brother Gabriel, and I were
working overtime keeping things afloat. It was good that we had Molly, and
she knew how to carry her weight, but the load was weighing on all of us.
Right before Marco left, he’d purchased a restaurant to run through and
launder money, and it had, of course, fallen directly under the watch of the
police after Marco got caught.
“I turned the burner off for now. The only thing being washed there
right now is dishes.”
It was actually one of Marco’s better purchases. It was a busy place with
a lot of traffic. It was easy to get stuff in and out without drawing attention,
and no one there was interested in going to the police about anything, only
getting their food and moving on. I had plans to continue our work there
once things had simmered down, but it was too dangerous for now.
“Still, do a few drive-bys a day, huh?” Luca said. “Make sure things are
operating smoothly, no traces left behind. You know the drill.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I can’t tomorrow, though. I have Alder’s funeral.”
Alder Morietti was Ricky and Willow’s grandfather and a man I’d grown to
respect in the time that Willow and I were dating. He passed away recently,
which was bringing Willow home for the first time in almost six years.
“That’s right, that’s tomorrow isn’t it? I’ll have some flowers sent over.”
“Molly already did it,” I said, and Luca looked up at me with a smile.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s great.”
“So, you’re gonna see Willow then?”
I nodded. “Probably. I mean, I anticipate we’ll cross paths at the funeral,
but I don’t know how much interacting we’ll do. I doubt she wants to see
me.”
 “You probably should stay away from her anyway. She did turn her
back on us.”
“That’s not what she did.”
“That is what she did.” Luca laced his hands together. “She told you to
pick between us or her, and when you didn’t pick her, she dropped you like
a bad habit.”
“Luca, I swear to god—”
Luca held up a hand. “Relax. I’m not gonna hurt her, and neither is
anyone else. Even if she refuses to acknowledge everything we’ve done for
her family, she’s still protected thanks to her dad. All I’m saying is you
can’t be a part of the organization and then cut ties. That’s not how it
works.”
“She wasn’t part of the organization.” I couldn’t quite figure out why I
was so staunchly defending Willow when, at the end of the day, Luca was
right. “She was only her father’s daughter. She didn’t have any choice over
being involved, and as soon as she became a legal adult, she left. She hasn’t
taken a cent from us since. There were no ties to cut.”
Luca held up his hands. “Fair enough. I’ll drop it.”
“Thanks.”
I was tempted by my shoulder angel to say something else. To apologize
to Luca and make sure that he understood that, just like six years ago, when
it was a choice between my family and Willow, there was no choice, but
before I could get a word out, there was a knock at the office door.
“Come in!” Luca called.
The door opened, and Gabriel poked his head inside. “Hey. Uh, can I
come in?”
Luca shrugged his shoulders. “That would be why I said to come in.’”
Gabriel took a deep breath and entered the office. Like always, he was
dressed in a full suit, despite only being around the family house. It was a
bad habit all the Varasso boys shared. One we’d inherited from our old man.
He smiled at me, and I smiled back. As far as brothers go, he and I were the
closest. Luca mirrored my mom’s resentment for him as a result of my
father’s infidelity, and Marco wasn’t awful to him, but he was simply closer
to Luca. I was still pretty young at the time that he showed up, and my dad
always told me that blood was blood, it didn’t matter the quantity. I didn’t
see Gabriel as a half-brother. I saw him as my brother.
“Hey, Sandro,” he greeted. “Luca.”
Luca nodded his head. “Hey, Gabe.”
He sat down in the other leather chair next to me in front of Luca’s
desk. “I finished getting things cleaned up at the docks. We shouldn’t have
any problems there.”
Luca nodded. “And what about downtown?”
“Um.”
“Jesus Christ,” Luca barked. “Quit it with this lackadaisical shit and talk
like a man!”
Luca picked at Gabriel; we all knew that. He was way tougher on him
than he would ever be on Marco or me, and it was worse because Gabriel
was only a little puppy vying for Luca’s approval. Gabriel was always
trying to put his best foot forward in the business, but when it came right
down to it, this world wasn’t for him, and Luca knew that. Luca, like my
dad, believed that once you were in, you were always in, but we would
probably pay for involving Gabriel in the underground parts of our lives one
day. Not because Gabriel meant to mess it up, but simply because he wasn’t
a dark person. The thing my dad loved most about Gabriel was his heart.
Dad said it was good that Gabriel didn’t inherit, as the rest of us had, his
cold, steely resolve, and it was true. Gabriel wasn’t a man who dealt in
finalities. It was much more Gabriel’s preference to make people happy. He
should be off enjoying being young, not trying to deal with all of the
family’s shadows.
 “Sorry.” Gabriel took a gulp. “They didn’t really take me too seriously
downtown.”
Luca scoffed and Gabriel sat up straight in his chair, waving his hands
around nervously. “I told them everything you told me to, that if they didn’t
listen, then you were gonna go down there next, and they didn’t want that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did you say it like you did just now?”
Gabriel looked at me. “N-not exactly like that.”
“You need to have more confidence.” I slammed a fist on the arm of my
chair. “Fucking do it, or the next one who comes down here is gonna be the
boss, and I don’t think you wanna make him disrupt his day for this piddly
shit.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Yeah. They probably would have been more
likely to listen to something like that.”
Luca looked at me, and I held a hand up. “I’ll go before the funeral
tomorrow.”
“Take him with you,” Luca demanded and then shifted his gaze to
Gabriel. “You really need to step it up. We’re already down, and I’m not
going to be dragging a floundering fish along.”
Gabriel nodded. “Yes, Luca.” He looked over at me. “I was planning to
go with you to the funeral anyway, so…”
I nodded and put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Yeah. It’ll be fine.”
“You’re going?” Luca hissed. “Why?”
“Well, funerals are never easy, and I know Sandro will need some
support.” Gabriel sat back in his chair and relaxed again a little. “Are you
not going?”
Luca pulled a cigar out of the top drawer of his desk and nestled it
between his fingers but didn’t light it. “No, why would I need to go? I think
I met the man once at a Christmas party.”
“You’re the head of the household now,” Gabriel explained. “I think that
you should be there. For visibility. Visibility was always important to dad,
so—”
Luca slammed his hand on the desk. “Don’t tell me what you think my
dad would do. I know what he would do. He would do whatever he thought
was best as the head of the household. I’m head of the household and the
organization now, so I will do whatever I think is best.” His voice got lower
and more menacing. “Do you have a problem with that, Gabe?”
Gabriel shook his head. “No.”
Luca looked at me, and I rolled my eyes. “Do what you want, Boss.”
 3

WILLOW

I was barely maintaining my emotions as I filed into the packed chapel.

Getting closer to the casket at the head of the pulpit was like forcing
two negative magnets against each other. The nearer I got, the further away
I wanted to be. I looked across the pews and saw that Ricky had situated
himself next to two of the Varasso brothers, Gabriel and, the one I was most
nervous to see, Alessandro. Just looking at Alessandro’s back gave me
chills. I wanted to believe that I was more equipped to be close to him
again, but all of a sudden, I would rather get closer to the casket.
“Willy!”
I scanned the crowd to the other side of the chapel and saw one of my
distant cousins, Hannah, waving her hand in my direction. She was actually
a cousin of my mother’s, but she was fairly close to me in age. When we
were little girls, we spent a lot of time together, but once my family got
mixed up with the Varassos, we stopped interacting with most of my
parents’ extended families altogether.
“The Varassos are our family,” my father would say, as though believing
it cemented it in stone. They aren’t my family, dad.
I sifted through the group until I was at the pew where Hannah was
sitting. I filed over to the spot next to her and sat beside her.
 “Wow, it’s been so long!” She raked her fingers through her long brown
hair. “It feels weird. This is supposed to be a somber thing, but I’ve been
feeling excited all day to see you.”
Call me an asshole, I hadn’t thought of Hannah once in fifteen years.
“Pop Pop would want us to be happy.” I wrapped my arm around her
shoulders and gave her a hug. “It’s good to see you, Hannah.”
Next to her, a man turned and looked at me with a smile. He had blond
hair that had been pulled back into a bun and had a goatee that had been
shaved down, likely for the occasion. He nodded at me, and Hannah put her
hand on his knee.
“This is my husband, Eddie.” She smiled at him, holding out a hand
toward me. “This is my cousin, technically my second cousin, Willow.”
Eddie stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Willow. I’ve heard great
things.”
I took Eddie’s hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you, as well.”
Hannah looked at me. “Where’s your boyfriend?” She clasped her hands
over her mouth. “Or are you two married now?”
“Um,” my eyes darted over to where Alessandro was sitting and then
back to Hannah. “What?”
“I know that Pop Pop hadn’t been well for a while, but the last time I
spoke to him, he told me that you had a boyfriend that you were crazy
about. He said that he would for sure be part of the family one day.”
My grandfather suffered from dementia near the end of his life. It
wasn’t shocking to hear that he’d clung to the last few memories he had of
me before he passed on. I had seen him one last time before I left for
college, but it was before I went to see Alessandro, resulting in our breakup.
I didn’t double back to tell my poor, elderly grandfather that I’d broken up
with the only one of my friends he’d ever actually liked. In truth, I was too
heartbroken at the time and couldn’t have faced it regardless.
“We’re not together anymore.”
 Hannah’s face went downtrodden. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.” I glanced over at Alessandro again. “Me too.”
The pastor officiating my grandfather’s funeral made his way up onto
the stage. He cleared his throat, and the murmur in the chapel hushed.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” the people lining the pews responded.
“We are here to celebrate the life of Alder Celestino Morietti, a
legendary man in body, and a walking summer’s day in spirit.” There were
varying sounds of affirmations. “Just before Alder saw his final day…”
I did my best to check out as the pastor went on. It wasn’t that I didn’t
care about the words he had to say, but I hated showing emotions in any
situation. I’d already bawled over dinner with Ricky the night before and
didn’t want to do too much more than that. They’d talked me into saying a
few words about my grandfather, so I focused my energy on preparing
myself for that. At one point, Hannah reached over and took my hand in
hers and held on tightly. I smiled at her, deciding to be amicable, but I
desperately wanted to pull my hand away. Call it not wanting to show
weakness, call it not appreciating an emotional connection to someone else,
I didn’t enjoy being doted on.
Soon enough, Ricky was up on stage, sobbing his way through a
touching eulogy to Pop Pop, complete with pictures and heartwarming
stories. There weren’t many remaining dry eyes as he got to the end of his
speech and turned his gaze to me.
“I know we probably can’t take much more time, but there were few
people Pop Pop loved more than my beautiful sister, Willow, and she has a
few things she would like to say as well.”
Hannah squeezed my hand and mouthed good luck at me, then let go. I
took a massive breath in and held it as I stood up, scooted my way out of
the pew, and walked up onto the raised stage. I stood in front of the pulpit.
Apart from the miscellaneous sniffles and huffs of people trying to quell
their emotions, the chapel was totally quiet, and all eyes were on me. I let
out the breath I had been holding, and as Ricky attempted to climb off the
stage, I reached out and grabbed his wrist and held him in place. He
returned to standing right next to me and put his hand on my back.
“Um.” I felt like I was going to throw up. “I’m not much of a public
speaker.” Everyone looking back at me offered a light chuckle, even though
I was being dead serious. “When I was thirteen, I lost my dad.” I knew
there were people associated with the Varassos and even two of the brothers
in the crowd, so I didn’t go into detail. “When I needed someone to come
around and give me the confidence to face my first day of high school, I
called my grandfather. When someone had to come around and threaten my
first boyfriend to be good to me or else, I called my grandfather.”
My eyes betrayed my intentions and landed on Alessandro,
remembering the lanky, overconfident teenage boy cowering beneath my
grandfather’s stern gaze before leaving for our first date. Alessandro gave
me a warm smile, and it broke my heart all over again. I shifted my gaze
away from him without giving a smile in return. I was stumbling already,
barely managing to stay on the tightrope I was walking.
“He was unlike any man that I’d ever met in my life or any man I
anticipate I ever will meet. He taught Ricky and me how to be people that
the world would enjoy, and even though he’s gone now, he will always be
with us.”
I could feel emotions starting to well up in my throat and burn at my
nose, so I stepped back from the microphone. Ricky patted my back as we
climbed off the stage, and then I made my way back toward where I had
been sitting next to Hannah. As I walked, I passed my mother, who reached
out a hand. I looked at it and then at her. I wouldn’t say my mom and I were
on good terms. She believed that the decision my father made was a good
one, and had graciously accepted the Varasso’s hush money since then. That
notwithstanding, everyone was looking at us, waiting for an emotional
connection between a mother and daughter during a relative’s funeral. I
reached out and grabbed her hand, and she smiled at me and kissed the back
of my hand. I nodded at her, gently pulled my hand from hers, and scuttled
back over to my seat. I sat down and slunk as low as I could in the pew.
When is this going to be over?
When the service ended, I slyly slid outside and called myself a
rideshare to get from the chapel to my grandmother’s estate for the
visitation. I didn’t want to have to deal with this experience anymore, but
my grandmother was older than grandfather and was exhausted from her
grief and putting together the funeral, so I was committed to keeping my
promise to mingle and keep the visitation afloat with Ricky’s help.
I was standing at the door, welcoming people in when Ricky’s truck
pulled up, and he climbed out along with Gabriel and Alessandro. I
despised how good Alessandro looked. He was wearing a crisp black suit
and had his hair grease-slicked back over his head as opposed to the curly-
all-over way he typically wore it. His eyes landed on me instantly, and even
though I didn’t want to bear my neck, I had no choice. I turned my back to
him and threaded into the sea of visitors, hoping to lose myself inside of the
throng.
I spent the next hour playing the weirdest game of chess I’d ever
engaged in. I was trying to avoid my more talkative family members while
staying away from Alessandro at the same time, also while trying to make
sure my grandmother was doing okay. I talked to more people in an hour
than I had spoken to willingly within the past ten years. I sat and smiled
through tales of my youth that I didn’t recognize interspersed with stories of
who my grandfather was before he was my Pop Pop. I had to do stuff I’d
never considered doing, like keeping track of hors d’oeuvres and thanking
people whose first names I didn’t even know for coming and showing my
family kindness. I watched my mom’s eyes get progressively wider each
time someone handed my grandmother a check, knowing that she was next
in line for their estate, and it disgusted me the way she was emanating one
down, one to go.
“You know I’m not gonna let her do that, right?” I looked up from my
cucumber and turkey bite and saw Ricky standing next to me with a beer in
his hand. “Mom with grandma.”
I’d been avoiding Ricky as a result of trying to stay away from
Alessandro and didn’t realize how nice he looked. He, too, was in a suit, but
a dark blue, pinstripe suit with a gray shirt under it and a matching pocket
square. His hair was typical, messy, and hanging around his head despite
the patchy presence of grease being a clue of his attempt to do something
nice with it. It was oddly comforting for a bit of his usual self to be peeking
through his formal facade. Even throughout the years and dealing with the
Varassos, he managed to hang onto himself.
I popped in the rest of my bite and shrugged. “You can’t really stop it,
can you?”
“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m the best lawyer in Philly.” He
slapped on his signature crooked smile. “I’m gonna convince grandma to
put the rest of their estate in a formalized will, attaching most of it to a bond
in mom’s and our names with restrictions that not more than a certain dollar
amount can be pulled at any time. We’re gonna meet about it after she’s
recovered from all of this a little bit.”
“Wow. That’s a great idea. Can she donate some of it, too? I know she’d
like that.”
“That’s an awesome idea.” Ricky pulled out his phone, made a note to
himself, and then put it away. “You should join us.”
“If I have any say over it, I’ll be back in California by then,” I retorted.
Ricky grumbled. “You can’t stay longer?”
I had intentionally refrained from booking a flight home just yet on the
unlikely chance that I’d need to stay longer than the weekend. I knew Ricky
had a good handle on making sure my grandparents’ affairs were well
sorted legally, but he wasn’t good at the emotional support stuff. I had
marginal faith in my mother to make sure my grandmother was doing okay,
but only because she’d be spending the rest of my grandmother’s life
buttering her up to get the biggest chunk of her will. I had to hope that
Ricky really could make sure she couldn’t gigolo her way into my
grandma’s pocket. As long as she seemed to be doing well emotionally and
Ricky was confident that he could deal with the estate, I’d like to be on a
flight home within forty-eight hours.
I looked over at Ricky. “Come on. I mean, you know I don’t want to be
here.”
“You can’t keep running from us,” Ricky said. “Me, mom, the Varassos.
Being in California doesn’t make this not part of your past. No one’s asking
you to do any of the work, but whether you like it or not, we all love you
and are always going to be a part of your life.”
He raised his eyebrow at me, looked directly into my eyes to cement his
statement, and then turned and walked away, leaving me dumbstruck and
frustrated. I didn’t ask for any of this, so why would I accept it? I wasn’t
running from anything, I was only not acknowledging something that had
never existed for me. That didn’t make me a bad person, it made me a
realist.
“He’s right, you know.” I jumped a little, sick of people sneaking up on
me. I turned around and my heart sank. Standing there with a pair of
champagne glasses, one outstretched toward me, was Alessandro. “Looks
like I finally cornered you.”
 4

ALESSANDRO

I immediately hated the words as they left my mouth. I wasn’t attempting

to corner Willow, per se, but it was clear she’d been avoiding me all
afternoon. I didn’t have any intentions of trying to convince her to take me
back or anything, but I knew I owed her an apology for more than a couple
of things, and I didn’t know how long I had to give them to her.
It was partly my fault that coming back to Philadelphia made her so
uncomfortable when that should have been the last thing on her mind while
she was trying to celebrate her grandfather’s life. Willow and her
grandfather had always been close. Just as she had said during her farewell
words at the funeral, he’d become a surrogate father to her after her dad
went to jail to protect my family. Back when we broke up and she tried to
get me to pick between her and the life, I’d taken it personally. She knew
what family meant to me, meant to all of us. How could she suggest that I
leave it all behind for one silly relationship? I was angry at her for a long
time, but once my dad died, everything shifted into perspective. She’d lost
her dad, too, and it was worse because her dad had a choice in the matter.
I’d reject that life, too.
Willow took the glass of champagne from my hand, and I was taken
aback at how much more stunning she looked than what I remembered. I’d
convinced myself that six years hadn’t been that much time and that
people’s appearances don’t change that drastically after they graduate from
high school, but it was as if I was looking at an entirely new person. Her
cerulean eyes still sparkled like a sea in sunrise, and her freckle peppered
cheeks still puffed out slightly more than the rest of her slender face, but
she stood with a new level of confidence that I didn’t recognize at all. She
was wearing a black dress that flared out from the waist and ended below
her knees. Her dark brown, layered hair framed her face perfectly, and she
had a set of small, white pearls dangling from her neck.
How is she so beautiful? I thought to myself.
The only thing worse than how unbelievable she looked was how she
was looking at me with the same heartbroken expression she’d looked at me
with the day we parted ways. There was no anger, no malice, only an
expression tapped straight from the tree of disappointment, like she couldn’t
believe, after everything we’d been through, that I’d let her down.
“Sorry,” I said immediately. “I know you’re busy, and I know you
probably don’t want to talk to me.”
Willow shifted uncomfortably. “I have to mingle.”
She disappeared in the blink of an eye into the throngs of people
ambling their way around the estate. Strike one. I might have expected it
wasn’t going to be that easy. Funerals weren’t easy already. I of all people
should know. I hated funerals and everything they stood for. Not including
the fact that when you’re an active member of an underground organization,
funerals were typically par for the course, I’d had to attend both of my
parents’ funerals in the past ten years, and that was two too many times for
any person. I distinctly remembered when I lost my mom, Willow was with
me every step of the way. We hadn’t yet admitted to having any feelings for
one another, but even then, I think I knew. I remember panicking and not
knowing how to handle the hundreds of people walking up to me, hugging
me, kissing me, apologizing to me, offering me condolences in every shape,
form, and fashion; I was overwhelmed.
 Willow walked up to me, grabbed my hand, and held it. She didn’t say a
word, and she didn’t try to push me to do one thing or the other. She simply
and silently said, “I’m here for you.” It cracked the hard shell I’d built
around me and made me realize that Willow had always been my rock. I
was a scarecrow, and she was the rod holding me up. I never would have
made it through that without her.
When my dad died, it made me feel like a piece of crap that I almost
missed her more than I missed him. I would absent-mindedly hold out my
hand, expecting her to grab it the same way she did the first time. To stand
next to me unwaveringly and be my rod, but she wasn’t there, and I had no
one to blame for that but myself.
I made my way over to where Gabriel was being a wallflower near the
door and stood next to him.
“Swing and a miss, huh?” he asked.
“She needs some time.” I was hoping that was true. My heart was still
racing in my chest. Even after six years, I was still head over heels.
“Maybe you should kidnap her.” Gabriel started laughing like he’d
made a groundbreaking joke, but all I could think about was Luca giving
him a right hook and Molly giving him a left. His face went fearful in an
instant. “Don’t tell Luca I said that.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to watch him murder you, so I’m not going to tell
him the joke you made about him and his wife.”
Anytime Willow made eye contact with me, I lifted a hand and gave her
a smile. I wished I could do the same thing for her that she did for me
during my mother’s funeral. I could see in her eyes that she was stressed,
and she didn’t stress easily. I watched as she walked over to one of the
waiters and started to engage in conversation with him. Eventually, the
conversation got tenser and tenser, and their voices slowly started to get
louder and louder.
I walked over to where they were arguing and stood next to Willow.
 “Look around you,” Willow barked. “Does it look like I only expected
fifty people? I said five-hundred!”
“I have a copy of all the paperwork, including what your grandmother
signed, and it says fifty,” the waiter responded, waving a paper in her face.
“When you first walked in here and saw that there were clearly more
than fifty people here, why wouldn’t you say something? You expected all
of these people to split fifty hors d’oeuvres?”
The waiter took a menacing step toward Willow. “Look.”
I stepped forward, pulling my shoulders back, and imposing my entire
six-foot form. “I really suggest you calm down.”
The waiter receded a bit. “Um, sir…”
Willow stuck out an arm. “It’s fine, Sandro, I’ve got it.”
My skin prickled as my name left her lips, and I stood down as she
asked. “What can I do to help?”
Willow shook her head. “I don’t need your—I don’t need help.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled, just enough to pull her gaze over to me.
“Let me help you like you helped me.”
I looked into Willow’s eyes and could see her processing my request.
She glanced over at Ricky, who was standing dead center in a group of
fifteen people, and then looked back at me. “The catering company only
brought fifty hors d’oeuvres for this entire group of people.”
“You only ordered—” I shot the waiter a look and he shut up instantly.
“I don’t know what to do. People are starving, and there’s supposed to
be more than enough.”
I motioned toward her grandmother. “Go, be with your grandma. I’ll
take care of it.” Willow looked conflicted. I rolled my eyes. “I won’t use my
gun. I won’t use my wallet.”
Next to me, I saw the waiter rigidify. I wouldn’t use my gun, but it
wouldn’t hurt if he knew that I had one.
Willow looked at him and then back at me. “Promise.”
 I squeezed her hand, still clasped in mine. “I promise, Will.”
She hesitated for a moment, and I had to bite back a smile as I watched
her eyes scan me up and down. Eventually, she pulled her hand from mine.
She ran a hand through her hair, her nervous tell, and then twirled and made
her way toward her grandmother.
As soon as she was out of sight, I locked eyes with Gabriel and nodded
him over. He started to make his way across the room as I turned to face the
waiter.
“So listen, what’s it gonna take to get the appropriate amount of food
here?”
The waiter’s eyes were darting all around until Gabriel closed in on
him, standing over him with his arms crossed. “S-sirs, it’s not possible. We
only brought enough food to prepare the ordered quan—”
Gabriel cracked his neck to one side. “Uh-oh. You’re about to tell him
no, aren’t you?”
The waiter eyed Gabriel nervously. “Um.”
Gabriel leaned in, his awkward, non-intimidating demeanor playing
perfectly into our tactic. “He doesn’t like being told no. Especially when it
comes to that woman. Trust me, bud. You’re gonna wanna get some food
here immediately.”
The waiter exchanged glances between Gabriel and me, with beads of
sweat dripping down his face. “L-let m-me see what I c-c-can do.”
I tapped him on the shoulder. “Good man.”
Within fifteen minutes, a pack of waiters, similarly dressed to the one
I’d spoken to, were walking into the manor with trays of food in their
hands, more than enough to feed the people present at the visitation.
I approached the head waiter and put my hand on his shoulder, and he
jumped. “See? You were more than capable of getting it here. Great job.
How much is this gonna run us?”
 “Um, my boss sent over a copy of the original invoice, which does show
charges for five-hundred people.” I was fully expecting the waiter to pee in
place at any moment. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I gave him one of my signature, menacing smiles. “Hey, hey, hey. No
need to be so nervous. We all make mistakes. Have your boss send the
invoice to the estate like we were planning, and…” I looked around and
made sure Willow was nowhere to be found, and then slipped my hand into
my pocket and pulled out a hundred dollars. “If she asks, I didn’t tip you. If
she tries to give you more money, take it, and maybe all of our
conversations stay between the two of us. You two only talk business,
clear?”
The waiter took the bill and quickly slid it into the pocket on his shirt.
“Yes, sir.”
The rest of the visitation went off without any more problems. I didn’t
try to approach Willow again while she was busy hosting. I didn’t want to
add to her stress, so I kept myself occupied in a corner until people started
to leave. I helped Ricky say goodbye to everyone, and then he left to go
help his grandmother get comfortable after the day’s events.
The manor was finally emptied out apart from Gabriel and me. He was
sitting in a chair with his head falling to one side, dozing in and out. I took
off my suit jacket and draped it over him before making my way through
the manor halls, out into the back courtyard. The sun was descending
toward the horizon, and the sky was a kaleidoscope of oranges, reds, and
purples. My gaze followed the cobblestone path up to the marble fountain
in the middle of the courtyard. A grin crept up without my asking it to.
Willow was sitting on the edge of the fountain, running her fingers through
the water, and watching the sunset.
There was a colorful, verdant garden surrounding the fountain that filled
the air with a mixture of sweet smells. It flooded my mind with memories
of sitting out on the fountain, holding hands, and talking until the sky was
dotted with stars. It was Willow’s favorite place to be at her grandfather’s
house.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and meandered up the path. I
walked the long way around the fountain and moved to sit on the fountain’s
edge next to Willow. We sat in total silence until I heard soft sniffles. I
looked over, and tears were streaming down her face.
I put my hand over hers. “I’m so sorry. I know you were close.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t even come and visit him once after I left. He
probably thought I hated him.”
“No, he didn’t,” I assured. “He used to tell me all about how you were a
big deal in L.A. He’d go on and on about his famous granddaughter.”
She looked over at me. “Really?”
“Hand to god. He, uh…” I huffed out an awkward chuckle. “He still
thought we were together, so he’d ask me how you were doing. Ricky
would fill in, but I always made sure to tell him that you loved him. I knew
that was true.”
Willow sniffed. “Thank you.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to move. I was afraid that if I did, she would
remember that she hated me and leave.
“I’m sorry,” she said between sniffles. “About your dad.”
My heart thudded. It had been almost two years, but it was still as fresh
as if it had happened yesterday. “Thanks.”
“I…I’m sorry I didn’t come to his, you know.” She shivered. “I didn’t
think you’d want me there, and I couldn’t make myself comfortable
enough.”
“I didn’t expect that you would come after everything.”
I nibbled at the inside of my cheek. Silence spanned between us again. I
looked down at my hand, still resting on top of Willow’s. There were a
thousand things I wanted to say.
I never got over you.
 I’m sorry I let you down.
You’re still the love of my life.
I knew why I couldn’t tell her that, so I settled for pulling out one of my
business cards. I flipped her hand over and set it in the center. “I know this
is a long shot.” I looked up into her hypnotic eyes. “Call me before you
head back to Cali. I’d love to get dinner and talk some things over.”
Willow stared at the card in silence for a few minutes before closing her
hand over it. She stood up from the fountain and looked down at me.
“Thank you for coming. I know it means a lot to Pop Pop.”
She opened her mouth like she was going to say something else, but
then closed it again. She smiled at me and then turned her back to me, the
same way she did when we parted ways all those years ago.
 5

WILLOW

“T here she is!” A wave of warmth crashed over me as my high

school best friend, Bella, came racing up the sidewalk toward me.
She stood at a comical five foot two, and her long, red hair fell all the way
down her back, stopping below her butt. “My baby!”
She opened her arms, and I leaned down into a hug. “Hi!” I said. We
parted, and I smiled down at her. “I’ve missed you so much!”
“I’ve missed you, Miss Major L.A. Buyer, walking the red carpet with
movie stars.” She pointed a finger at me. “That bitch knows I’m your only
real best friend, right?”
“She guessed based on the Bella wallpaper all over my apartment.”
Bella slapped my arm. “Funny, but I’m serious.”
I laughed. “Yes, she knows that you’re the one true queen of my life.”
Bella nodded, satisfied. “Good.”
We entered the small, off-the-beaten-path deli we used to go to all the
time as kids, ordered cups of coffee and sandwiches, and found our favorite
table near the window. Bella reached across the table and took my hands
into hers.
“Sweetie, I’m so sorry I missed Pop Pop’s funeral. My asshole boss said
that unless it’s my grandfather, it’s no excuse to call out of work.” Her voice
was low and cartoonish as she imitated her boss.
 I shook my head. “It’s okay. Honestly, I wouldn’”t have subjected
anyone to that. Everyone in Philly was there.”
Bella raised an eyebrow. “Including Alessandro? My chest contracted at
his name, and I could feel my face warming. Bella giggled. “Oh, I’ll take
that as a yes.”
“I totally started to have a meltdown, and he came over and fixed
everything. He was so much sweeter and caring than I remember, and then
at the end of the night, he asked me out.”
“Tell me you said yes,” Bella groaned when I bit my bottom lip. “Why
not? You’re obviously still in love with him. He’d probably move to be with
you. You’re adults now, and distance shouldn’t be such an issue.”
I’d purposely kept Bella out of my family’s dealings with the Varassos.
When I broke up with Alessandro, I told her that we broke up because I was
leaving for school, and the distance was going to make it too hard to date.
At the time, it helped that I was still very much in love with Alessandro
because it made it more believable that we had a reluctant breakup, but
now, it was perfectly normal for Bella to suggest I should see Alessandro
again. Any normal best friend would.
“I don’t see myself leaving Cali, and I don’t see him leaving Philly, so
what’s the point?” I picked and pulled at a napkin on the table.
Bella stared at me through suspicious eyes and raised eyebrows. “Okay,
out with it.”
I looked up at her. “Out with what?”
“I always knew you were keeping something from me about him, and
now you’re lying straight to my face.”
I shook my head. “I’m not.”
“You are. You didn’t have any plans to move to California, and then all
of a sudden, you decided to apply for school there and left without so much
as an explanation. You graduated from college, like, two years ago, and
your job can be done from anywhere in the world. If you love Alessandro
and you could stay here and be with him, why wouldn’t you?”
I could see in Bella’s face that I couldn’t hide the truth anymore.
Apparently, it’d been stupid to think I could, to begin with. “All right, we’re
adults now, so I can say what I couldn’t say to you as a kid.”
“Okay?”
I looked over one shoulder, then the other, and then leaned across the
table toward her. “Alessandro isn’t any guy. He’s one of four brothers who
run a major crime syndicate deeply seeded in all of Pennsylvania. There
isn’t one thing they do that’s legal. They’re the reason my dad got arrested.”
Bella’s eyes widened. “I thought he was falsely accused?”
I thought back to the day my father was arrested. He was sitting and
waiting for the cops to arrive at a blood-soaked scene where a man had
been brutally murdered. The police assumed it wasn’t my father, that he
was covering for the Varassos, who were known to have a rivalry with the
victim, but when they questioned my father, he was tight-lipped. Not only
did he not give up any names about who had actually murdered the man in
question, but he pled guilty to the crime. He told my mom and the police
that he’d done it all by himself, even despite the mountain of evidence that
suggested otherwise. By taking responsibility for the crime, not only did he
keep the Varassos out of trouble, but he ensured no one else could be
charged with that murder. I knew my dad didn’t kill that man; he wasn’t a
murderer. He took the fall for the Varassos to protect them, even at the
sacrifice of his own family. Someone died that day, but it wasn’t the man
the Varassos murdered; it was my father. My dad left my house that
morning, but the man who went to prison for them was no more than a
willing sacrifice for the Varassos’ greed and violence.
“He was,” I said finally, “he was willing to be. To protect them.”
“So, that’s why you never went to visit him?” Bella’s face hardened.
“I’m so sorry.”
 “That’s why things with Alessandro and I can never work out. He’s a
reminder of what his family did to mine. When I left for school, I asked him
to come with me, and he told me he could never leave his family. So that
was it for us. If he was willing to be loyal to the people who’d taken my
father from me, then he obviously didn’t really love me.” Tears started
streaming down my face without warning. “I want to see you and spend a
little more time with Ricky, and then get back to where this stuff doesn’t
exist. There’s nothing for me here.”
Bella placed her hand on top of mine. “I understand.”
The rest of our meal was a bit more somber than I had intended it to be.
Bella tried to keep the conversation light by talking about her family, the
silly dates she’d been on in the time since I’d seen her last, and just about
anything she could think of to try and keep a smile on my face. I wasn’t
unappreciative of her efforts, but speaking so candidly about how the
Varassos had ruined my life had killed my spirit. We parted ways with a
promise to talk more frequently, and then I made my way back to my
mother’s house. I still had no interest in spending any time with her, but it
was where Ricky lived as well, so I was willing to endure it to spend a few
more hours with him before heading back to California.
My rideshare pulled up in front of the huge, white brick and terracotta-
roofed manor, and my jaw dropped.
The driver looked out the window and let out a hollow whistle. “Wow,
is this your place? Looks like you have a secret admirer.”
I climbed out of the car with my mouth still hanging open. The entire
front courtyard to my mother’s manor was blanketed with bouquets of
white roses, my favorite flower. I could barely see the front door. I stepped
carefully on the only available pathway up to the door and walked inside.
Ricky was standing there with a large, silly grin on his face, his hand
already outstretched with a card inside.
 I didn’t need to open it to know who it was from, but I opened it
anyway. My heart raced, in a confusing and upsetting blend of frustration
and anticipation.

Willow —
I know that you likely still haven’t forgiven me for what’s happened with
us in the past, so forgive this foolish man for asking an even more foolish
question.
Will you have dinner with me?

— Sandro
 6

ALESSANDRO

M y meetings were bleeding into one another, so much so I was

losing track of who I was talking to. High-ranking members of the
organization may as well have been grunts for how much I was paying
attention. My mind was at a manor in a Philly suburb, wondering what
Willow’s response to my request for dinner was going to be.
I never expected seeing her again to be as difficult as it was. My
stomach was still trying to unknot itself. Did I know what I was going to
say to her if she agreed? Of course not. I was just as likely to sit down at
dinner and treat her like a business associate as I was to run in, drop to my
knees, and beg her to take me back. I was a trailer park, and Willow was a
towering tornado. There was no way to know what would hold to the
ground and what would go flying into the sky. She made me feel out of
control and grounded at the same time.
“Mr. Varasso?” I snapped to attention, noticing that one of my
henchmen was standing in my office with a look of concern on his face.
“You good, Boss?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” I shuffled some of the papers on my desk
from one side to the other, pretending I was doing something of importance.
“Because I asked you for the blueprints for the new Tarot House, and
you handed me your lunch receipt.” He held up the receipt to prove it.
 I snatched the receipt from him before flipping papers over, looking for
the blueprints in question. “Why don’t you get them from Luca?”
“He’s out of town, sir. He’s visiting the expansion in—”
“Baltimore. Right, sorry.” I had the blueprints. Where the hell did they
go? I continued to shove papers all around until I accidentally tipped over
the glass of water I had, sending it washing over the papers and drenching
them. “Shit!”
The henchman rushed from the room. “I’ll go get a towel.”
I had to get it together. I still had a business to run, and with Marco
gone, and Luca out of town, and Gabriel being Gabriel, it was up to me. If I
could get a few minutes alone with Willow, I was certain I could talk myself
out of the funhouse I was in. I needed her to know that I still loved her and
probably always would. I needed her to know that I’d regretted my decision
ever since I made it. Seeing Marco fall in love and find a way to be happy
with his wife, it made me realize that I sacrificed my own happiness for
something that was always crumbling. That’s all the life was, using a small
bucket to toss out water while more and more holes break the helm. One
day, I was going to drown. We all were. Luca had found Molly, but what did
I have? My dad was here one day, and then, in the blink of an eye, he was
gone. What did he have to show for his legacy? Four sons, most of whom
had ambivalent feelings toward him, a wife, deceased, and a slew of
enemies on a bloodthirsty trail that didn’t stop with him. Did my dad take
his final breath feeling like his life had been worth it? Something told me,
probably not.
“You made a mess.” Gabriel rounded the corner into my office with a
towel in his hands. He started pulling papers out of the deepest puddles on
the table and setting the towel down. “I just passed Johnson, and he said
you were a wreck. What’s going on?”
“I sent flowers to Willow.” Even as the notion left my lips, my soul
abandoned my body, knowing it was cursed to a life of idiocy.
 Gabriel lifted the cup off the table and set it to the side. “What like a
dozen or something?”
I reflected back on myself having pressed the send button on the order
of a hundred and fifty dozen roses like it was a marvelous idea. “Or
something.”
“Why? I thought you decided to wait for her to call you after giving her
your card.”
My eyes narrowed at Gabriel. “I didn’t invite you in here to remind me
of my past decisions.”
“Technically, you didn’t invite me.” He snickered. “Sorry. What did she
say?”
I sat back in my chair, my eyes finding the ceiling in the hopes that the
most recent wallpapering contained some sort of magical ability to solve
my problems. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her yet.”
“When did you send them?”
“I ordered them last night to be delivered this morning.” I imagined
Willow waking up this morning, seeing the flowers, and being so blown
away that she would call me immediately and agree to see me. In the same
fantasy, she told me she loved me and wanted me to take her to the nearest
hotel. Neither version of Willow had manifested as the afternoon sun started
to crawl it’s way back toward the horizon. “Her lack of an answer is
probably a no, right?”
Gabriel poked his bottom lip out and to the side. “Probably, bro. I’m
sorry.”
I did have Willow’s number. She’d changed it the day she left for
California, but Ricky gave me her new one. He made me promise not to
pressure Willow into anything, but he also believed we were made for each
other. I’d planned not to use it. I already made a pitch to her, twice now, and
if she wanted to see me, she knew how to get a hold of me, and where I
lived, for that matter. I wasn’t so weak-minded that I would allow someone
to continue rejecting me. The ball was in her court.
But her smile filled my mind, pressuring me to call her like a little red
devil on my right shoulder. I was drawn to Willow now more than I was
when we were together. I could chalk it up to seeing her again after so long,
but in reality, I’d barely managed to force the part of me that breathed for
her into a suitcase and get the zipper closed. When I looked into those
crystal pools of hers again, it was like taking a bolt cutter to that zipper.
Emotions flung out like snakes out of a prank can.
I opened my computer and navigated to Willow’s social media page. “If
I was going to buy her something else, what would I buy her?”
“You’re going to buy her something else?” Gabriel finished cleaning up
the mess I’d neglected and started taking pictures of the soaked papers with
his camera phone, likely to salvage the information before the ink ran and it
was illegible. “What’s the point?”
“I want to show her what she’d be missing by not giving me another
chance.” I scrolled through her pictures, many of them with an actress that I
recognized from a few big action flicks. Willow was the actress’s buyer.
“She’s in the fashion industry now. What do people in the fashion industry
want?”
Gabriel sat on the couch against the eastern wall, crossing one leg over
the other. “Uh, clothes?”
“No, something they typically can’t afford right away at the beginning.
You know, like when Molly first got here, and Luca bought her those
outrageously expensive knives because it was something she’d always
wanted as a chef and couldn’t afford? What do fashion buyers want?”
“Fuck, I don’t know, Sandro. Do I look like I’m dressin’ up chicks for
red carpets over here?”
I couldn’t keep from laughing. If only he talked like that more, he might
not be half-bad at his job. “I need to Google it.”
 “Just get her jewelry. Chicks love jewelry.” Gabriel was staring at me
like it was that simple, and I was an idiot for missing it.
“Willow’s deeper than that. She wants something meaningful. Like, I
sent her roses, but I sent her white ones because I know they’re her
favorites.”
A small knock on my door yanked my attention. One of the
housekeepers, Marina, was standing in the doorway, sweating like she was
about to give birth. “S-sir. I’m sorry to tell you, but a truck just arrived with
about a million white roses in it. The driver said they were paid to pick
them up and bring them back to the sender.”
I gritted my teeth together, something I tended to do when I was
irritated. “Thanks, Mari. Give him a couple hundred to dump ‘em.”
She nodded and disappeared from sight so fast she left a plume of
cartoon smoke behind her. The housekeepers hated bringing my dad bad
news because he had an awful temper that he tended to take out on whoever
was closest. Luca had inherited this trait, and though it wasn’t as strong
before my dad died, once he took over, it rivaled the old man’s, if not
surpassed it.
“Sorry, Sandro. I wish it could have worked out. I know you—”
“Does she think I’m some sort of weakling?” I asked, cutting Gabriel
off.
“What?”
“She thinks she can send them back? Does she not know who she’s
dealing with?” I returned to my computer. “I’ll show her.”
My afternoon then became a game of cat and mouse. I started by
sending Willow several yards of some fabric the internet said was in style.
She at least had the courtesy to sew the ends of the rolls together before
sending them back to me. Then I sent an expensive camera, complete with
over one hundred attachments designed to give any fashionista a reason to
click! She returned the camera to me with a single picture on it, Ricky’s
bare ass as he changed into a pair of swim trunks. Gabriel found that
particularly funny until I told him if he didn’t get the fuck out of my office,
I was going to punch him in the throat. On his way out, he told me to go
with jewelry, which I did, sending her a fourteen karat diamond necklace.
She returned it to me untouched; she hadn’t even taken the box out of the
bag that it was gift wrapped in.
It started out as a genuine gesture to try and get her to see me and turned
into a childish attempt to prove to her that she was missing something by
not being with me. I was wrapping money around pebbles and chucking
them at her window, but she was not opening the curtains. In fact, she’d
turned the light off. By the early evening, I was so annoyed that I could
have started spitting fire. I picked up my phone and called Ricky.
The line clicked on with Ricky on the other end, laughing already. “Hey,
man. What’s coming next? A car?”
“Shut up. Did you have anything to do with that picture?”
“What picture?” His voice got quiet, then he called, “Did you take a
picture of me? Willow!” His voice returned to normal volume. “I’m so
sorry. I had no idea.”
“Whatever. Look, I need you to leave the house.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m coming over.”
Ricky’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I really don’t think she wants to
see you.”
That knocked all of the rage out of me in one fell swoop. That’s right. I
was actually trying to accomplish something meaningful. One could argue
it was my penchant for losing sight of the goal that lost me Willow in the
first place. I needed to not make that mistake again.
“I have to see her,” I responded with all the sincerity I could muster.
“I…” My heart started to crack again. “I have to tell her I love her. That’s it.
I’m going to tell her one last time what she means to me, and if she rejects
me after that, I’ll let her go.”
Ricky let out a sigh. “All right. Give me ten minutes.”
 7

WILLOW

“W here are you going?”

Ricky and I had spent the majority of our day by the pool.
Apart from being constantly interrupted by Alessandro’s incessant gifts, we
were having a great time.
I didn’t realize Ricky had such an active dating life, given he’d pitched
a tent far up the Varassos’s asses. Apparently, he’d come close to getting
down on one knee for one woman until she discovered who he worked for
and hit the bricks. Can’t say I blame her. Who would want to stick around
knowing they could be raided or killed at any given moment? No one
wanted to live that life, and I told Ricky so. As long as he stayed leashed to
the Varassos, nothing but pain and loneliness were in his future.
“I forgot I have a date,” Ricky obviously lied.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, watching him get up off of the lounge chair he was
on. “What’s her name?”
Ricky looked at me. “R-Rachel.”
I tipped my sunglasses down the bridge of my nose to peer over the
lenses at him. “Veronica, what?”
“Rachel…Greene.”
“Oh, Rachel Greene, of course. Did you meet her at a coffee shop?”
 Ricky’s lips poked out, and his eyes turned to the sky. “Oh, shit.” He
started to laugh, and I joined him.
“Why are you lying? Where are you going?”
Ricky was really the only reason I was still in Philly at all. My mom had
flown the coop immediately after the funeral was over. It probably
shouldn’t have offended me so much that she decided to leave for her
monthly vacation during the one week I was in town, but I was a little
frustrated. After everything we’d been through, the least she could do was
make an effort to try and spend some time with me or be marginally
apologetic for the compromised parent she’d become. That said, it wasn’t
like I was jumping through any hoops to hang out with her, either, so maybe
I was hypocritical. I was supposed to be the kid, and she was supposed to be
the parent, but I was only setting myself up for failure with that thought
process. She hadn’t been the parent since the Varassos started padding her
bank account. I’d stuck around to catch up with Ricky, so to say I was
annoyed when he suddenly jumped up, saying he had to go, would be an
understatement.
“I gotta go see Gabriel,” Ricky replied.
“Oh.” My head fell in disappointment.
“Yeah, I mean, I know how you feel about ‘em, so…”
I readjusted my gaze back to him. “Yeah, but I don’t want you to lie to
me about what you’re doing. In fact, when you’re dealing with them, that’s
the exact opposite of what I want you to do. I need you to be honest with
me about what’s going on. What if something happens to you?”
Ricky walked over and knelt next to where I was laying. “Hey, what
would happen to me? I’m Teflon.”
“I’ll admit you’ve found girth from god knows where, but you’re not
bulletproof, Ricky. Neither are any of the Varassos.”
“You mean like Sandro?”
My heart backflipped at the mention of his name. “He is one of them.”
 “You knew that when you started dating him, you know?”
I pulled my glasses off of my face so I could look into Ricky’s cerulean
eyes properly, eyes reflecting my own. “I’m aware, but I got smart.”
“You also got lonely,” Ricky volleyed, shocking me. “Come on, don’t
act surprised. I know you, Willow. I’ve never seen you happy the way I saw
you when you and Sandro were together. I named all these chicks I’ve been
dating. Who’ve you dated in the past six years?”
I didn’t like being ironed so flat. I appreciated a billowed cover that hid
all of my feelings. “I’ve been busy with my career.”
“Sure, that’s why you’re laying poolside with not a care in the world.”
“I’m on vacation!” I stood up from my lounge chair. “I didn’t come here
for you to rake me over the coals. I wanted to spend time with you, but if
you’re going to judge me, then I’ll go buy a ticket home right now.”
I took off for the door to the house, and I could hear Ricky’s feet on the
pavement behind me. He took hold of my arm and flipped me around. “I
don’t want you to go. I want you to be happy.”
“I’ll be happy when I’m back home,” I replied.
“Will you?” Ricky asked, his eyebrows peaked and all-knowing.
“Well, what the hell am I supposed to do, Ricky? I can’t do this whole
life that they do. I can’t be a part of the world that took our dad away. I
can’t be part of the world that made Alessandro turn his back on me and
turned our mother into a realistic, materialistic robot. This world consumes
everyone in it, eventually. It’s going to take you, and if I let myself get too
close to it, it’ll swallow me up, too!”
“You’re wrong,” Ricky said. “It’s not like that.”
I crossed my arms. “Oh, yeah? Where’s Marco?”
Ricky went silent. Marco was one of the four Varasso brothers, the
second oldest under Luca. He and Ricky were almost as close as Ricky and
Alessandro. For a long time, whenever I checked in with Ricky, he would
tell me about what he, Marco, and Alessandro were up to. What part of the
country they were in on any given day, or the silly things that Marco and
Alessandro did in a vapid attempt to convince me of their humanity. It was
rare to hear a story about Ricky’s day that didn’t involve Marco, and then,
one day, he was gone. He was missing from all the stories. He wasn’t
hanging around anymore, and Ricky wouldn’t even mention him in passing.
If he’d died like the Varasso patriarch, I assume I would have heard, but the
total absence of him meant he was likely in jail or on the run.
I coaxed Ricky. “I’m waiting.”
“He’s…” He turned his back to me and started for the stairs.
I followed him. “Exactly. Something happened to him, Ricky. I’m not
dumb. You may not want to tell me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know.”
Ricky took a few strides up the stairs and then stopped and turned
around. “There’s nothing wrong with loyalty, Willow. What our dad did, he
did because he was loyal. Alessandro turning you down even though he’s so
in love with you that he never got over you, that’s loyalty. You just packed
up and moved to California and never looked back. You could pull a page
from their book.”
I wasn’t sure where it had come from, but it probably had some tie to
what had happened to Marco. I shook my head. “You’re blaming me?”
Ricky walked back down the stairs. “I’m…” He made a little noise and
stomped his foot like a child throwing a temper tantrum. “Why does there
have to be any blame at all? Why can’t we just be people who operate a
little differently from the average folk? If someone like Alessandro loves
you and wants to take care of you, what’s so wrong with that?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I replied, “but some wives have to
deal with their husbands working too late or wanting to have a few too
many beers with the guys. I would always have to be looking over my
shoulder. I would never be at peace. I’d be with Alessandro, and sure that
would make me happy, but the risk is not worth the reward.”
“Being with me would make you happy?”
 Ricky and I looked over toward the front door, and Alessandro was
standing there leaning against the doorframe. I didn’t even need to ask how
he got in. Obviously, all of the Varassos had keys to the place. They owned
it, after all.
“That’s what you took away from that?” I asked.
Like a rollercoaster headed downhill, my blood coursed faster and faster
through my veins. Suited like he always was, Alessandro’s appearance was
simply comforting to me. Some people liked the smell of their mom’s home
cooking, but I had Alessandro’s ever-errant curls and cogitating gaze. I was
trying to push my feelings back into their hiding place, but they were
snaking across the ground toward his feet, pulling me toward him.
“Yeah,” he responded, “that’s what I took away from that.” He had a
dumb smile on his face like the concept made him truly happy.
Ricky walked up to Alessandro and bumped forearms with him before
walking through the door and closing it behind him, leaving Alessandro and
me alone.
“Tell me more,” Alessandro said softly, “about how happy you would
be.”
 8

ALESSANDRO

I t might have been dumb for me to be on cloud nine from an isolated

piece of the argument Willow was making to Ricky when I walked
through the door, but I was. If nothing else, it meant I wasn’t alone. Willow
still had feelings for me, too, and even if she felt like she couldn’t be with
me for whatever reason, that was a hill I was willing to die on.
That or the hill that had her standing in front of me in a lime green two-
piece bathing suit, with her hair framing her face in messy, uncombed after
swimming curls. Even with her eyes narrowed in irritation and her hands on
her hips, she was better looking than any of the models on any magazine or
television show I’ve ever enjoyed. If I didn’t think she’d hit me, I’d tackle
her to the ground on the spot.
“I know that you have a tendency not to hear everything that someone is
saying to you, but I also said the risk would not be worth the reward,”
Willow repeated.
“Yes, but would I be a reward?” I asked, and Willow rolled her eyes.
“You are insufferable,” she replied and started to make her way up the
stairs. “Now, if you can go, I’m about to change and buy a ticket back
home.”
Home.
 What was the best way to tell her that I wanted to be her home, that I
wanted her to be mine? Willow gave me feelings that I didn’t know I knew
how to feel. I’d been reaching out for her longer than I realized, and all I
wanted to do was get to her. To have her look at me honestly and tell me she
wanted what I wanted, too. Was it such an impossibility?
I started up the stairs after her, taking the opportunity to admire her
shapely form pushing the limits of the fabric. In the trend of people rating
their lovers on a scale from one to ten, I would rate Willow at a solid ten
thousand. I loved Willow for who she was as a person, but her sexiness was
a big bonus.
That aside, I appreciated that Willow was an intelligent person with an
iron-clad will, who didn’t back down from a challenge. She was stubborn to
a fault, to the point that she would occasionally sacrifice her happiness and
sanity to prove a point—case and point, our current situation. Even that
stubbornness was something I admired about her. Nothing made me happier
than putting in days and days of work trying to get her to admit defeat, even
if it was something menial. She would poke her bottom lip out and throw an
adorable temper tantrum that typically started with her trying to ignore me
and ended with her staring at me, waiting for me to kiss her frustrations
away. Back when we were together, not a day passed where I wasn’t happy
to wake up dating Willow Morietti. I truly believed I’d marry her one day.
If it was socially acceptable for head over heels fourteen-year-olds to wed, I
might have done it already.
“Are you following me?” Willow growled. “Don’t follow me. Go
home.”
“I came all the way over here to talk to you. The least you could do is
hear me out,” I said. She turned into her bedroom, and I followed in after
her.
“I don’t want to hear what you have to say.” She lifted her suitcase from
the ground onto her bed, opened it, and started sifting through the clothes.
 Memories flooded my brain. It felt like I’d stepped through her door
frame into the past. All the numerous days that I spent in that room, trying
to get Willow to make out while she tried to entice me to study. All of the
times we’d made love in her bed. It was easy to get away with because her
mom wasn’t around much. All of the occasions I came storming up here
and nearly broke down her door because I was pissed about one thing or
another, and all she had to do was cup her hands on either side of my face,
look into my eyes, and whisper my name, and the anger would crawl out of
me. I missed everything we were back then. If I could have stepped back in
time, I would have.
“Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve been up here.” The carpet was
still the same knotted blue threads, and the walls were still cream with dark
blue baseboards. Why did I expect it to look different, as though it had
changed with us?
“Me too,” Willow replied. “It was weird walking back in here again.”
She wasn’t looking at me, only pulling different articles of clothing out of
her suitcase while folding up others. I moved to sit on the bed, the ecstasy
that filled me as I did both arousing and calming. Willow’s bed; it was a
place that brought me nothing but joy, regardless of what was done there.
She closed her suitcase with force. “Can you go? I have to change.”
“So change. I’ve seen you naked dozens of times.” I tucked my arms
behind my head and made myself comfortable against her backboard.
She snatched up the clothes she picked out and stomped off toward the
door to the adjoining bathroom. “When I come back, you should be gone.”
“Hey, remember when you tried to sneak me in your window because
your mom was dating that I’m gonna be your kids’ new dad guy?” I
remembered myself trying to scale the lattice vine fence outside that was
barely strong enough to hold the vines curled around it, but I tried to move
all one-hundred-seventy pounds of me up it. “You sat there looking down at
me, and I kept thinking to myself, I gotta get to her, I gotta get to her.’”
 She was only standing a few feet away from me now, and I was still
repeating that to myself.
Willow leaned against the door frame and looked at the window with a
nostalgic smile. “Yeah. When I looked at the fence from outside, I didn’t
think it was that high, but when you were climbing it, I was so terrified you
were going to fall and die.”
“That was probably one of the dumber things I’ve done.” My eyes
landed on Willow’s. “Don’t regret it.”
I watched as she briefly lost control. She took a cautious step toward me
before stopping like an invisible forcefield pushed her back. She closed her
eyes, put her back to me, and pointed toward the doorway out. “Go.”
“I don’t want to.” I stood up off of the bed and moved a little closer to
her, the scents of suntan lotion and some sweet, fruity perfume filling my
nose. “Willow, look at me.”
She shook her head. “Please just leave.”
“Do you really want me to?” I asked. I took a couple more steps
forward. “I was joking downstairs, but I heard what you said. Being with
me would make you happy.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did. You don’t lie to Ricky. I know you.”
“You don’t know me,” she said.
I took another step, and I was so close I could reach out and touch her.
Her head cocked gently to the side, and I knew I was close.
“You don’t know me at all.”
“I know you, Willow Morietti.” I brought my hands up to rest on her
shoulders. “I spent my whole life getting to know you. Every single day, I
woke up wanting to know more about you.” I tried to fill my cup with
Willow, but I never found the top. The more I poured, the deeper the glass
seemed to be. “I love you. I always have. Can you tell me, honestly, that
you don’t feel the same way?”
 Willow remained silent, and I moved my right arm to wrap around her
stomach, her soft, porcelain skin like silk beneath my fingertips. My left
hand ghosted forward, brushing against her cheek and cupping her chin to
turn her face to the left, giving me access. All it would take was one
utterance of no or stop or even for her to pull away. If she stepped away
from my embrace, I would know proof-positive that she had made a
decision to leave me in her past. It was like we were both tugging at the
same rope, trying to pull the other to their side. Willow was spilling across
the line, leaning toward my side. I was so close to what I’d dreamed of
without fail for months upon months with no reprieve.
“I’m going to kiss you,” I whispered into her ear. “If you don’t stop me,
it won’t end there.”
“If I was going to stop you, I would have done it already.” Her eyes
fluttered closed, and she leaned back.
I couldn’t have been convinced I didn’t win the lottery. I pulled our lips
to meet as what was left of my dam of restraint crumbled, sending a flood
of waves crashing forth.
 9

WILLOW

I f there was a God, he had flat out abandoned me. Why would he
convince me that coming to Philadelphia was a better idea than sending
flowers and my love? Why would he let me believe that I could survive a
few extra days here? Catch up with some friends, spend time with Ricky,
take a break from work. Certainly, that was doable? Alessandro could be
avoided, and if he couldn’t be, he could absolutely be resisted if push came
to shove. I was a strong and resilient person. Right?
Wrong.
I wasn’t meant to be in a room with Alessandro while he recalled good
times and whispered that he loved me in my ear. I wasn’t meant to resist his
touch, which may as well have been a branding iron for the way it burned
across my skin and left traces of its presence in its wake. Alessandro
pressed his lips to mine, and any strength or resilience that I had decided to
take a spectator’s approach to my life. They left me the same way God did,
to fend for myself in a battle-royale of Alessandro’s wooded cologne and
breathless kisses. The sword and shield I’d prepared for the battle
evaporated like smoke in my hands when he turned me to face him outright,
pressing his body firmly against mine and keeping his palm settled firmly
on my neck while his tongue licked out, knocking on my lips and asking my
tongue out to play.
 Why couldn’t I resist? Why couldn’t I pull away? Why was I lacing my
fingers into his velvet curls and dragging him even closer to me, desperate
and wanton, so close there was no space between us? Alessandro was doing
to me what Alessandro had always done to me—pure, reckless destruction.
Out-of-control destruction that fettered into him as he smoothed his hands
over my backside and under my thighs to lift me from my feet. I kept a tight
hold of him, begging that everything that existed outside of that moment
leave us be. I didn’t want to think about anything other than Alessandro. I
didn’t want to be anything else at that moment besides someone he wanted,
someone who wanted him. My inhibitions took an empty seat next to my
strength and resilience to enjoy the show.
Powerfully, he used one arm to keep me aloft while he used the other to
knock my suitcase to the side, sending all of its contents spilling out onto
the bedroom floor. As much as that was going to bother me later, at the
moment, I couldn’t care less. Alessandro spun me around to guide me
carefully down to the comforter on the bed and continued to hover above
me, never letting his lips leave mine. My curious fingers started to pull at
the buttons to his suit coat, unfolding them from one another, and pushing
the article away. Alessandro’s broad shoulders had always been one of my
favorite features of his physical form, and I reveled at the way they fought
against the white button-up to be freed. I worked the buttons of it next,
wanting them to be out of the way as much as they wanted to be freed.
Alessandro’s right hand curled its way behind my neck and tugged at
the string that kept my bikini top in place. It loosened before giving way,
allowing his left hand to pull it free of my breasts and throw it aside. He
kissed my jawbone, and my neck, and my collarbone, and down my chest
until he could work his mouth over one of my sensitive spots. I could feel it
peaking with his tongue flipping it around. Alessandro was skilled with his
tongue. He always had been. My hands took hold of the back of his head as
sounds escaped my lips without my permission. His fingers slid a trail
downward and under by bikini bottom. I arched my back as they found their
destination, my most sensitive spot, already reacting to his touch. I shook
with anticipation under Alessandro’s ministrations, my body begging him to
do more.
And he met my silent demand. He parted me below, allowing his hand
to freely glide along, and poke at my entrance. I pulled at his shirt until he
let out a burning chuckle against the flesh of my chest and pulled away. “So
impatient.”
He finished undoing the buttons, his eyes painting me over. My body
burned under his gaze. I turned my head away, feeling overexposed for
some reason, but Alessandro’s hand tipped under my chin to bring my eyes
back to him. “Don’t look away from me.”
He pulled his button-up off along with the white tank top underneath it,
dropping them both over the side of the bed. He really was a sight to
behold. Looking at him, I got a sudden sensation of deja vu. Not for the
times we’d been together before, but for all of the feelings I had that this
happened more recently than I knew to be true. How many times had he
slunk into my dreams? How many times did I wake up reaching out for
him, only to find that he wasn’t really there? My body had always yearned
for Alessandro; it never stopped. If I came out of this experience unscathed,
I’d be lucky. I couldn’t see the other side of the storm smirking down at me,
belying the warmth sated behind his eyes.
He hooked my right leg and lifted it up to his bare torso. He pressed his
lips to a spot on my shin and kissed it so passionately, I got jealous. Without
turning his attention from my leg, a hand moved to the left side of my hip to
grab and untie my bikini bottoms. I wanted to believe we were about to
cross the point of no return, but in reality, that was probably when he first
walked into the house. He undid the tie and then caressed my stomach on
the way over to the other tie to unstring it, as well. With a single finger, he
drew the bottoms from me, discarding them overboard. He started to scan
me again, his bottomless, obsidian eyes crawling from my head to my toes.
He lowered himself down, positioning his head between my thighs. He
tossed me one, final glance before he dipped in. The sensation of his tongue
skating over me sent a chill up my spine to eject my head into the
stratosphere. So many sensations I’d forgotten I once knew came rushing at
me all at once. My knees angled toward one another, and I whimpered and
bucked beneath the pleasure. My brain was rapidly trying to sort out the
muddle that now existed where my logical thoughts used to be. Where did
the sexual feelings stop, and the overwhelming love of having Alessandro
so close to me again begin?
“Alessandro.” His name sang across my lips, and his mouth reacted
with added fervor below.
It was better than I remembered. His tongue was following a carefully
plotted out map, knowing exactly which cities to stop at before continuing
on to the next destination. My body barely gave me any warning. My head
keeled back, my hips pushed forward, and fireworks went off. I left my
shell for a moment, floating freely above myself before colliding back with
my bones. My legs shook, and Alessandro kissed and nibbled the insides of
my thighs. Each spot held the feeling, leaving behind the impression that
his lips were in multiple places at once.
He snaked his way up my body, rushing his lips to mine with my taste
lingering on them. His hands moved between us as we kissed, working to
pull himself free of what was left of his clothing, kicking it off and leaving
him bare on top of me. My nails clawed over his back, threatening to leave
marks of my presence behind later. He moved his lips to a spot on my neck
to suck, and his excited length kissed my waiting passage. Time slowed as
he traversed, pushing himself inside. The sound that rumbled against my
neck was animal, and I let out a moan of my own to match.
 I was home again after being away for years. I had only ever been with
Alessandro. We lost our virginity to one another when we were sixteen,
foolishly in the back of his dad’s Escalade, though young me thought it was
perfect. It was Alessandro, after all, and when it came to him, there was
little that I didn’t think was perfect. Though we’d proceeded to take every
available opportunity to be together from that point on, the night of our
senior prom, Alessandro checked us into a five-star hotel room. He covered
it in white rose petals, lit dozens of candles, and told me that we were going
to do it again, the way it should have been done the first time. We made
love again and again until the sun was rising. It would have been perfect
was it not for his suddenly getting called away to aid in some family
business. It was that moment that I knew I could never be happy with
Alessandro as long as his allegiance was to his family and their business
over me. I could have married him right then and there, but there was a big,
Varasso-family-sized wall between us. One neither of us knew how to scale.
That was the last time I had been with Alessandro or anyone.
I pushed the memories away, not wanting to have anything in my mind
but the Alessandro right in front of me at that moment. I took his face and
brought it to mine. He stared down at me, his eyes piercing and jaw
clenched. He moved into me until he was sheathed entirely before pulling
back. His movements were a drawl. A boat rocking gently on a calm sea,
moved by wind alone. I took in the sight of him enjoying me until my body
was so much ablaze that all I could do was close my eyes to keep myself
from falling. Alessandro buried his head against my chest, and his hands
wrapped around my back. In and out, in and out, until I was no longer
certain how much of me was still me anymore. I was offering every fleck of
my skin to Alessandro in exchange for the glorious pleasure until my head
started to haze over again. I shuddered and exploded with Alessandro’s
voice rumbling against me as he growled.
 With me gripping tightly to him, he rolled until we had switched places,
and it was now me on top of him. I sat up, fitting our pieces together like
the best jigsaw puzzle, my hips shaking as the girth housed within me
sawed against a spot that left a ringing in my ears. I started to roll my hips
while Alessandro’s hands danced over my stomach and, eventually, up to
rest on each of my breasts. My head was thrown back, and my movements
were quickening. I no longer had control over the way my body moved. It
was on a course of its own, and I was along for the ride. It wanted
Alessandro as deep inside of me as he could go, and it wouldn’t stop until it
had accomplished its mission.
We turned the page from sensual to wild. Alessandro’s hands squeezed
and twisted and flicked while my hips rode and ground. If I ever stopped, it
would be too soon. I only wanted to continue feasting on Alessandro until I
was full, and I didn’t think the limit existed.
“Ah,” Alessandro grunted. “Baby.”
I knew the signs well. I kept up my pace until I felt his hips buck and
lifted myself just in time to see white splash across his abs. I dropped my
head down to his chest, and we sat breathing in and out in unison. His hands
came to rest on my back. I focused my attention on the small circles he was
making until my eyes were too heavy to keep open, and I allowed them to
drift shut.
When I awoke, it was with the golden sun of the morning on my face.
For the first time in many mornings, when I moved, searching for
Alessandro, I found him. His chest was slowly rising and falling beneath
my hand, and my head was nestled against his shoulder. My muscles
screamed as I stretched, not used to the workout they received the night
prior. It had been six years since I had been with anyone, and it was evident
in the way my everything was protesting.
“Willow?” Alessandro shifted and glanced down at me, and when his
eyes met mine, a smile brighter and wider than anything I’d seen from him
crossed his face. My skin rose into thousands of goosebumps at the sight. “I
half expected that to all be a dream.”
“Me too,” I responded, happily obliging when he pulled me into a kiss.
“I missed you so much.” His fingers laced in my hair and massaged my
head gently.
“I missed you too.” I kissed his pec. “I can’t believe that happened.”
“You and me both. When you didn’t kick me out right away, I was like,
okay, Sandro. Remain calm. We’ve been waiting six years.’”
I laughed. “Really? I’m sure when you were sleeping with other
women, you weren’t thinking about me.”
Alessandro’s expression turned stone serious. “I didn’t sleep with any
other women.”
My chest tightened. “You didn’t?”
“No, I had no interest. If it wasn’t you, I didn’t want it.” He said the
words sincerely, like they weren’t going to run me over like a breakaway
rail car. “I meant what I said, Willow. I love you. It’s only been you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I honestly hadn’t considered anything past
last night. I was so happy to be with Alessandro again that I didn’t even
consider the implications of what I was allowing. Our circumstances hadn’t
changed, at least not that I was aware of. “Sandro, I—”
His lips were on mine before I could get any additional words out. He
took the wind from my sails every time. Against Alessandro Varasso, I was
powerless. “Don’t say anything else right now. Please, let me take you to
dinner before you leave.”
Part of his phrasing was actually slightly painful to hear—that he knew
I was going to leave. That I was questioning it myself was concerning; of
course, I was going back to California. My life was there, and I’d already
decided there was nothing for me in Philly. I saw the sincerity and pleading
in his eyes, and it opened my heart.
“Okay, Sandro.”
 His smile grew. “Okay. Well, what about—”
The sound of a ringtone broke the sweet stillness around us. I
recognized that it wasn’t mine, and Alessandro was already moving to
climb out of the bed. I was getting deja vu again, remembering that night
back in the hotel room. We’d woken up together in a very similar fashion,
everything was wonderful, and then his phone rang. I tried not to accept the
little voice inside me telling me this was the same thing.
He fished his phone out of his suit jacket pocket and looked at it. His
eyebrows turned down in confusion. “It says it’s an unknown number?” He
clicked to answer it. “Hello?” Suddenly, his eyes went wide like he’d seen a
ghost. “You shouldn’t be calling me.” He glanced at me quickly and then
away again. “I… I’m with Willow.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah,
she’s here for a few days.”
Who was he talking to? It sounded like whoever it was knew me, but
who would both know me and shock Alessandro so much?
“Shit, that’s not good. All right, let me get dressed and get a hold of
Luca. He should be back by now. Yeah, I will. Bye.”
Alessandro turned around and looked at me, and I could tell in his face
that he was about to say exactly what I didn’t want to hear. He knelt on the
floor next to the bed, grabbed my hand, and kissed it.
“You have to go?” I asked.
“I’m so sorry, really. It kills me, but that was Marco. He’s in WPP.
Apparently, he got a threatening postcard, and no one is even supposed to
know where he is, only Ricky.”
I might have expected that Ricky was more mixed up in all of it than he
alluded to. Marco was in the Witness Protection Program? Why?
Alessandro kissed my hands several times. “He’s in trouble. I…” He
stared up at me sadly, and I could tell he was conflicted.
“Go.” I pulled my hand from his. “I’ve always known your priorities.”
 Alessandro looked like the words crushed him. “I’ll call you about
dinner, okay?”
I didn’t respond. Alessandro stood up and kissed me on my forehead. “I
love you, Willow. I hate that I have to go.”
He collected his clothes and left the room, and I cursed myself for
landing in the same terrible position I’d been in all those years ago.
10
 ALESSANDRO

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just made the biggest mistake of my
life. I saw the way Willow’s heart broke as she realized I had to leave.
Last night was one of the best I’d ever had, if not number one. Waking up
next to her again was the greatest feeling in the world. If I wasn’t still
madly in love with her before, I certainly was now. It was worth waiting to
be with her again. I only wished that I hadn’t missed out on those last six
years. I allowed my mind to wander to where we might be if I’d chosen her
instead. I was already ready to get down on one knee before we broke up,
so we’d be married for sure. We’d probably be on baby number two, having
made the first halfway by accident after we chose an extended honeymoon.
I walked away from her again. Let her down again. Fuck my family for
being so messed up. I believed they’d just cost me everything.
My phone rang, trilling loudly over my car’s bluetooth. I pressed the
green answer button, sadly watching the scenery leading to Willow’s
family’s home disappear behind me. “Luca.” Even I didn’t recognize the
roughness in my voice. It had been softer, more natural since arriving at
Willow’s yesterday. The man that I was with her, the man I really was,
wasn’t built to survive my family’s business. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the airport about to get in a car. Where are you?”
“I’m in my car headed back to the house,” I replied.
 “You were already gone from the house this early in the morning?”
Luca asked.
“I…um. I was with Willow.” Luca let out a little scoff. “What’s so
funny?”
“Nothing. I had a strange feeling that would happen. Look, though. This
isn’t becoming a thing again, is it?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
Luca sighed. “We can’t afford to be another man down, so you can’t run
off and fall in love with someone and think it’s gonna be fine.”
“You did that,” I spat back.
“My situation was different.”
“Why, because you kidnapped yours?” Luca fell quiet, and I knew I’d
fucked up. “Sorry, I just…It seemed like Willow was starting to come
around, and then I had to leave.”
“Family first, Sandro,” Luca growled, and I felt a tinge of the irritation
Willow must have felt every time I said it to her. “That’s not a problem, is
it?” He was developing my dad’s nasty attitude at an exponential rate. Were
it not for Molly in his life, I’d fear he’d fall entirely.
“No,” I said. “I left, didn’t I?”
“Good. What’s going on? You said it was an emergency.”
“It is, but we shouldn’t talk over the phone. I’ll meet you in your office
in thirty minutes.”
“Fine,” Luca said. “See you soon. Bye.”
I didn’t get to say bye before the line went dead.
My mind wandered far from where I was tooling along in my car back
to my family’s estate. I thought about everything that my brain would allow
me to focus on. I thought about my older brother and their wives and
children. Did they have any idea that their bliss was fleeting? What
happened if one of our enemies decided that taking our father out wasn’t
enough? What if they didn’t think our retaliation was equal to theirs? What
if they were prepared to fight a war continuously until all of us were gone?
They were skilled in torture. Did my brothers really think they would never
go for their families? What if they kidnapped Anna or Antonio? What if
they went after Amanda. Hell, if someone tried to hurt Molly, Luca would
light all of Pennsylvania and watch it burn, happily.
Maybe I was better off letting Willow go. She could go back to
California, continue her luxurious life as a fashion buyer, and stay safe from
the riff-raff here. Was it selfish of me to want her to stay here with me and
embroil her in my life, knowing full well the danger it put her in? What was
it all for?
I should have picked her.
I got back to my family’s estate, took a shower despite the gnawing
sensation that I was washing Willow away from me, picked a fresh suit to
wear, and went to Gabriel’s room. He was lying on his bed with his nose
deep in a book, which was amusing, to say the least, because Gabriel didn’t
read.
“What are you doing?”
Gabriel jumped so high the book flew up out of his hands and then
dropped back down, smacking him on the face. “Jesus Christ, Sandro.
Announce yourself.”
“I did.”
Gabriel sat up and tossed the book to the side. “What the hell is going
on? I got a call from Luca saying to get our house fully armed and wait for
more instructions.”
“Marco called me.”
Gabriel stood straight up off of his bed. “What? When?”
“This morning. I’ll explain more in Luca’s office. Come on.” I didn’t
wait to turn around and head off for Luca’s office, but I could hear Gabriel’s
feet shuffling behind me. “So, did you arm up?”
 “Of course I did. I wasn’t about to have Luca rip me a new one.” When
we got to Luca’s office, the doors were closed, meaning he was likely
already inside. “Do we knock?”
I looked over at him. “You wanna just walk in there?” I tapped my
knuckles against the door. “It’s us.”
“Yeah, come in.” I opened the door, and Luca was sitting behind his
desk with his hands folded over his stomach. “Shut the door.”
Gabriel shut the door behind us, and we each took a seat at the leather
chairs opposite Luca. I crossed my legs while Gabriel sat right on the edge
of his seat. Luca stared daggers in Gabriel’s direction until Gabriel
swallowed hard and slid a few inches back on his chair. Luca rolled his eyes
and turned his attention to me, a smirk curving across his face.
“So, you had a good night?”
Leave it up to my brother to take any moment he could identify to throw
some jabs in the middle of a life or death emergency. “Yeah. Wonderful.”
“Good. As long as it doesn’t interfere with work, do what you want.”
My shower hadn’t only washed Willow away, but any of the lingering
good feelings that the night had brought, too. I didn’t like it when Luca
talked to me like he owned me. “I wasn’t asking your permission, but
thanks.”
Luca’s smirk disappeared behind a cold, unruly glare. “Don’t forget that
I can always handle any situation I’m uncomfortable with.”
“Are you threatening me?” I asked. “Are you threatening her?”
“I said what I said,” Luca hissed. “What’s this big emergency?”
I was tempted to clock him cold in his fucking face. He was the boss,
but I was a grown-ass man. I bit back my rage, imagining my brother and
his family trouble. I blew air out of my nose like a bull preparing to charge
and let it take some of my tension with it.
“Marco called me this morning,” I started. “He said he got a postcard
showing East State, telling him to watch his back.”
 “When?” Luca asked.
“He didn’t say, but I got the sense he kept it from us for a while. He said
he was waiting to see if another one was sent, so it’s possible it was back
around the holidays.” Luca’s hand folded over his chin. “What are you
thinking?” I asked.
“One, that Marco’s the same goddamn idiot he always has been,” Luca
began. “Two, the Binachis know what’s up.” He twisted his head, cracking
his neck as he did so. “How the fuck did they find out? The only ones who
know that he rolled are the three of us. Neither of you told anyone, did
you?”
His eyes fell accusingly on Gabriel.
Gabriel leaned forward. “I didn’t tell anyone!”
He looked at me. “Did you tell Willow?”
“She doesn’t like hearing about my involvement in this shit. I have no
reason to tell her.”
I’d also been wondering how the word could have gotten out. It
wouldn’t be the first time we’d discovered a mole in our ranks, but since
our last betrayal, Luca had started cracking down. He didn’t let someone in
who didn’t have skeletons, and he made sure to stress how quickly
turncoats disappeared. I wasn’t inclined to think it was one of us.
“It’s gotta be someone who works for the feds,” I said finally. “We don’t
have a traitor. Not after all that shit with Roman.”
“I agree. I don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to do it again.
Besides, if none of us said anything to anyone, how would anyone other
than us know?”
“Did you tell Molly?” I asked.
An eerie, cold silence engulfed the room. For the first time in our lives,
I felt myself drop below Gabriel in Luca’s eyes. If looks could kill, my head
would be clean off my body from the way Luca was leering at me. He
leaned forward and placed his arms on the desk.
 “Are you accusing my wife of turning on me?” he asked, finally, in a
terrifyingly low tone.
“I only asked a question,” I responded, keeping my own resolve. I
refused to let Luca punk me around.
“Yeah,” Luca replied, baiting me to say something accusatory. “I told
her.”
The silence returned. Gabriel was nervously shifting glances between
us, while a near-visible bolt of electricity was passing between Luca and
me. I didn’t really think Molly would do anything like that, but I could hear
the old man grumbling that we always have to explore every possibility.
Gabriel made a solid point. If we were the only ones who knew, and none of
us talked, then it obviously didn’t come from inside, but one of us did talk.
The newest Varasso head.
“Look, obviously, we don’t think Molly did it. We just had to ask the
question,” Gabriel said. “Right, Sandro?”
Luca looked frighteningly like my dad. He had a killer’s eyes, the ones
our father had beaten into us by force. I loved my dad, and I loved my
brother, but if there was any shitty quality that the two of them shared, it
was their hateful dispositions. Luca’s faded some when his wife and kids
were around, but when he was behind my dad’s old desk, it was like the old
man’s spirit possessed him and continued to work through him.
“Right,” I said after an extended silence. “Molly’s good.”
Luca had his nose held so high in the air, bats were about to fly out.
“Good.”
“It’s the feds, obviously,” Gabriel said, trying to fill the void.
“Obviously.”
“It has to be,” Luca agreed. “We’ve got our own men on the inside.
Maybe we need to do a little digging. I’ll make some calls.” He looked at
me. “Can you ask Ricky to get a picture of the postcard from Marco?”
 “I can do that.” I’d already maxed out on my patience for the
conversation.
“Gabriel, I need you to man security. Don’t tell anyone what’s going on,
just that we have reason to believe we may fall under siege, and they need
to keep their eyes open. If anything happens. Anything. If a squirrel so
much as pisses in a way that looks strange, they are to report to me
immediately.”
“Got it.” Gabriel side-eyed me and shifted uncomfortably.
“All right, you can go. Keep me posted.” I stood up, but Luca held a
hand up. “Sandro, can you stay?”
I let out a long sigh, and Luca slammed his hands on the desk. “Fuck!
Can I have ten fucking seconds without a fucking attitude from you?”
I dropped back into the chair and looked at him. I wasn’t about to let his
adult temper tantrums suck me into his vortex of darkness. He looked at
Gabriel, who was halfway up out of his seat, watching the scene nervously.
“Get out!”
“Right, sorry!” Gabriel skittered from the room, slamming the door
behind him.
Luca started to drum his fingers on the edge of his desk. I was thinking
about how nice it would be to be a normal person in a normal family. If I
had a fight with my brother, I could tell him to go fuck himself, and then I
could go pick up the love of my life and take her to dinner. A brother living
in California would only be a brother living in California, and I wouldn’t be
worried about my family imploding.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you really think Molly could have told someone?” he asked, and
his voice was angry but inquisitive. I sat up, not expecting the question. “I
shouldn’t have told her.”
And now, coming to the stage, with his headlining performance of Act
Like a Dick and then Make You Feel like a Dick, Luca Varasso. “Dude. You
know good and damn well that Molly wouldn’t turn on you. Even if it was
out of fear. She loves you and Anna. She wouldn’t risk all of that.”
“What if it’s a situation like Marco’s? What if it’s the only choice she
had?” Luca asked.
I shook my head. “Molly would go down for you, and you know that.
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even asked the question.”
“I have to ask her, don’t I?” he asked me, his voice totally different now,
strained and frustrated with himself.
“Dad would,” I replied.
Luca nodded with a gentle snicker. “Yeah. He would.” He sunk further
into his chair, letting his head rest against the back. “Sorry I snapped at you.
This is all much more stressful than I thought it would be. I thought I was
so ready. I was not ready.”
“How does one be ready for something like this?” I laughed. “Can you
imagine if you had, like, a fucking day job or something? You got up at
nine, punched in a clock, worked, celebrated some jackoff’s birthday, a guy
who you don’t even like, just so you can get a piece of cake, then punch
out, and go home?”
Luca grinned. “The shit Molly and I would argue about wouldn’t be
how we ran drugs through the wrong channel, or I came home with blood
on me again when we promised we wouldn’t let the kids see it. We’d argue
about… I don’t even fucking know. What do regular, domestic people argue
about?”
“I don’t know, man. Plates?” I started to laugh, and Luca joined in. I
imagined walking into some house with Willow inside, and she started
screaming at me about plates. Tears started streaming down my eyes.
“Imagine Molly, just fucking…plates!”
Luca’s laugh got harder too. “Fucking! Plates! Plates!”
We were both doubled over in our chairs, crying, laughing about plates,
and definitely losing our collective minds. What were we even doing? What
was all this amounting to? Willow was right, there was nothing but pain in
this life.
“Have you ever thought about it?” I asked. “Hanging it all up and going
straight?”
Luca shook his head. “No. I’ve never thought about that. Dad made sure
we lived and breathed this for a reason. He always said there was no way
out.”
I hated feeling like that was true. “Marco’s out.”
Luca tilted his head at me. “Is he?”
The more I thought about it, the clearer it got. “No, I guess he’s not.”
Mysterious letters saying to watch your back didn’t happen to just anyone.
“Face it, brother,” Luca said, calming down from his laughing fit. “This
is our life, and it’s our life, for good.”
11
 WILLOW

I hadn’t been able to get Alessandro out of my head for one second.
Despite my better judgment, I decided not to buy a ticket back to
California yet. I’d prepaid the rent on my apartment through the end of the
year, and I could always suspend my utilities if I thought I was going to be
staying in Philadelphia longer than I was planning. California would still be
there when I got back. I had an opportunity to see if Alessandro was willing
to make good on all of the stuff he’d said to me, or if he was going to
abandon me the same way he had years ago. I’d only agreed to dinner, and I
enjoyed Alessandro’s company. Maybe, when all was set and done, I would
have closure on this situation, and I could go back to California without
anything hanging over me. I could know I gave it the second chance that it
deserved and let it go for good.
All that in mind, I still hadn’t heard from Alessandro yet. It would be
just my luck that he would make some random decision between that
morning and now to let me go. I hadn’t reacted the best to him leaving. I
refused to sit around like some lovesick schoolgirl, so I made myself a
promise that if I hadn’t heard from him by the end of the day, I would buy a
ticket back to Cali and wash my hands of this.
A series of tiny taps against my bedroom window broke my thoughts. I
went over to the giant ceiling to floor, glass pane doors, pushed aside the
curtains, and shoved them open. I stepped out onto the balcony, looking
down to see Ricky in the yard with a handful of pebbles. Even after I was
clearly out on the balcony and staring straight at me, Ricky chucked a
pebble up, sending it sailing past my face.
“Hey!” I squealed.
“Oh, sorry! I didn’t see you there!” He flashed a coy grin.
“Yeah, you did,” I called back. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t this a thing that girls like?” Ricky asked.
I leaned against the balustrade. “Well, I think girls in movies like it, but
typically, it’s their boyfriends, not their brothers.”
All the color drained from Ricky’s face. “Wait, are you serious? It’s a
romantic thing?”
I laughed. “Yeah, Rick. Have you ever seen it in a fucking action flick?”
Ricky dropped the pebbles, fake gagging. “I’m sorry.” He held his hand
up to me. “Give me a minute.”
“Also noteworthy, it’s usually people who can’t get into the house
they’re throwing rocks at. You have keys to all of the doors leading in or
out of here.”
Ricky was still hunched over, coughing. “Yeah, I know, but I thought to
myself, hey, I’ll do a cute little brotherly thing.’” He gagged again. “Hang
on. I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?” I called down. He took a deep breath and then stood
upright. “Feeling better?”
Ricky nodded. “It’s coming back to me.”
“I had sex up here last night,” I shouted down.
Ricky threw his hands in the air. “Why would you—I don’t wanna—
what did you—why?” He hunched over, hacking again.
I started laughing. “Will you get up here, you weirdo? My throat is
starting to hurt from screaming.”
He stood up, looking up at me. “I don’t need to hear that!”
 “From screaming at you!” I shouted. “God, you’re so strange! Get up
here.”
I went back into my room, and a few minutes later, Ricky walked in. He
made a face like he was stepping into a landfill, coiling his hands into his
body and turning his nose up. “Tell me where it’s safe to sit.”
I shook my head. “Nope, you’ve already failed.”
“Ah!” Ricky hopped back out of my room and stood outside the
doorway.
I laughed. “It’s too easy. I’m kidding. Just avoid the bed.”
Ricky looked at me skeptically, but stepped into the room and walked
over to the stool that sat in front of my vanity. “Ugh,” he started. “I can’t
believe I’m about to ask this, but how was last night?”
“Really, really wonderful,” I said, and Ricky’s face started glowing.
“Seriously?
I smiled at him. “Yeah. I mean, he laid it all out there, and then we…
well, you know.”
“Yeah, I don’t need to hear it again.”
I sat down on the bed and lifted one of the pillows to my nose, taking in
Alessandro’s smell still clinging to it. “He wants to take me out to dinner,
and I said I’d let him. It was really perfect until the end.”
“What happened at the end?” Ricky asked.
“You don’t know yet?” I said. “Apparently, Marco called Alessandro.”
Ricky’s face flooded pale white again, this time with fear instead of
disgust. “Are you serious?” He pulled out his phone. “I wonder why I
haven’t gotten a call yet.”
“He was leaving to go talk to Luca, so maybe they’re still figuring it all
out. Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.
Ricky shook his head. “I really can’t. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “I probably don’t want to know anyway. The less I know
about all this stuff, the better.”
 Ricky seemed deflated in the wake of getting the news. I couldn’t figure
out what would be upsetting him so much, but clearly, there was a tangled
web that my poor brother was standing right at the center of. I wanted to
take him and flee the coop back to California. If only I could demand that
he stop working for them, but with my mom as tied down as she was, it
wasn’t like he was doing any worse. Besides, he was an adult who could do
what he wanted, my concerns be damned.
“So when’s dinner?” Ricky asked.
“I don’t know. Alessandro said he’d call me, but I haven’t heard from
him yet.” That seemed to make Ricky even more nervous. He unlocked his
phone, made like he was going to call someone, and then put it back down
again. “Is it that bad?” I asked.
“It’s pretty bad,” he replied.
I waved my hand through the air. “Yep, I’m certain, I don’t wanna
know.”
“No, you don’t,” Ricky said.
The doorbell rang, and Ricky and I looked at one another, confused. I
stood up to head for the door, then Ricky jumped up and moved in front of
me. To my shock, he pulled aside his jacket and pulled a gun from his
waistband.
“Oh my god, Ricky!” I screeched. “Why the hell do you have that?”
“Are you serious? You’re the one who always says this world is
dangerous.” He made a lowering gesture with your hand. “Keep your voice
down.”
“Do you really think it could be someone dangerous?” I whispered,
tiptoeing after Ricky as he moved.
“I don’t know. Hearing that Marco made contact puts me on edge.” We
slunk our way down the stairs and over to the door. Ricky peeked through
the peephole and then suddenly cocked the gun. “There’s no one there.”
 My heart began to race wildly. “Really?” I remembered that I had
Alessandro’s card upstairs in my suitcase. “Should I call someone?” Ricky
grabbed the doorknob and started to turn it, but I pulled him back. “What
are you doing? If someone’s out there waiting to shoot you, you’re walking
right into the trap.”
Ricky looked over his shoulder at me. “I got this.”
He continued to open the door, pulling it aside, leading with his gun.
When the door was opened fully, he looked down and noticed a white box
with a red ribbon on the doorstep. “Stand back.”
I took several large steps back, even though it wouldn’t make much
difference if it was a bomb or something. Ricky knelt down and tipped open
the little card on top, and then I watched his whole body relax. He released
the cock on his gun and returned it to his waistband.
“It’s from Sandro.”
“God, I feel like I’m gonna throw up.” I walked over to the package and
picked it up, carrying it into the dining room with Ricky behind me. “You
see, this is the shit I’m talking about. Do you know what happens when
someone rings my doorbell when I’m in California? I open the door, they
say here’s your Chinese ma’am, and then I pay them, and they leave. People
shouldn’t live like this.”
“Just open it,” Ricky said, sliding down into one of the dining room
chairs and grabbing a napkin to wipe the sweat from his brow.
I lifted the lid, and there was another note sitting on top of the white
tissue paper inside. In a beautiful script, it read, I’ll pick you up tomorrow at
eight. I removed the note and peeled back the tissue paper, and there was a
pair of black, designer heels with ankle straps, a pair of tight-fitting, skinny
slacks, and a black, double-breasted suit jacket with brass buttons.
Ricky let out a whistle. “Wow, that looks nice.”
“It is,” I confirmed. “This is, like, the in-style outfit right now. He did
his research. I’m impressed.”
 “Tomorrow at eight, huh?” Ricky read the note. “Ha, you’ll be in bed by
ten.”
“Again,” I repeated. “I am your sister.”
Ricky scrunched up his nose again. “Right. I keep forgetting.” He
looked depressed again all of a sudden, and I laughed.
He perked back up immediately. “I’m happy for you.”
I held the suit coat up to my frame, knowing it was going to fit
perfectly. “Thanks. I’m happy for me, too.”
12
 ALESSANDRO

I ’d stared down the barrels of guns in my past, and they didn’t make me
as nervous as I was driving up to Willow’s house for our first date in six
years. I’d planned it down to the minute and designed it with the hope that
she would remember how great we were before. I wanted her to be nothing
but happy for the next several hours, and maybe, just maybe, if I was lucky
enough, by the end of the night, she’d be in love with me again and unable
to imagine going back to a life without me. Despite the risk involved, I
turned my phone off so I could pretend I wasn’t some mob prince in a royal
family of death and doom. I was just a guy, madly in love with a girl, trying
to show that girl that the reward was worth the risk.
The car I’d chauffeured for the night pulled up in front of Willow’s
family house, the one that my family gifted hers back when her dad started
working for us. Obviously, only her mother and brother lived there now,
with her dad in prison and her living in California, but while she was
visiting, it was like she was living in Philly again, and everything was
normal. That’s how I got the idea to recreate our first date. I kind of wished
that her dad was sitting on the front stairs the same way he was when I
came here for our first date, with a cigar carefully balanced between his lips
and a black, magnum colt sitting in his lap. He didn’t say anything as poor,
thirteen-year-old me climbed out of the car and walked up to the door with
white roses in hand. He didn’t need to. The casual puffs of smoke and
absent stare sang loudly, “I don’t care who you are. Hurt my baby girl, and
I’ll hurt you.”
He took the fall for a crime and was arrested later that year.
Now it was adult me, dressed in my navy blue suit with a gray shirt
beneath, a silver watch encircling my wrist, and my dad’s rings shimmering
in the moonlight, praying that a single night would be enough.
The door opened, and where I expected Willow to be standing, Ricky
was looking back at me with his signature, slanted grin. He had a beer in his
hand and was dressed fairly casually in a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt.
“Hey!” he held up his beer. “Willow will be down in a second.”
I leaned against the door to the car with the bouquet of roses in my
hand. “How is she? I mean, like, how do you think this is gonna go?”
“You’re on the right track, I know that. She’s been smiling like a dope
all day long.” A hand came flying in from beyond the door’s frame and
whacked Ricky on the back of the head. “Ow!”
“Shut your mouth and go away.”
Ricky stepped out of the doorway, and Willow stepped into his place.
The sight of her took my breath away. She had her hair down, cascading
across her shoulders with wisps of her bangs hanging down into her
stunning, blue eyes. She was dressed in the outfit that I bought her, a sign
that she must have found it fashionable because she never left the house in
something that wasn’t. I was glad to see she’d skipped wearing any sort of
blouse under the jacket, simply letting it rest in a V down her collarbone
with a crest of cleavage just above the buttons. The pants chiseled out her
shapely thighs, and she was wearing the three-inch heels with the strap
around the ankle. She was perfection walking. My Willow. Thank you,
Lord.
I walked up to her and held out my hand, and she set hers gently inside.
I kissed her knuckles before handing over the white roses. Her small smile
grew, and she took them, reaching back to set them inside the door frame,
where Ricky’s phantom hand met her and retrieved them. She shut the door,
and then we walked down the steps to the car.
The chauffeur helped us in the car, and then we were off toward our first
stop, a restaurant outside of the city, modeled after a Japanese zen garden. It
was decorated with dozens of fake cherry blossom trees and had rock
gardens scattered around. She’d seen it on a T.V. show and wanted to go, so
I decided to take her there for our first time out. Most young pre-teens in
love did movies and dinner at an Applebee’s, but even back then, I knew
Willow was worth way more than that.
We were seated at our table, where two glasses of wine were already
waiting for us, unlike the glasses of water we’d had back in the day.
“Well, I guess coming back after ten years has its perks,” Willow joked,
tipping her wine glass to her mouth after we ordered our food.
“Yeah,” I said with a laugh, “it didn’t even occur to me that we can eat
anything on the menu now. We were too young for anything simmered in
liquor last time.” I took my own drink, still unable to believe I was sitting
across from Willow once again. “Do you remember when we first came
here? I was trying to act like I was so mature and confident, but when I
opened the menu, my head exploded.”
“You didn’t realize that most of the menu was authentic Japanese dishes
and had no idea what to order. Try though you might to be fancy, you were
still a snot-nosed little brat looking for mac and cheese.” Willow laughed,
and it was music to my ears. “That was hysterical.”
“Do you remember how I asked you out?” I inquired, intentionally
trying to get Willow to a reminiscent place.
She nodded. “You said,” she cleared her throat and dropped her voice,
“‘Uh, do you wanna go out? For real this time.’”
I nearly spit my wine out. I had totally forgotten about the for real this
time part. Back when Willow and I were barely old enough to understand
the concept of dating, my brothers, knowing I had a crush on her, dared me
to ask her out. I puffed out my chest, walked up to her, and asked her to go
out with me, and she was so bewildered that I was afraid she was going to
say no. I coughed out something about joking before running away quicker
than a speeding bullet.
“How embarrassing,” I murmured. “Why would you ever agree to go
out with me?”
“I thought it was cute,” Willow replied. “You were so nervous that it
looked like you were going to throw up all over me.”
“Man, I’m so glad I didn’t.”
I looked into her eyes, and she looked back into mine, and it was like
nothing had changed. We were sitting in an alternate reality where she
never asked me to make a choice. These entire six years, we’d been
together, and we were just two people, very much in love, chasing the days
of our youth at the restaurant where we had our first date.
“So, give me the highlights,” I started again after a while. “Top five
things that have happened to you in the past six years. Go.”
Willow let out a puff of air while her eyes scanned the ceiling, searching
for an answer. “Let’s see. Well, the biggest thing, obviously, is work. After I
graduated, I was able to snag an internship with a major designing firm in
L.A., thanks to Sasha.”
“Sasha Love, right? She’s an A-lister!”
“Yeah, she’s also a dork,” she snorted. “I miss her, though. It’ll be nice
to get home and see her again. She’s been calling me like crazy.”
Get home. Right. We were not in an alternate reality. We were in the
version of reality we’d always been in, the one where Willow would be
gone again in a few days if our date didn’t go well. I tried to ignore the
emptying of my stomach at the thought.
Just get her to stay.
“Number two?” I pressed on.
 “Number two would definitely be living in Los Angeles in general. I
mean, you think Philly’s bustling. That city never shuts down. There’s
always someone doing something. Most places don’t even have a closing
time. You want burgers delivered to your door with margaritas on the side?
L.A. can do that.”
“Sounds like my kind of city,” I responded.
She nodded cheerily. “You’d love it there. I live right by this place, it’s
called a tech farm. I didn’t know those were things, but apparently, it’s
where a lot of the city’s technical control centers are housed. I walked
through there once, and it made my brain hurt. You’d probably have a field
day, though.”
“Probably.” I could see in her eyes the tinge of hopefulness that things
might fall the other way. That I would tell her I made a mistake not picking
her all those years ago, and that I wanted to go back to L.A. with her.
Knowing that she might immediately accept if I did made me want to do it.
“Three?” I had to get off the subject, or I was going to cave and go on
the run.
“Three…” Willow was thinking long and hard. Her brows were knit
together as she searched her brain for anything. Finally, she let out a
strained chuckle. “I guess I don’t have a three. I pretty much only work, eat,
and sleep.”
“You, too, huh?” I said. It felt like the realization was washing over
Willow as she said it. Apparently, she hadn’t been living a life of glamour
and excitement in L.A. She was only hiding there. “Are you happy there?”
Willow was slightly taken aback. “Of course I’m happy there. Why?”
“Philly misses you,” I responded. “I miss you.” Willow took a
distracting drink of her wine, not responding. “Do you miss me?”
Willow set her glass down. “Of course I miss you.” I was kind of
surprised by how she was immediately honest. “But we can’t, Sandro.”
“Why can’t we?” I asked. “We’re supposed to be together.”
 “There was a time when I thought that, too, but you have this life that
you’re committed to living, and I don’t want to be a part of it,” she
explained with sadness in her eyes. “You don’t think there were literally
hundreds of times I wanted to pick up the phone and call you in the last six
years? To hear your voice?” My chest constricted. She really did feel the
same as me. “I kept telling myself that, eventually, I would get over it.
Eventually, you’d only be some guy I’d dated, and I could move on, but I
couldn’t move on, Sandro.”
She looked on the brink of tears.
“Me neither.” I shook my head. “Some people move on while they’re
still in relationships, Willow. If it’s so serious for us, we shouldn’t ignore
that.”
“Come to L.A. with me.” Her expression was the same serious and
pleading expression she’d given me when she said the same thing to me six
years ago. “Move into my place. Ricky can come, too. I’ve got three
bedrooms. I want to be with you, Alessandro.”
I closed my eyes and basked in the moment. That’s what I’d been
waiting to hear. I wanted to hear those words more than anything every day
since she’d left for California. My throat burned as I heard them because I
knew what my response was going to be.
The same one that disappointed her six years ago.
I thought about Marco and his family being threatened, and I thought
about Luca and Gabriel trying to hold down the fort on their own. I thought
about the Binachis finding any excuse they could to hurt my family in every
conceivable way possible, and as much as I wished I could, as much as I
wanted to hang up my suits and go be some domestic husband in a suburb
in L.A., my ties wouldn’t allow it.
“Yeah,” Willow said before I could respond. “I figured as much.” She
shifted, and I almost thought she was going to get up and leave, but she
took another drink of her wine, emptying the glass.
 “I’m sorry,” I responded. “This time it’s different. I wish I could go with
you back to Cali, Willow. There is literally not a single thing that I want
more in my entire life.”
Willow’s eyes widened a little. “Really?”
“Really. If I didn’t think it would put you in danger, I would drop
everything right now. I wouldn’t even have a second thought. I’d buy us
some house right outside the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles, you could
keep working, I’d maybe go for an I.T. degree or something. Fuck,” I
hissed, “that tech farm sounds like heaven right about now.”
Willow crossed her arms. “Are things really that bad?”
“Haven’t they always been? You were right to leave this shit behind. I
don’t blame you for that. I never have. Back when you first hit me with that
ultimatum, all I could think was, how could she ask me to choose like that?
But the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. This world isn’t for
people who are happy and in love. This world is for miserable people with a
death wish.” Suddenly I was venting when I didn’t mean to, all of my
feelings about the life and Willow spilling out all at once. “Sorry.” When
Willow didn’t say anything, I looked up to gauge her response, and there
were tears bunched in the corners of her eyes and a small grin on her face. I
reached across the table and flicked them away with my thumb. “What,
baby?”
“I thought this world meant more to you than me,” she said at a near
whisper. “I thought that’s why you couldn’t leave it behind.”
I pressed my palm to her cheek. “Nothing means more to me than you.”
Willow smiled, and I watched true relief wash over her. I felt like such
an idiot. All I had to do was make her feel loved. She didn’t want this life,
and I didn’t want it for her, but knowing that it was something I had to do
versus something I wanted to do made her feel differently. It was eye-
opening.
 Our food finally came, and the rest of the date was like something out of
a romance movie. We’d taken a sledgehammer to the cement wall that
circumstance had built between us, and it was like we were us again. We
talked about everything we could imagine. We remembered old dates,
talked about where our friends from high school were now, and I even got
to gush about my Anna and Antonio. I took out pictures and showed her,
and she cooed at how much they looked like Luca. I talked about Molly and
how she made Luca into a better man, and I talked about Gabriel and how
he was struggling with the business and probably needed to get out more
than I did. Willow took everything in stride, listening to me the way she did
when we were dating in high school, being there for me with each passing
second.
She told me all about her house in L.A., and we joked about what it
would be like for me to live there with her, how her neighbors would
probably hate us, and we’d need to move sooner rather than later to enjoy
some privacy. I wished for it so badly. If I had a genie and could wish for
three things, I would wish for that three times, and I told her so.
After dinner, I took her to walk along a river closeby. She always loved
being outside in the fresh air. She wasn’t a camper, but every time any of
our dates ended with us sitting outside, snuggled together under a blanket,
looking up at the night sky, that was when she was happiest. I didn’t want
the date to end, and if the look of disappointment on Willow’s face when I
suggested I get her home was any indicator, she didn’t want it to, either.
I kissed the back of her hand before helping her into the car, and she
responded by pulling herself up to kiss me.
“Let’s go home,” she said, and the phrase covered me like a warm,
heated blanket.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Let’s.”
13
 WILLOW

D isappointment was already hanging all around me as the car turned

onto my mother’s property. I didn’t expect our date to go the way
that it did. Alessandro was honest and open with me, and hearing that he
wanted out of the life the same way I wanted him out gave me hope that
maybe, someday, things would work out. If he could manage an escape
from under his brother and this crushing pressure he felt to be loyal to his
family, he could move to L.A., and we could be together.
Imagining it made me want it even more.
“What are you thinking about?” Alessandro asked, pushing a few locks
of my hair back behind my ear.
“You,” I replied honestly, and we left it at that.
The car pulled to a stop, and the chauffeur got out, coming around to let
me out of the car. Alessandro slid out after me, and we walked up to the
door. I turned around, prepared to say something, but Alessandro cut me off
with a kiss. His arms coiled around me and pulled me close, and my arms
pulled at his waist, trying to get him even closer. Maybe if I pulled hard
enough, we’d never have to part ways again.
“Thank you for tonight,” he said.
I chuckled. “I should be the one thanking you. This was amazing.”
He kissed me again on my cheek. “Good night, Willow.”
 He turned around to start making his way down the stairs, and I was
shocked. “Wait. What?”
He looked back at me. “What?”
I crossed my arms. “That’s it? A goodnight kiss?”
He turned around and walked back up the stairs to me. “Did you have
something else in mind?”
I grabbed the edges of his suit coat and dragged him down to me,
smashing our lips together. He let out a surprised huff but didn’t pull away,
greeting me when I poked my tongue out to mingle with his. When I finally
let go, we were both clamoring for breath.
“Got it,” he said. He waved his hand at the driver while I opened the
door and dragged him inside.
We fumbled our way toward the stairs with his hands tangling into my
hair, while I was already at work getting his suit jacket off. The stairs
seemed like too sizable an obstacle. I didn’t want that much standing
between me and getting Alessandro naked. I dropped his suit jacket to the
floor and started to step backward toward the living room. As we crossed
the threshold, I swung my hand out and smacked the switch, starting the
fireplace. Alessandro’s hands were roaming all over my body. He grunted in
irritation at the presence of my clothes. He dipped his head and licked a line
up my chest and over my chin to slip his tongue back between my lips as
his fingers flipped the buttons of my jacket apart. His eyes bulged when he
saw I had on only a black, strapless bra underneath.
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
He smoothed his fingers over my skin, over my bra, and down to the
front clasp. He flicked it open with ease, making me question for a moment
if he truly hadn’t been with anyone else, but I didn’t want to consider the
thought. I pushed the thoughts from my mind and sank into the feeling of
Alessandro caressing my ass. He smacked it gently, and I let out a quiet
breath. I dropped down to sit on the floor, and Alessandro followed, folding
into me as we kissed again. We intermingled ourselves with one another in
every way we could.
I worked slowly for the next ten minutes to get Alessandro out of every
article of clothing he had on. He was sexy, that couldn’t be denied. His
upper body was covered in tattoos, on his arms, chest, and stomach, and he
had chiseled, hard, worked-on muscles that would put a bodybuilder to
shame. Below the waist, he was well-endowed and already excited to be
participating in the day’s festivities, and his thighs were cut and thick. He
could be the model for a marble statue if he wanted to be. He was that kind
of beautiful.
“Look all you want, baby,” he goaded, leaning back on his hands and
giving me the full view.
I took my bottom lip beneath my teeth. “That’s good stuff.”
He started striking a bunch of different, silly poses, some flexing his
muscles, some not. The fire was crackling behind him, flashing reds and
oranges across his bronzed skin. It was art.
Alessandro was a man who could best be described as attractive without
trying. He didn’t often do his hair, but the way his curls sat as a mess atop
his head was oddly fashionable. He almost exclusively wore suits, but not
because there was an allure to them, simply because that’s what his dad
always told him to do. People reacted best to him when he was in his suits,
so they made up about eighty percent of his wardrobe, with the other twenty
being comprised of suit adjacent fashions like button-ups and long-sleeved
polos. Even in high school, he was typically the nicest dressed kid walking
around. If he owned t-shirts, I never saw them, and his pairs of jeans were
used as grunt work clothing alone.
I let my fingers walk across his abs, admiring them up close. He smiled
down at me and tossed me a cheeky wink, so I playfully jabbed at his
stomach. He crawled forward, making his way up my body, leading with
hands to settle on my breasts. He squeezed as he kissed them before
dropping down to hook his fingers in the edges of my pants. He peeled
them down, pecking along my thighs as he went, and stretched them to get
them over my heels and off.
“These are staying on.” He licked my shin and kissed it as he crooked
my leg over his shoulder.
His free hand dropped to his large and leaking shaft to pull at it while
looking me over. He licked his lips like a wolf about to feast, and he guided
himself down to my eager entrance. He perched himself there, tapping the
sensitive bundle of nerves that sent me spiraling. I let out a moan, loving
the feeling of the heated head teasing me. Alessandro knew exactly what to
do and when to do it. He was a god among men.
“Please baby,” I simpered at him. “I need you inside me.”
Alessandro shook his head. “Well, shit, when you ask so nicely, how
can I refuse?” He dipped into me without hesitation, quickly filling me up
with all of him. He let out a deep breath. “Fuck.” He shuddered, drawing
out the word. “Why do you always have to feel so good? I can’t last.”
I took the leg he didn’t have fastened over his shoulder and poked the
toe of my heels at his arm. “But I want so much of you, baby. You have to
last.”
He growled. “I’ll never make it with you talking like that.” He pushed
even further into me, despite my believing he was as deep as he could go.
The heavens sang when I clamped around him, feeling overstimulation as I
came without warning.
“God, dammit. What are you doing to me?” he moaned.
He started to move in and out, in a hungry, rhythmic pattern. I wiggled
my hips as he moved, wanting to feel as much of him moving around inside
of me as I could. He picked up his pace until the sound of skin meeting skin
was a lewd soundtrack to our dalliances, with vocals of my moans and his
guttural grunts.
 He was a maze I was happily lost in. Each new row of hedges was
Alessandro turning me into a new position as the firelight flickered over us.
He turned me around to where I was on all fours, wrapping his arm around
me to massage my raised buds while he worked himself in and out of me at
a wild, animal pace. He ventured into being a little rough, raising his hand
above my ass and bringing it down in a pain-meets-pleasure slap that had
me shaking with excitement.
He blanketed himself over me so he could take his time gathering each
of my breasts into his mouth to enjoy. My nipples stood, excited to be
rubbed between gentle teeth before being suckled with passion. He kept one
leg hooked over his arm, stretching me wide, and making it easier for him
to reach deep inside of me and play with spots that had me orgasming over
and over without ceasing. His hands splayed across my skin, searching for
any spot to grip as he dove into me.
Finally, he sat cross-legged and seated me in his lap. I wrapped my legs
around to lock behind his back, while my arms circled his shoulders to hold
on there. The closeness elevated the intimacy to new heights, our breaths
landing in moans against each other’s clammy flesh. I rocked against him,
pistoning him in and out of me at whatever speed I wanted. I edged him a
little, going at a quicker pace until his hips were shaking, and then slowing
down in legato movements, making him groan in my ear.
“Baby, I’m gonna come.” He bit down on my ear lobe.
I could feel it too. I’d lost track of how many times I’d struck gold, but
there I was again, screaming out in unison with Alessandro, him emptying
into me in the process.
I only barely recalled Alessandro carrying me up to my bed after our
storm had died down. In the morning, light spilled in through my window,
hazy and gray. A storm was developing outside. I looked over Alessandro’s
face, calm and quietly snoozing next to me. I rubbed his bare chin and
cheeks, realizing that I’d never seen him with facial hair. The Varassos
weren’t facial hair people. On occasion, I’d see one of the older boys grow
beards out, but Angelo was strict about not having facial hair and typically
didn’t allow it. They’d all gone through stages of defying their father’s
wishes—facial hair was a sign of becoming a man—but Alessandro never
went through that. He hung on every word his dad said, never questioning
or doubting him for a moment. He took what his dad said stone seriously, so
I imagined that when tiny whiskers started to appear on his face, he
eradicated them post-haste and never allowed them to return.
Angelo had had a weird effect on his third son. It seemed like his eldest
two were far from being his number one fan, but his youngest, though
always trying to impress him, seemed more afraid of him than respectful
toward him. With Alessandro, however, somewhere something stuck.
Alessandro held high regard for his father, which was why I was somewhat
surprised to hear that Luca had taken their late father’s seat and not
Alessandro. He’d left his third eldest his entire set of rings, what I believed
to be his most notable symbol of lordship over his family. Had Angelo
intended for Alessandro to take over, and Luca strong-armed his way in as
the oldest?
I bid the musings farewell. I loathed that burning curiosity inside me
that occasionally wanted to know more about the Varassos’ inner-
clockwork. Anyone would be interested, but at the end of the day, I didn’t
want to know anything more about the Varasso family than what was
necessary. For what it was worth, I knew I ultimately should be grateful that
Luca held the throne, whether by will or by force. If Alessandro sat in his
father’s chair, neither of the past two nights would have happened. I
wouldn’t have even considered letting Alessandro talk to me at the funeral.
A participant was one thing, but the patriarch was far beyond what I could
handle.
I brushed over Alessandro’s face a few times before he reached up and
took my hand without opening his eyes, kissed the palm, and set it back
down against his chest.
His head lolled over, and he smiled at me. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, yourself,” I kissed his bottom lip gently. “Last night
was wonderful.”
“Last night was more than wonderful,” he replied, returning my peck
with one on my nose. “I didn’t want it to end.”
I nodded. “I know what you mean.”
One of his hands was wrapped around me, and his fingers circled
against my lower back. I started to mentally hang onto the back and forth
movement, feeling my eyes get tired again.
Alessandro snorted. “You look like you could go back to sleep.”
I nodded. “I probably could.”
“Go ahead,” he coaxed. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Will you?”
I knew how things went for the Varassos. The fact that Alessandro had
been with me since eight o’clock last night meant he’d be getting a call
anytime now to head back home and handle business. I tried not to count
down the minutes when we were together, but for every second longer that
he was with me, the more I started to anticipate the inevitable.
His warm expression cooled a bit. “You know my family too well.”
“I’ve grown used to never being able to have you all to myself for too
long.” I traced the lines on Alessandro’s chest and stomach with a finger,
trying to distract myself from the annoying gnawing at my heart at the idea
of him leaving. I was a disappointed, lovesick teenager again. “It’s par for
the course.”
“I don’t want it to be,” Alessandro replied. “I’m sorry.”
He hugged me a bit closer, and I breathed in his earthy scent. It was so
familiar and unchanged that it made me feel even more at home than I
would if I were in my own bed alone. He was home.
 “So, is today the day you buy a ticket and fly back to California?” he
asked. I could clearly see the thought made him sad.
“No, I don’t think so,” I replied honestly, and his frown did a one-
eighty. “I haven’t taken a vacation from my job in…Well, I don’t know that
I’ve ever taken a vacation from my job. It’s good to relax. The scenery is
nice.” I hit his stomach. “I can spare a few more days.”
“Then, can I see you again?” I asked. “Like, all of the time.”
I laughed, realizing I was already letting myself get a little too close.
“Yeah. I think that can be arranged.”
14
 ALESSANDRO

I couldn’t put into words the joy I was experiencing, knowing that
Willow was staying in Philly for a bit longer. It had already been a week
since I took her out on what I had dubbed our second first date, and we
hadn’t stopped talking to one another for a moment. Any time Ricky came
over to help us sort things out with Marco, he came with a report of Willow
walking around the house with a smile on her face, in his words, “Singing
like the end of a Disney movie or some shit.”
I wanted to see her again, but duty called, as it always did. We were still
trying to figure out where the threat to Marco had come from, and Luca
asked Ricky to stop communicating with him for the time being. It was
possible that his phone or house was bugged, and even though Ricky had
been clear and intentional in speaking to Marco in code only, it didn’t mean
that someone else in our particular line of work wasn’t smart enough to
figure out what they were actually saying.
The Binachis—Dante, Dario, and Donovan—were already convicted
and sentenced. They weren’t getting out. It had been a risky move for
Marco to sacrifice them for his own happiness, but I had to commend his
bravery. If any of us was going to be on the outs and enjoying a pressure-
free life, I wanted to protect that, if for no other reason than the dream that
one day it might be my reality.
 “What’d you find out?” Ricky asked Luca, having joined us for this
meeting.
“I’ve spoken with everyone we know on the force, and no one can
figure out how the Binachis got Marco’s new address. Which means one of
two things,” Luca explained.
“Either they know and aren’t saying anything, or it was one of them,” I
replied.
“Exactly. Now…”
Luca’s voice faded from my consciousness as my phone buzzed in my
grip. I picked it up and smiled to see that it was a text from Willow. She was
lying by the pool and decided to send me a delectable shot of the sun
wallpapering her smooth skin. God, I would have given my left arm to be
there next to her.
I shot back a playful text about what I would do to her if I were there,
and she replied with another picture, this one of her holding up her bikini
top, no longer held to her torso. Her pert breasts filled my brain alongside
the memory of them filling my mouth, and suddenly my pants were getting
tighter.
I felt a shove on my arm and looked up, and Luca, Gabriel, and Ricky
were all staring back at me.
“Care to join us?” Luca asked like a patience-zapped school teacher.
“Sorry.” I tucked my phone away. “What were you saying?”
“We need to find out where this mole is,” Luca said. “Do you have any
ideas?”
“I mean, the obvious is a false info dump,’ I responded. “Tell people in
controlled groups and wait for the info to get back to us, narrowing the
playing field of who knows.”
Luca nodded. “We can tell a couple of the guys down at the station
about a drug drop and see if we get busted instead.”
 Ricky crossed one leg over the other. “We have to start inside first.
Hand out a few cards and see if any of ‘em come back to you. Here’s the
thing, though. For transparency, you should all come up with different
stories, and don’t even tell one another. Something obvious that you’d
notice right away if someone was running their mouths.”
“Why wouldn’t we tell each other?” Luca asked.
“Simple,” Ricky said. “Because if the mole is in here, we’ll know.”
We exchanged looks with one another nervously. We hadn’t considered
the possibility that one of us would be the mole. It didn’t make much sense
for any of us to be. Luca’s whole life hung in the balance of our
organization, and I’d been loyal to a fault since the day I was born. Even
Gabriel, who could be categorized as a man having a motive, wasn’t stupid
enough to cross Luca, who he was terrified of. If it had been Gabriel, he
would already be in the wind, covering up his tracks behind him as he went.
“Look,” Ricky continued. “It’s not like I think anyone in here said
anything. Obviously, we didn’t, but if one of us is tapped somehow and we
release a story, we can at least identify that it might be one of us being spied
on, that’s it.” He looked at me. “I’m sure you were planning to reimage all
the phones and computers, but hold off just a minute. Let’s see if something
turns around based on this conversation alone. I’ll let you guys know when
we’ll move to step two.”
Ricky was talking like he was one of the boys. He’d only served as our
legal aid up to that point, but he probably felt like he had more skin in the
game since he was the only one speaking to Marco when he got the card.
He still didn’t know his address, but that kind of serendipity was always
cause for suspicion.
Gabriel was sitting silently off to the side. He didn’t often speak up
during meetings. He knew better. He and Luca were at odds at best, but
when tensions were high, Gabriel always got the brunt of Luca’s wrath.
Still, as we sat there, his hand shook as he held it in the air. We all stared at
him for a minute until Luca got irritated.
“What?” Luca spat.
“Um. I was doing a little bit of research, and I found something,”
Gabriel started. He opened his phone, pressed a couple of buttons, and then
started talking. “Testing.”
We all jumped as Gabriel’s voice came screaming out of Ricky’s pocket.
Ricky stabbed his hand into his pocket, returning with his phone in hand,
Gabriel’s voice still grumbling out of it.
“What the hell is going on?’ Luca growled, hearing it echo from Ricky’s
phone.
Gabriel pressed a few additional buttons, and then he disconnected it
from whatever it was connected to and slid it back into his pocket. “It’s
related to the GPS systems we use.” He looked over at me as the resident
tech guru of our family. “I discovered it completely by accident. I was
trying to figure out how to turn down the volume on the GPS app and
realized it has a built-in intercom system that will allow us to communicate
with anyone else on the same network.”
My whole body got colder, and my mind went numb. I was responsible
for vetting and implementing a GPS system that would allow us to track
everyone within the organization with ease. Another thing Luca had
inherited from my dad was his paranoia, not that it wasn’t well-placed in
this kind of business. Was all of this my fault for overlooking a simple little
feature?
“All it would have taken is one accidental button press,” Gabriel said.
“But none of us knew Marco’s address,” Ricky replied.
Gabriel nodded. “None of us do, but Marco does.”
It hit us like a freight train. Marco had a brand new baby, and even
though he probably swapped his phone for a new one once he was placed in
witness protection, I know the first thing I would have done to feel close to
my family is download the app that tracked their movements. He handed
the phone to Amanda, she absently pressed some buttons, and boom, his
location is transmitted to someone else.
“Fuck!” Luca barked. He looked over at Gabriel. “Good work.”
Gabriel swallowed hard, sitting back in his chair. “Thanks.”
Luca turned to me, and I knew I was about to be torn open. “You had no
idea this was a thing?”
“None. If it weren’t for the bleeding danger of it all, I’d actually think
that was pretty cool,” I responded. “I don’t so much anymore.”
Luca sighed. “All right. Well, we need to get in touch with him, but we
can’t do it on that phone. We all delete that app off of our phones, and
Gabe, I need you to make sure the entire organization gets rid of it as well.
You watch them delete the app. Alessandro, can you change the password?”
“I’ll deactivate the account right now,” I said. “No one will be able to
get back in.”
Luca nodded, and I was kind of surprised he wasn’t angrier at my fuck
up. “Ricky?”
“I’ll call him from a burner,” Ricky replied. “I’ll let him know he needs
to delete the app immediately.”
“Tell him to change his phone,” I said, “and Kelly’s, too, probably.”
Ricky nodded. “Got it.”
Luca took a deep breath in and then let it out. “This is bad, but we can
fix it. We just have to be more careful, okay?”
Ricky, Gabriel, and I were all looking at one another like we were in the
twilight zone. In any other situation, I’d expect Luca to be burning with
rage and screaming until he was red in the face. His new calm demeanor
was shocking, if not a bit frightening.
“You okay?” Ricky asked.
Luca looked at me, his eyes dropping into mine. “Yeah. I just realized
recently that it’s hard to be prepared for this stuff.”
 Tectonic plates were shifting. It was just a simple conversation, nothing
more than a shared moment of absent dreams between brothers, but it had
altered a mindset, the exact same way it had with Willow. None of us really
wanted to be here, but generations before us had walked us into hell and left
us there to figure shit out. Luca did what my dad had never quite figured
out how to do; he descended from his heavenly throne and became human
like the rest of us.
Go figure.
“I’ll fix it,” I said finally.
“We’ll fix it,” Luca replied. He clapped his hands. “All right, go, we
don’t have time to fuck around. Every second this issue is out there, it gets
worse.” We all stood up, but as he typically did, Luca pointed at me. “Hang
back.”
Was I going to get the proverbial ass-kicking now? Ricky and Gabriel
left, and I sat back down in my chair.
Luca interlocked his fingers and pressed them to his lips. “Only our
organization has access to that network on our app, right?”
“Right,” I replied.
“Can you still see everything everyone does?” he asked.
I nodded and pulled out my phone. “At the click of a button.”
“Check who Marco’s phone communicated with.”
I found the IP on our network that didn’t have a name attached to it and
figured it was likely Marco’s phone. I traced back communications and
found that that IP address had communicated via intercom with a different
phone on our network.
“Horatio,” I replied, a driver in our ranks.
“There’s our mole,” Luca responded, and the next look he gave me was
devoid of any of the warmth he’d just displayed. “We’re gonna have to
teach him what happens to moles. Find out everything you can.”
15
 WILLOW

E very day was a new adventure for me. I thought I’d be back in
California after just a few days, and I was still in Philly two weeks
later. I wondered what this girl was thinking, the version of me that had
clearly taken over my body and was making all of the decisions. Sure, it
had been nice hearing from Alessandro that he didn’t want the life anymore,
but that didn’t really mean anything for me other than that, now, we were
both reluctantly involved. Alessandro was still one phone call away from
being dragged back into his family’s world, which meant I was still a single
link away from the dark and dangerous organization I’d sworn to leave
behind.
But the logical part of me had been locked in a cage by the part of me
that was now rapidly remembering how good Alessandro was at sex, while
the part of me that still had feelings for him poked at her with sticks.
I was still in bed with my laptop situated in my lap, sifting through
purchase options for Sasha’s upcoming red carpet for the blockbuster movie
she’d starred in. She typically liked four outfits for an event such as that
one. One for the actual red carpet, one for the inner walk—a second carpet
walk that the public didn’t typically see, where different celebrities and
other people walking the red carpet could actually enjoy showing off their
fashions and mingling with one another—a third one for the screening,
which generally took place two or three hours after the red carpet, and a
final one for the after-screening party.
Sasha was a hard woman to nail down sometimes. She went through
more trends than the fashion industry. On occasion, she preferred to be a
trailblazer, stepping out in fashions no one had ever seen before and setting
the trend. Other times, she liked to be on par with everyone else, wearing
what was in season. Sometimes she wanted to purposely be behind the ball,
wearing last season’s fashions as if to say she does what she wants. She’d
shied away from doing anything too camp, which was good because I
honestly didn’t understand it.
I closed my web browser and opened up my video chat app. I pressed
Sasha’s number and smiled at her profile picture of us wearing oversized
hats with puckered lips. I missed her.
The video feed went live, and Sasha appeared on the other side. “Oh my
god, is that Willow Morietti? How long has it been, three years? Four?”
“Thank god you are in drama,” I groaned back.
Sasha giggled. “Hi!”
“Hey! Did you dye your hair?” Her typically feathery blonde hair was
now a turquoise blue color.
She touched it. “Did I?”
“The least you could have done was tell me, Sash. I’m shopping for you
right now!” I rolled my eyes, mentally crossing out all of the green and
orange numbers I’d added to my list of potentials. They’d never go.
“Hey, I dyed my hair, like, a week ago, and I’ve put about twelve
million pictures on my Instagram. Is it my fault that you’ve been ignoring
me like a poor beggar child?” She threw the back of her hand to her
forehead. “Oh, woe is me. My best friend doesn’t love me anymore.”
“You are terrible.” I laughed. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, though.
Things got complicated fast around here.”
 “Well, can’t say you didn’t see that coming,” she responded. “What’s
going on? How’s Alessandro?” she said his name with a thick Italian
accent.
“He’s good. Really good.”
Sasha squealed and clapped her hands. “I knew it. I fucking knew you
were gonna sleep with him.”
“We’ve been dating, too, I guess. He recreated our first date a week ago,
and we’ve been out a few times since then.” I was desperately trying to
stifle the wide grin on my face, but thinking of Alessandro pasted it there
without my say so.
“Look at you, you’re glowing!” she chuckled. “Just make sure he knows
no proposing until I clear it.”
My eyes and nose flared. “Proposal? What are you talking about? Once
I come back to California, this will all be over again.”
“What are you talking about? You clearly still have feelings for him.
Just be with him. Don’t think about it so much. If you fall back in love, you
fall back in love.”
It didn’t sound awful when said so simply. I probably was falling for
Alessandro again. Hell, I never got up after falling for him the first time.
Still, the facts remained the same. Alessandro was deeply rooted in the
organization, and that wasn’t likely to change. “I can’t, Sasha. I’m just
setting myself up for heartbreak again. He’s still involved in his family’s
business, more so now that his dad is gone. I can’t do this life. I just can’t.”
“You’re overthinking it,” Sasha said. “Everyone has different
circumstances, but when two people love each other as deeply as you two
do, that’s not something that should be ignored. The universe isn’t going to
send you someone else like that. Most people don’t even get one. I promise
you, babe, if you come running back to California without giving that a
solid chance, you’re going to regret it.”
 I took Sasha’s words seriously because she wasn’t usually a serious
person. Whenever she got that little hike to her eyebrows, and her blue eyes
were near vibrating with resolve, I knew she meant business.
“I’ll think about it,” I replied.
“No!” she bellowed. “Don’t think, just do.”
Don’t think, just do.
That could be the mantra of my relationship with Alessandro.
“Okay,” I responded. “Okay. Now, let’s talk fashion since you fucked
everything up with your adorable blue hair.”
I talked to Sasha for another couple of hours. She was my rock
whenever I felt like I was floating too far away. I had Bella here in Philly,
and I’d seen her a few more times, but she could get as carried away as I
could. Sasha was good at keeping my feet on the ground and forcing me to
look at something from a different angle. I wanted nothing more than to be
with Alessandro. Maybe that was all that it took. Maybe I needed to go all-
in on that thought and let the universe do the rest of the work. Who knew, it
might reward me for finally letting go of all the things I tried to control in
my life. I could benefit from just making a decision one way or the other
instead of going back and forth. It seemed like everything in my life had
always been that way.
I wanted black and white, but I only ever got shades of gray.
Parents who loved me, supposedly, but had other things they dedicated
the bulk of their energy to. A twin brother who could be my best friend one
day, and one of those guys that I hated the next. A boyfriend who loved me
to the very tips of my fingers, but there was still something that could take
him from me at a moment’s notice, and often did. It was like purchasing.
Some dresses went better with hair but were a worse combination with the
skin tone. Some did a great job of making someone short look much taller,
but it also made them look heftier than they were.
I wanted black and white, but I only ever got shades of gray.
 Maybe that’s why I leaned toward a very definitive fashion sense. Black
or white, that’s what I preferred. It was the one thing I could control. The
one decision I could make without considering the pros and cons. If I
wanted to wear black clothes, I simply did, and that was it. It didn’t demand
years of thought. I didn’t take a step outside and walk around for twenty
minutes just to see how I felt in the clothes before actually going anywhere
in them. They were clothes, and it wasn’t that important, and somehow that
comforted me. Decisions that don’t have life-changing consequences; I
didn’t get enough of those in my life.
I’d thought of little else than Alessandro since he first asked me on that
fake date when we were ten. Fourteen years later, he still occupied more of
my brain space than anything else. I needed to make a choice. Either I
needed to give a relationship with Alessandro another go, or I needed to say
goodbye to him, pack my things, go back to California, and put this all
behind me for good.
16
 ALESSANDRO

I was running around my house like a chicken with his head cut off.
Willow’s coming over.
I wanted everything to be perfect, and I was definitely running the risk
of having some of the house staff poisoning my next meal. She’d been to
my house before, so I couldn’t quite find the source of the fear with her
coming over this time. Was it because I knew there was a higher
concentration of organization radiation here than anywhere else? Was it
because Luca had been so hot and cold lately that there wasn’t really any
way to tell how he was going to react to seeing her again after so long? Was
it because my dad wasn’t there to slap me on my back and tell me to man
up and that Willow was a woman that would hit the bricks the second she
saw weakness? Maybe it was a seven-layer cake of all of my and my
family’s biggest issues perfectly baked with a gun-toting stripper on the
inside, waiting to pop out the second Willow was sitting down to eat.
The current stage for my whirlwind was the kitchen. Anna and Antonio,
Luca’s children, were sitting at the table coloring, while the Queen herself
was standing at the six-burner stove, throwing together a lunch that I trusted
only her with. I kept flying by her, looking over her shoulder and asking if
she needed anything until she finally held a butcher knife out at me.
 “Stop it. You’re making me nervous, and I never get nervous,” she
chided. “Go sit with the kids. I’ve got this.”
I went over and sunk down into one of the faded wood seats next to
Anna, who was scribbling a tornado of color onto the piece of paper in front
of her. My leg was bouncing, but in an attempt to calm my nerves, I leaned
over her and looked down at the picture.
“What’s this, pumpkin?” I asked.
She held it up, proudly holding it out to me. “Unco Sandro!”
Molly sputtered out a laugh, hunching over the food.
I stared at the wild collision and indirect patterns of the color lines. I
feel attacked. “That’s very accurate, angel.”
Anna put it down with pride and continued to mix in colors until the
page had nearly no white left. Very accurate.
“So how long did you date this girl?” Molly asked.
“I took her on our first date when we were thirteen. She broke up with
me right after we turned eighteen, so five years that first time,” I explained,
chuckling at Antonio rolling crayons around his page, putting together as
accurate a portrait of his uncle as his sister had.
“That’s a long time for being so young. Luca said that you guys broke
up because she asked you to pick between her and the family?” Molly
asked, a point of judgment in her voice.
“Well, she asked me to pick between her and the life,” I replied, “but,
you know. The two are one and the same around here.”
“No truer words,” Molly said. “I don’t get it. If she doesn’t want to be
involved, why did she date you for five years?”
It was a difficult concept for Molly to grasp after having gone from
being a kidnap victim to grasping Luca’s world by the reins to the point that
she rivaled him in position and reputation. My mom had never taken the
front-seat driver position that Molly took when she fell for Luca. Molly was
headstrong, wanted to make herself useful, and found that she had
something of a knack for being a straight-up Mob Queen. She could crack
the whip on grown-ass men like she had her degree in that, not the culinary
arts. She ran the drug tunneling branch of our business and still found time
to be a wife and mother. To say she was a superwoman would be an
understatement. Still, it kept her from seeing how someone else would
struggle to do what she had done so easily. For her, loving Luca meant
accepting the organization. It was a different school of thought.
“She’s in a unique situation,” I explained. “Her dad worked for my dad
since she was very young. When she was thirteen, my dad settled a personal
matter in the way that my dad did, but there was bad blood between them,
so he got sloppy. In the end, there wasn’t any way for them to get out clean,
and someone had to take the fall. That person was Willow’s dad.”
“Wow, that is rough,” Molly responded. “I guess I can see it, then. She
was already into you, but then this huge thing happened. She tried to forget
it, but by the time she got to college, she realized there was no other way.”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, your dad was going to shoot me directly in the face for saying
some mean things about him on the internet, so you’ll have to excuse me if
I bond with her over what a fucking dick he was.” She seethed the last bit
through her teeth.
“Go for it,” I said with a smile. “She’d welcome it, I’m sure.”
There were times I wished that Willow would share that philosophy;
what you see is what you get, dings and all. If she was even half-willing to
come around to the idea of my family’s business, we’d be in good shape.
She didn’t have to dive into the deep end like Molly did, but she could have
a passive acceptance.
But then I would think about this rose and its thorns and realize that any
sane person would shy away from it. It worked out for Luca that Molly was
so willing to take the bull by its horns, but the fact that she was might have
been a red flag to someone else. The side of Willow that refused to get
anywhere near our world was the human side of her, and it was beautiful. It
helped me remember that I wasn’t always standing behind bulletproof glass.
“Da!” Antonio shouted.
“Hey, bud!” Luca walked over and kissed Antonio on the head and then
went over to Anna and gave her one as well. “Hi, baby. This is a nice
picture.”
“Unco Sandro,” she replied, and Luca snorted.
“It certainly is.” He gave her another kiss and then put a hand on my
head and ruffled it like some sort of proud dad. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I replied.
He turned around and walked over to Molly, looking over her shoulder
at what she was cooking. “Smells amazing.”
“Thank you. Want a taste?” she offered sweetly.
“Rude and disrespectful,” I griped as she held a spoon up to Luca’s
mouth. “You poked at me with a knife.”
“Yeah, well, your brother’s good in bed,” she replied.
“Okay,” I grumbled back.
Luca came and sat down at the table, at the head seat where my dad
used to sit, and started flicking through his phone. “How’s your research
going?” he asked.
“Good,” I responded. “I should have some solid information in a few
days. I’m waiting on a couple of deliveries.” Deliveries was one of the code
words we used for receiving information from an informant.
“Excellent. I’m thinking—”
“Ah!” Molly snapped. “No work talk at the table.”
Luca held up a hand. “Sorry, beautiful.” He looked at me. “We’ll talk
later.”
I nodded. “Yeah.” The doorbell rang, and I jumped up from my seat,
frightening Anna. I gave her a quick peck on the head. “Sorry, baby. She’s
here. What do I do?”
 Molly put a hand on her hip. “I mean, I would suggest getting the
door?”
“Right.” I rushed over to the front door and opened it, where Ricky and
Willow were standing on the other side. “Hey.”
I wasn’t sure if they had planned it, but they were wearing similar
outfits. Ricky had on his typical black t-shirt and dark jeans with combat
boots, while Willow was wearing a black blouse with billowing sleeves,
dark blue jeans, and black ankle boots. Even in something so simple and
understated, she looked magnificent.
“Hey,” she replied.
Ricky shoved his head in between our faces. “Hi!”
I shoved it out of the way. “Move.” Ricky tripped around me and
entered the house, and I stepped out, taking Willow into my arms and
giving her a kiss. “You look great.”
“You do, too,” she responded.
I didn’t typically wear anything other than a suit, but we were having a
laid back family lunch, so going full suit seemed to be a bit of an overkill. I
still had on suit pants and a pair of shiny, black Oxford’s, but I’d settled for
a maroon button-up, with the sleeves rolled up.
I led her into the kitchen, where Ricky greeted Molly with a kiss on the
cheek before turning his attention to Anna. “Hey, that’s a pretty cool
picture, Anna. What is it?”
She pointed at me, her freckled nose reminding me of her late mother.
“Unco Sandro.”
“Pfft,” Ricky spat. “I don’t know why I didn’t guess it.”
“Screw you,” I growled. I pulled Willow over to the table. “Anna.” She
looked up at me with a smile. “This is Willow.”
She waved cheerily. “Hi, Wiwwow.”
Willow giggled. “Hi.”
 I put a hand on Antonio’s head. “And this is Antonio.” He was still
aggressively rolling his crayons over the paper taped to his high chair table.
“He’s so cute.” She looked over at Luca. “He looks just like you, papa.”
Luca smiled back at Willow, and it was warm and inviting. He got up
out of his chair and walked over. “Thank you. It’s good to see you again.”
He gave her a hug, and it gave me fuzzy, happy feelings. I wished it
could always be like that.
When they released, I turned Willow’s attention to Molly. “And this is
Molly, Luca’s wife and Antonio’s mom. Though to be fair, she’s a mom to
Anna as well.”
“A damn good one,” Luca added.
Willow stuck out a hand to shake. “Hi. I’m Willow.”
Molly swatted Willow’s hand away and stepped forward to hug her.
“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard lots about you.” She pulled back. “Lots about
you. Like, lots. So much.”
“You done?” I asked.
She looked at me and then back at Willow. “Like, many things, all of
the time.” Then she grinned at me. “Okay. Now I’m done.”
I rolled my eyes. “I was literally about to compliment your cooking
skills.”
“You’re the one cooking?” Willow asked. “It smells amazing in here.”
“Thank you. I have a brisket in the oven and a braised tomato stew on
the stove.”
“She was a chef before coming here,” I said. “We still have her cook for
us from time to time, because honestly, you can’t beat it.”
Molly feigned coyness. “Aw, thanks, Sandro.” She turned around and
noticed Ricky was already dipped over the pot and had a spoon inside.
“Hey! Get away from my food!”
Ricky quickly scooped some of it and scootched back before she could
get to him to hit him.
 Willow laughed. “Sorry. He’s kind of impatient when it comes to food.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Molly replied.
Lunch was good. Thanks to Molly’s no work at the table rule, we
refrained from discussing business at all and had a delightful lunch,
bonding as a family. The kids were eating Willow up, not that I didn’t
understand why. She’d always been good with kids, which was how I knew
she’d be a fantastic mother one day. Whenever she got up from the table for
any reason at all, Antonio would start to cry, and Anna would try and
follow her. Luca, Willow, Ricky, and I went around and around, sharing
stories of our childhood and the shenanigans we got up to in our youth.
Molly just sat back and enjoyed hearing stories about her husband before
his mature days, back when he was actually a bit of a goofball. The only
thing missing was Gabriel, who’d been sent to Scranton to follow up on our
app situation with our extension out there.
After lunch, Molly went to put the kids down for a nap, and Ricky and
Luca were going to talk business, so I decided to take Willow outside to
walk through our garden out back. We’d taken several walks through that
garden as teenagers, and I knew she would enjoy spending some time out
there again. We spent some time walking amongst the pristinely manicured
hedges until Willow suddenly remembered the time we’d hidden in the
bush maze on the southern side of the garden and ended up having sex back
there. To my surprise and delight, she took my hand and dragged me back
there once more, pulling me against her and telling me that she wanted to
relive this part of our younger days, too. We only barely managed to get our
clothes back on when we heard Ricky calling for us from the other side of
the hedges I had pushed her up against.
I didn’t want her to go. Sharing her with my family, surrounding us with
love, it felt so domestic, so normal. It was the life I dreamed of. I loved the
idea of getting together to share meals, Willow playing with the kids,
maybe even our kids, while Molly nagged at Luca to quit bringing up work
at the table. Ricky making stupid puns about every single dish he put in his
mouth, like some sort of lame uncle. That was what I wanted.
That’ll never happen, Sandro.
I parted ways with Willow, with a kiss and a promise to see her soon,
and then stood on the front stairs as she and Ricky drove away. The feeling
was all too familiar. It was the same one teenage Alessandro felt every time
Willow left for the day. Any time spent away from her was too much time.
Luca walked up and stood next to me. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything this badly,” I said. “All this shit
we’ve gone through, and I think this may be the most difficult, and you
know what the craziest part is?”
Luca shoved his hands in his pockets. “What?”
“I wish dad was here.” It felt weird to say it out loud. Of my brothers, I
was probably closest to our father. Because I was willing to always give the
benefit of the doubt, I was generally the only one who saw his human side.
“For as much of an ass as he was, it did sometimes feel like he had all
the answers,” Luca responded. “But, you know, he’s not here. We’ve gotta
figure it out.”
I imagined Willow heading back to California and me never seeing her
again. “Yeah. I know.”
17
 WILLOW

A t the end of week three of still being in Philadelphia, my mom

finally came back from her vacation. She was reticent regarding my
still being there when she got home and started awkwardly floating around
me, randomly asking questions to try and ignite conversations with me that
I had no interest in having. As a result, I’d started spending more and more
days at Alessandro’s house instead of my own. It made me uncomfortable
to be there, considering I was in the thick of it whenever I was there, but as
long as I could be somewhere where I couldn’t actively see or hear it, I
could pretend it didn’t exist.
Ricky would come around often, as well, and I could see from how
comfortable he was walking in and out of the house he must have spent a
lot of time there before I came to Philly. Often, I would be in the middle of
spending time with him, playing chess, which was his favorite game, or
hearing about the dates he was going on while I was there, and then he
would get called away by Luca, Alessandro, or Gabriel to go work on
business. It annoyed me, but I tried my best to take it in stride. Sasha’s
words centered themselves in my mind. Don’t think, just do.
I worked as best as I could, especially when neither Alessandro or
Ricky was around. I took breaks and spent time with Anna and Antonio and
got to know Molly a little bit more, but I was shocked to learn that she was
deeply involved in the organization, as well. She’d become known as
Queen Molly for her control over certain aspects of the business. She could
be as ruthless and cutthroat as the rest of them. She told me about the
importance of making sure everyone knew that she was a dominant, active
member of the family, not just Luca’s wife. It actually made me think a
little bit, hearing how drastically her life had changed all because of one
thing, but to say she met the challenge head-on would be an
understatement. She was a badass and wasn’t around to be shuffled along.
In many ways, Molly Varasso was the most powerful of them all.
I was in a tailspin of emotions. Whenever we were sitting down to a
meal or doing something domestic and simple like game night, I was
willing to jump on board. I loved it. I loved going to sleep with Alessandro
at night and waking up next to him in the morning. I loved sitting out in the
beautiful garden to work when it was warm enough, occasionally looking
up to see one of the Varassos or Ricky carrying me out a glass of lemonade
or coffee. I was quickly developing an affection for Anna and Antonio, who
regularly tried to convince me to abandon my day job and become their
fulltime play-person.
When that was my reality, I was fine, but I was beginning to witness
other things I didn’t like to see. Luca, and even Molly on occasion,
storming through the house with blood spatter on their clothes; Gabriel
overseeing the discarding of weapons and other evidence that would link
one of the Varassos to a crime; Alessandro rushing off upon the receipt of a
phone call to stand outside of earshot of me, clearly agitated by his body
language and movement. They were stark reminders that I wasn’t just
hanging out at my boyfriend’s house. I was holed up in the epicenter of a
mafia organization, working on my computer like it wasn’t all happening
around me. The more I tried to ignore its existence, the more glaring
occurrences I saw.
 One day, it all melted down. The house was abuzz with something that
all of the brothers and Ricky were looking into. They tried to keep the
conversation away from me, but Luca exploded, saying that it was his
house, and he would talk about his stuff wherever he wanted to. Once his
temper was blown, he was on a tirade, storming through the estate, talking
about how the Binachis needed to be aware of exactly how much power he
had, and that if they wanted to fuck with his family, they would feel the
consequences.
Alessandro came up to me in the throes of Luca’s fit and quietly told me
to pack my stuff up. I did so quickly, and we left, heading to a nearby hotel.
We checked into a nice room where Alessandro told me I could stay for the
rest of the time I was there. I started to argue about the finances of it, but he
cut me off with a kiss, begging me not to add any more stress to him. He’d
feel better knowing I was there. It made me nervous that things were getting
much worse within his family, as opposed to outside of it. Luca’s
temperament made me afraid that the biggest risk to Alessandro was right
in his own home.
To alleviate some of our collective stress, we went to the rooftop
restaurant of the hotel, which happened to be one of the top five-star
restaurants in the city. We picked a booth to squeeze into and sat as close as
we could.
“I’m worried about you,” I told him. I traced the creases at the corners
of his eyes, thinking that such a young man shouldn’t have crow’s feet
already. “Luca’s volatile.”
“He was doing okay for a while there,” Alessandro said. “We’d had this
really good conversation, and he actually admitted that we may be a little
out of our depth. You know, we didn’t really have a choice in any of this.
We were born into it like my dad was, and like his dad was. I think about
Antonio and Anna, or even Amanda. Are we doomed to do this shit forever,
until the world stops turning?”
 “Amanda?” I asked.
“Oh, right,” I said. “Marco’s daughter.”
My jaw dropped. “Wait. Marco has a daughter? Where’s the mom?”
“They’re together, in…” He stopped short. “Nevermind.”
“No, it’s okay. Tell me. I know how I’ve been in the past, not wanting to
hear about it at all, but it’s stressing you out, and it involves Ricky. I want
to know.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it in mine. “It’ll help to get it off
your chest.”
I was terribly torn. On the one hand, I wanted Alessandro to feel like he
could come to me about anything he had going on in his life. If it was
stressing him out, I wanted to know about it. I wanted to be able to help. I
wanted to be able to comfort him when things were going awry. That’s what
relationships were about, being there for one another, in every sense of the
word. But Alessandro’s world wasn’t one that I was okay with. The only
way we were going to succeed as a couple was if I could successfully
pretend that world didn’t exist. To remain uninvolved and go about my
business as though he was only a guy with a tough job and a twisted family.
That was what he was, but not in the kooky, rom-com sense I was
looking for.
Life would never be sunshine and roses, but the kind of mountains that I
wanted us to overcome as a couple did not include regularly fearing that I’d
get a call that my boyfriend was being carted off to a prison cell or a
morgue. I didn’t want to bring children into the world and have to
helicopter over them, not because I was a first-time mom trying to figure it
out, but because at any time, a black car could drive by and open spray.
Alessandro looked at me, gauging me to make sure that what I’d said
was true. I gripped his hand tightly. “I promise you can tell me. I’ll be
okay.”
Could I balance the two? Supporting him and staying out of every other
aspect of his life, or were we already doomed to fail?
 Alessandro looked all around, checking for any listeners, and then
moved even closer to me. “Marco fell for this girl at one of the restaurants
we bought out to launder money through last year. She was a waitress there,
and he completely flipped for her. He got all mixed up with her, and it
turned out…her brother was a cop.”
“Holy shit,” I murmured. “Did he get arrested?”
“Yeah. She didn’t mean to do it, Kelly didn’t. She was dealing with
pressure from multiple sides, and in the end, he got picked up. Neither of
them even realized that she was pregnant at the time.” Alessandro tilted his
head to one side. “Amanda, a little girl.”
“Wow. I’ve seen you with Anna and Antonio. It must kill you that you
can’t see her,” I said.
“I hate it. We haven’t even been able to see pictures. Until he called me
that first night I was with you, I hadn’t spoken to him in ten months.”
Alessandro was poking at his food and seemed to be without much of an
appetite.
Alessandro loved his brothers. That’s why when I’d originally presented
him with an ultimatum, he picked the life instead. He knew turning his back
on the organization meant turning his back on his family, and he couldn’t
imagine doing that. Seeing it kill him to not have access to one of his
brothers or his niece, it put it all into perspective. I was asking him to do the
same thing I was mad at his family for asking my dad to do—turn his back
on his family.
I feel like I don’t understand you as much as I should after all this time.
I had more to learn from Alessandro about how to love someone than he
had to learn from me.
“When he called me that day, he told me that he got a postcard telling
him to watch his back. It had no return address or postage on it, which
meant not only did someone know where he lived, but they had been there
personally to drop it. Not even we know where Marco lives, and Ricky is
the only one in contact with him, and even they have to communicate at a
scheduled time, and Ricky calls from a secured line at his office that
shuffles both numbers.” He side-glanced me. “I’m sorry, I know it probably
makes you anxious to know Ricky’s so involved.”
I nodded. “It does, but I’m glad he can still be a lifeline for you guys.”
Alessandro brought my head to rest on his shoulder and kissed my
forehead. “Thank you. For dealing with some of this stuff with me. I love
you.”
My heart filled at that simple little phrase that meant so much. He’d said
it several times since we started seeing each other, but I still hadn’t said it
back. I wasn’t sure if I should. If this plane was never going to get off the
ground, was there even a point in putting on the seatbelt? I was content to
continue being with Alessandro, where every day was new and uncertain. I
didn’t want to think about it ending now, and I certainly didn’t want to think
about it continuing.
Dinner bled into drinks, which flowed into breaking in the hotel bed in a
way that lifted us both out of our holes of discomfort to a place where we
both felt safe in each other’s arms. I didn’t know what the future looked like
for us, but I was grateful for one more night to ignore it before I had to
figure it out.
18
 ALESSANDRO

T he sun was just starting to peek in through the open hotel curtains. I
was glad I’d decided to bring Willow to a place where she didn’t have
to deal with the riff-raff of my family and Luca’s temper. As soon as I’d
gotten her to a point where she was comfortable coming over to the house
and staying for long periods, he went and blew it all up, being a dick for no
reason.
I could hear my phone singing a melody of text and call ringtones on
the other side of the room, and at the last one, Willow started to shift next to
me, the shrill tone creeping into her slumber.
I climbed out of bed as quietly and gently as I could and stepped across
the room to my suit jacket. I reached in, grabbed my phone, and confirmed
what I already suspected—all the calls and texts were from Luca. I pulled
on a pair of pants, swiped a room key off the dresser, and stepped outside. I
decided to head down to the main lobby, so as not to disturb any of the
other hotel guests, and with luck, I’d be able to snag a coffee for Willow on
my way back up.
I dialed the number and called Luca, my blood already turning to fire
beneath my skin.
“Where the hell—”
 “No, Luca, shut the fuck up for a second, and listen.” The other side
went so quiet that I thought he hung up, but a quick look at my screen
revealed that he hadn’t. “The way you behaved yesterday was totally out of
control. I know that this situation is stressful for you, but it’s stressful for all
of us. I finally fucking got Willow to be okay being around us again, and
you go and haul off like you’re gonna kill her.”
“Sandro.”
“Shit, I mean, I thought you understood it. I get that you found Molly,
and she’s all in, and Marco got to fucking jump ship and go be the Johnsons
or whoever the fuck he is and live a happy life with Kelly, but Willow is my
one joy. She’s it. The rest of this shit makes me feel like putting a bullet
through my skull.”
“Alessandro.”
“We were doing so good for, like, three or four days. She was playing
with the kids, we were having family meals, we were reminiscing about
good times, and then all of a sudden, you fly off the handle and treat us like
we’re the ones that did this shit. We didn’t do it!”
“Sandro. St—”
“All I wanted was some time to be with her with all of you guys and be
normal for a little bit. Would it have been so hard for you to take that shit to
your office, or not do it at all? All we’ve talked about for the past year is
how much dad fucked all of us up by being the monster that he was. I mean,
fuck, I respected the man more than any of you, and even I know that. Is
that what you want for your kids? Do you want Antonio, twenty-five years
from now, to be storming around his house, screaming at his wife, terrifying
his kids, and abusing Anna’s boyfriend?”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, calm down. You’re right.” I was surprised to hear the words
come out of his mouth. “You’re right. I was out of line, and I caused issues I
shouldn’t have caused. Believe me, I slept on the couch last night because
of it. Molly said it, too. I’m tearing us up.” I remembered Molly standing in
total shock as Luca screamed at her that he could do whatever he wanted. I
didn’t really know how to respond to his reaction. It was like he had two
personalities, and he wasn’t able to navigate when to pull each one out.
“This isn’t good, Sandro. This isn’t good for any of us.”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I have to figure it out. Can you come home?” he asked.
“No, I can’t today. I need to be with Willow.” It was strange being so
blunt. I imagined if Willow had heard me say it, she’d be over the moon. “I
have a feeling that I don’t have much time with her left, and I need to make
the most of it.”
Luca was quiet for a moment, and even in the silence, I could tell that
he was battling with which personality to toss out. “Okay,” he replied. “I
understand. Be with Willow. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Hey, Luca?”
“Yeah?”
“I have information about Horatio. I’m still working, and I know you
are, too. Nothing’s gonna happen today. Be with your wife, and be with
your kids. We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Marco’s a big boy. He can take care
of himself in an emergency, and Ricky’s checking in on him hourly. Let’s
take a day off.”
There was a sigh and then, “Yeah. I think I’ll do that. Thanks. See you
tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
I hung up the phone and stared at the blank screen like it was going to
give me answers. I never knew what the next day was going to bring me. I
hated it.
I walked over to the hotel coffee shop, despite only being in pants and
shoes, and knocked on the frame, drawing the attention of the barista. “Hey,
I know no shirt, no shoes, and all that. If I stand out here, can I order a
couple of cups of coffee?”
She grinned broadly at me, her peach cheeks developing some color.
“You can come in.”
“Thanks.” I stepped into the shop and walked over to the counter.
“Nothing complicated, just two large cups of coffee and…” I peeked into
the small display case of baked goods. “A couple of banana nut muffins,
please.”
“Of course.” She sprang into action filling two cups with coffee and
setting two muffins into a bag. She took another bag and dropped in a
collection of cream cups and sugar packets along with a couple of stir sticks
and slid everything across the counter at me. “On the house.”
“Oh, no, I can pay.” I reached for my pocket, but the barista pushed the
items further toward me, pointing out the post-it note with her number on it.
“Really. It’s okay.” She winked at me, and I grinned.
Who says male boobs don’t get free drinks?
“Thank you.” I took the two bags and the cups of coffee and made my
way out of the shop. As I was turning the corner to head back up to our
room, I flicked the post-it note off into the trash.
I’m sure you’re very nice, Callista, but I’m not interested. Willow would
kill you.
I chuckled to myself, remembering a time back in high school when
Willow found out one of the girls at our school was trying to get me to
break up with her. For as much as she rejected the life, she’d be good at it.
She could be ruthless when it came to anyone trying to interfere with our
relationship. The girl spread a rumor that Willow was cheating on me. I
didn’t believe it for a second. I knew Willow would never do something
like that. Besides, we’d spent every waking moment together, so she
wouldn’t have had the ability to sneak around. I was ignoring it and told
Willow so, but she discovered that the person who’d started the rumors did
so with the hope that I would take it for face value and break up with
Willow, leaving me open to date her. Not that I would have, anyway. She
didn’t hold a candle to Willow.
The next day, Willow walked into the school, walked directly up to her,
tapped her on her shoulder, and clocked her in the face. When the girl
started to cry, she said in an even tone, “I guess you were prepared to open
your whore mouth, but not to have me close it.” If I could go back in time
to any moment, it would be that one, so I could record it. We dated back
before viral internet was much of a thing, but Willow would definitely be a
meme right now if it had been.
There was a small balancing act getting the door open with the coffee
and muffins in hand, but I managed okay. The sun was well above the
horizon now, shining into the room. I rounded the corner, and Willow was
sitting up in the bed, crossed legged, with her computer in her lap. When
the door snapped shut, she looked up and smiled.
“Hey.”
“Hey, yourself.” I carried the coffees over to her, and she took them out
of my hand and set the bag of muffins next to her on the bed. I took a quick
kiss from her and then walked over to the other side of the bed to climb
back in. “Let’s just stay in bed today.”
Willow handed one of the coffee cups to me. “Yeah, like your brother
would ever go for that.”
“He doesn’t have a choice. I told him to leave me alone. I’m spending
the day with you, and I’ll be home tomorrow.” I felt Willow’s gaze settle on
me. I glanced over. “What?”
“You told him that, really?” she asked, her voice spiked.
“Yeah. I just chewed him out for the way he acted yesterday and told
him I’d be home tomorrow.”
A grin started small on Willow’s face but grew until it was a blinding
smile. “Thank you.”
 It was the first time I’d chosen her over them. “No, thank you.”
She closed her laptop and set it on the floor. “Well, if you’re not
working, I’m not either.”
Even though I could probably have sex with Willow every second of
every day, I enjoyed lounging around with her as the morning carried on
into the afternoon. We found some shitty reality television to watch and
make fun of. It was amusing to see what some people considered to be
problems. We enjoyed a couple of the latest blockbuster movies that Willow
was shocked I hadn’t seen. In my life, I didn’t often have time to go and
catch a movie. One of the ones we watched starred her friend Sasha from
back in California, which kickstarted a strung together list of stories about
their friendship, to which I gave all my attention, if not because it was nice
to hear what Willow had been up to in the six years since I’d seen her
because she got this wry wrinkle to her nose whenever she spoke
passionately.
Of course, sex was something that happened naturally. I would have
been fine lying there all day with her, but as our fourth movie dragged on,
Willow’s hand whispered down my chest and over my stomach to massage
my groin. Her skilled fingers undid the button and zipper before dipping
inside to pull at my anxious length. She sunk her head down and found me
beneath the sea of blankets and pants, though its standing firm at attention
made it pretty easy to find.
She tasted me, timidly at first, with growing confidence each time I let a
groan tumble across my lips. She’d never sucked me when we were
together back in high school. I desired it, certainly, but she was so precious
in my eyes that I didn’t think I should ask it. She’d told me she hadn’t been
with anyone other than me, so I had to wonder where she developed the
skills that had her tongue flattening and molding itself to my shape, while
the back of her throat contracted and released around my head, sending
stabs of pleasure ping-ponging all around me. It wasn’t until I warned that I
was close that she climbed on top of me and pulled me into her.
I held onto her waist as she rode me in slow, lazy movements, like
molasses out of a tapped tree. We breathed in each other until we were
colliding against orgasms, moaning and breathless. I didn’t even remember
falling asleep, but I woke up sometime later with Willow still lying on top
of me.
I rolled her over to her side, used a wet cloth from the bathroom to clean
us up, and then climbed back under the covers and pulled her close to me.
She stirred while I drew her close, and she looked up at me through those
captivating blue eyes, and my whole body shook.
I loved her so much more than I thought possible.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” I asked.
“Sure,” she replied.
“When are you going back to California?” The thought made me ache. I
didn’t want her to go.
She didn’t respond right away, and I didn’t rush it. However long it took
her to answer, or even if she didn’t answer at all, I didn’t care.
“Do you want me to go back?” she asked, and I scoffed.
“No. I don’t even have to think about it. If I had my way, you’d never
go back, I’d have you with me all the time. I’ve told you many times
before, but allow me to say it again. I love you, Willow Morietti. When you
finally let me show you my feelings, it was like it hadn’t been six years
since I’d been with you last, but only six seconds We’d just pressed pause,
and I was so happy you let me press play again.”
Willow went quiet again, and once again, I didn’t pressure her for any
response. She’d admitted in passing to Ricky that she still had feelings for
me, and I had to think that she wouldn’t have done all the things we’d done
for the past few weeks if she didn’t feel something for me, but she hadn’t
reciprocated love yet. Would it be nice to hear? Of course, but it wasn’t
necessary. I could settle for feeling her love. I didn’t need to hear it.
Finally, she took my face in her hands. “Look. I’m not going to make
you any promises, because I honestly don’t think I know much about what
will happen to me anymore. I can’t promise forever. I can’t promise
success, but for now, I’ll stay in Philly. I can work from anywhere, and
when I desperately need to be somewhere else, I can fly out for a couple of
days and come back.”
Elation was flooding into me by the gallon as she spoke, but I stayed
quiet and listened.
“I won’t ever be okay with what you do. I don’t have anything against
your family. In fact, I consider them my family, too, but I just have a
fundamental issue with that life. I don’t want to hear about it. I’m trusting
you not to land yourself in a position like either of our fathers. I want to be
with you. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I’m okay with taking every
day as it comes.” She kissed me softly. “I love you, Alessandro.”
19
 WILLOW

I n the wake of everything that had taken place with Alessandro and his
brother, and amidst their hunt for the people who threatened Marco, I
decided it was in my best interest to go back to stay with my mom. To my
surprise, my mom was actually really happy to hear I was staying for a
while and would be staying with her. She told me that she wanted to do all
sorts of mother-daughter stuff, and her back was to Ricky when she said it,
so he caught the wind and bolted. I made sure to text him a big fuck you as
soon as I could.
I couldn’t make heads or tails of her sudden desire to spend time
together. The day after I came back from staying in the beautiful hotel with
Alessandro, she decided that she wanted to start a garden. It was something
that she enjoyed doing before money became the center of her world, and I
didn’t want to discourage any part of her that might be getting back to
normal, so I agreed to help her. She used to let me help her with her
gardening when I was a little girl, so there was a small sliver of me that was
excited to get to relive that joy.
We headed to a nursery in downtown Philly. If we went early in the
morning, it was easier to get some rare and exciting plants. We bought a
whole car-load of flowers, vegetables, fruits, and some small shrubs for
decoration, plus several bags of the best kind of mulch and soil. After that,
we headed to a home improvement store for plywood and paint. We found a
good spot in the expanse of the estate’s backyard. We sanded and stained
the plywood and then painted it in a deep, burgundy color. We took a break
for tea and finger sandwiches while we waited for the wood to dry.
“So, it looks like you’re seeing Alessandro again,” she commented after
a while. “How’s that going? I always thought you two were really great
together.”
She thought I was going to have a casual, romantic-life conversation
with her when I didn’t even do that when I was a teenager? “Yeah. Um, it’s
interesting. I mean. I don’t think I ever got over him, so when he asked me
out, I had a weak moment.”
“I’ll admit, I was surprised to hear from Ricky that you were still here
when I called to check in last week. To be honest, and I’m sorry because
this is going to sound so horrible, but I was kind of hoping you’d be gone
already.” She looked at me like she was afraid I might throw my tea in her
face.
It was painful to hear, but not shocking. “I guess I might have expected
as much.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Willow. I’ve missed you very much. Every single
day since you left for school. But, you remind me of—I don’t know—who I
could have been?” She sighed, looking out over the plain, verdant lawn
with only our budding garden in the expanse. “You know, when you told
Alessandro that it was either you or the business, I really admired that.”
I let out a light gasp. “Um. Really?”
She nodded, her aging face a reflection of my own. “Yep. I remember
when your father came home and told me that he was going to start working
for the Varassos. I was mortified. I knew what they were about, and I
couldn’t imagine being married to someone who did that. I had you kids,
and all I could think was, ‘What if something happens to them?’” She took
a bite of her sandwich for comfort. “We were so dirt poor at the time, and
you and Ricky were sharing a PB&J with the last two pieces of bread we
had, and I had no idea how we’d afford another loaf. Your dad, he pulled
out this wad of cash and dropped it on the table in front of me. I was
conflicted. It was either tell him no and continue to struggle, or risk it and
give you guys the life you deserved.”
A warm grin wrapped spread over her face. “I still remember the day
we moved into this house. You and Ricky couldn’t believe that you got to
have your own rooms, but that first night you were supposed to sleep apart,
you snuck out of your bedrooms at the same time to find each other. You
argued over whose bedroom to sleep in, and ended up falling asleep in the
hallway.”
My mom had never told me that story before, and I imagined she hadn’t
told Ricky, either. “Wow.”
“I looked down at you two, huddled together under one tiny blanket,
sleeping as hard as if you were in a four-poster bed, and realized I had made
a terrible mistake. Without knowing what you were doing, you two proved
that as long as we were together, struggling was better than sacrificing what
we knew was right.” She was staring off into space, and I knew that she was
twenty years younger and standing in that hallway. “It was too late, by then.
Angelo always used to say—”
“Once you’re in, you don’t get out.” I recited the former Varasso
patriarch’s mantra. “Yeah.”
“I told your father we’d made a mistake, and he screamed at me for the
first time in our entire relationship. He said that it was too late, and we’d
already sold ourselves. That was the day I knew your father was gone. I
could have made the right decision and not lost him as much as I did when I
decided taking the Varassos money was worth it.” She turned and smiled at
me. “I guess I’ve always kind of considered Alessandro the one good thing
that came out of that.”
I was struggling to fight back tears as my mom spoke. “Sandro?”
 “He loves you so much. I’ve believed for a long time that I ruined you
kids’ lives. You turned out okay, but your dad was in prison, and your
mother, well…” She gestured to herself. “But when Alessandro started
coming around, and I saw the smile on your face, it made me feel like God
was giving you back a little bit of what I’d stolen from you. I guess this is
my weird way of saying I really like him.”
“Yeah,” the word came out as an airy curiosity. “I don’t know what to
say.”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to say anything, sweetheart.
You’ve had to fill in the gap I’ve left for too long. Just promise me you’ll
never compromise yourself. If you feel it in your gut and in your heart,
follow it.”
The conversation was as unexpected as the entire rest of my time in
Philly had been. I never quite understood what my parents’ motivation was
for getting us into this lifestyle. She’d never mentioned that we used to be
poor, certainly not so poor that she didn’t know how we would afford a
single loaf of bread. My dad probably felt that pressure as well. It made
sense that after all of that, my dad would do anything to protect the people
who, in his mind, saved his family. It also explained why my mom became
obsessed with money. Had my mom been the best parent in the world?
Maybe not, but had she made an honest mistake while trying to make sure
we were well cared for?
I wanted black and white, but I only ever got shades of gray.
We shook off all the awkwardness and finished putting together out
planters. We layered in nutrient-rich soil and some of the plant food and
placed in all of our plants, and watered them, complete with spraying each
other playfully.
“Well, this looks like a good time!” My mom and I stopped and looked
over, and Molly, of all people, was making her way across the yard. “Sorry,
I knocked, but no one answered, and the door was unlocked.”
 “Hey, Molly,” my mom greeted.
“Hey, Mrs. Morietti! How was Cabo?”
My mom fanned out her arms. “I certainly got my tan.”
“You sure did.” She walked over to us and then looked at me. “Hey, uh.
Are you busy? I mean, busier than this?”
I chuckled. “No. Why? What’s up?”
“Luca feels really terrible about the way he behaved the other day,”
Molly explained. “To make it up to you and Alessandro, we’re having a
bonfire in the garden. No work, no hot tempers. Just smores, music, and
fun. Alessandro will be there, of course, but it’s a surprise. He doesn’t know
you’re gonna be there.”
It sounded like a blast. I thought back to the days leading up to Luca’s
outburst and how much fun it was to be together, like a family. “Yeah, I’m
in.”
“Can you be ready in five?” She held out her hands. “Not that what
you’re wearing isn’t beautiful, but it’s soaking wet.”
“Yeah,” I laughed back. “I have a dress. It shouldn’t take me long.”
“Great. I’m parked out front. I’ll see you there.”
I rushed up to my room, feeling the happiest I’d felt in months, maybe
even in years. I’d finally made a decision about Alessandro, my mom and I
were in a better place, and Philadelphia was turning out not to be so bad
after all. I wasn’t sure what was going to pan out with the whole Marco
situation, but it wasn’t really any of my concern. It wasn’t that I didn’t care
what happened to Marco, but even though I was willing to be with
Alessandro despite his reality, I still needed to protect myself and keep
myself out of the organization’s line of fire. I certainly hoped that it all
brushed over, but all I could do was worry about myself and keeping those
around me safe and happy.
I swapped my drenched gardening jeans and t-shirt for a white, frilled
dress, the one I’d considered leaving behind when I was first packing for
Philly. I could hear Sasha’s voice in my head telling me, “See? I told you
you’d need it.”
Right, you were.
I slipped on a pair of my roman sandals, put my hair up into a bun on
top of my head, and went and met Molly out front. On the way to the
Varassos’ estate, we talked about our lives before the Varasso men. It was
cool to hear that Molly had managed to hang onto her own identity, despite
being Luca’s wife. I supposed if I could do that as well, things could
possibly work out for Alessandro and me.
When we got out of the car at the estate, Molly checked her watch.
“We’re a little early. Alessandro’s probably up in his room. Why don’t you
go surprise him, and I’ll get Luca and the kids.”
“Okay.”
I made my way up the grand, curved staircase in the estate foyer and
down to the left where I knew Alessandro’s room was located. I turned
down the hallway and noticed right away that his door was open and the
light was off. I peeked inside just in case, but he wasn’t in there. I was
going to head back downstairs when I heard a mingle of voices coming
from further down the hallway. I walked down, headed for where I knew
Angelo’s office was, thinking that Luca had probably taken it over. The
polished double doors were shut, and I could hear the voices coming from
the inside. I stepped up to the door and lifted my hand to knock, but stopped
short.
“Sorry that this took so long. The drop just happened.” It was
Alessandro’s voice.
“I think the word’s gotten around that we’re on the lookout,” Luca
responded. “Everyone’s being extra cautious. What’d you learn.”
“Horatio Laurell. Twenty-three. One of the runners in the southwest.
He’s from California, which I believe is where Marco is, too. He was
probably able to confirm what he heard on the app. His wife’s name is
Maggie, and he has three kids. Horatio Jr., Lettie, and Julian.”
“Kids’ school?” Luca asked, and my heart dropped. Why did he need to
know that?
“Bedford Elementary. My contact tells me his mom drives them from
their home on Kross Avenue to the bus stop one block over, and they all
ride to school.”
“Any blind spots?” Luca asked.
“Plenty. She just leaves them at the bus stop, and no other kids are
picked up at that stop, so no one else is there until the bus arrives. The
corner is pretty heavily obscured, too, from the pictures I received.
Apparently, on the way back, they have to walk almost a block to get to
their house. From what could be discerned, all the houses between the stop
and theirs are workers who aren’t home yet when the kids get home. They
could be snatched easily.” Alessandro’s voice was so empty of any emotion
or concern. Was he really talking about kidnapping innocent children?
“Good,” Luca said. “I want you to do it. I don’t trust a pickup. Gabriel
and I will get Horatio. Molly will probably know where to find him.”
“It’s not a problem,” Alessandro responded. Yes, it is. “Willow’s
spending the day with her mom tomorrow, so I’ll get them.”
“Excellent.”
My chest got tighter, and I was struggling to breathe. I imagined
Alessandro, my Alessandro, jumping out of a car with a mask over his face,
shoving innocent children into it. Scaring them for life because of some
mistake their father had made. I couldn’t believe it. My throat tightened,
and the walls closed in on me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone
was standing behind me, about to shove me into some room and lock me
inside, even though no one was around me. I was shaking, and my vision
was blurring.
I need air. I need air. I need air.
 I took off running from the doors, down the stairs, and out into the
estate’s front yard. It was a long run to get to the gates leading back out
onto the road, but I was afraid that if I stopped, I would get captured
myself, or worse. All the beautiful memories I had of Alessandro from the
past few weeks were going up in smoke. I tried to believe in my spirit that
he wasn’t that man, but I was wrong. Tears streamed down my face as I
turned and ran out into the street, back toward civilization and away from
all the Varassos. I would buy the first ticket out of Pennsylvania and be
back in California by sunrise.
My heart was shattered as I said a mental goodbye to Alessandro
Varasso.
20
 ALESSANDRO

L uca and I exchanged glances.

We didn’t want to do this.
“Isn’t there another way?” I asked. “If we just ask him, maybe he’ll tell
us.”
Luca shook his head. “We can’t do this, Alessandro. You can’t do mob
shit halfway. We’re either all in, or we’re nothing, and until we figure out
how to be nothing, we’re all in.”
I didn’t think I could handle kidnapping some children who had no
control over the actions of their father. They would never recover from that
kind of fear. I thought about Marco and the bad panic attacks that he would
have, and it hurt my heart. I didn’t want to pass that level of trauma onto
anyone, let alone children.
“They changed us,” Luca said. “Molly. Willow. Even the kids. How did
dad do this shit? How did he remain resolved, even when he knew he had
people at home that loved him and wanted him to come home? I mean…”
There was a deep pain nested in Luca’s voice. “Did he not love us that
much.”
“Dad loved us, but he…he wasn’t an affectionate man.”
I’d seen it for myself, my dad’s human side. It wasn’t there often, and
even when it was there, it was muddied by a fog of distant looks and
emotionless phrasing. No, my dad didn’t teach us how to ride our bikes, and
he didn’t take pictures of us on our prom nights. No, my dad didn’t have the
talk with us or congratulate us after a successful first date. He didn’t crack a
beer with us on our twenty-first birthdays, or ground us for doing things he
disapproved of. He wasn’t a father in the typical sense of the word. Our dad
showed his love by screaming at us whenever we were mean to one another
and by rolling up hundred-dollar bills and sticking them in barrels of our
guns while we were asleep. He analyzed us and pushed us to be better. He
wanted us to sit in his seat one day, and he wanted us to surpass him. He
wanted people to say, “Angelo Varasso was dangerous, but his boys are a
force to be reckoned with.”
Gabriel was walking proof of my dad’s love. He’d cheated on my mom
and fathered an illegitimate child, and even though that crushed all of us,
most of all, my dad, he still went and got that child and brought him back to
our estate. He sat Luca, Marco, and me down and said that blood was
blood, it didn’t matter how much of it there was. He was our brother, and he
expected us to treat him as such. He was bringing him into the business,
too, and Gabriel would learn how to be strong, like us. Even though
keeping Gabriel around meant that my mom could never get over the truth
that her husband had stepped out on her, dad kept him anyway. He stood up
for Gabriel, which was probably why I did the same thing now. My dad
loved us, even if it didn’t always seem like it.
Maybe that was why he was the hardened animal that he was. There
was no room for wishy-washiness in our life. It was as Luca said. We either
needed to do it all the way or not at all, and we didn’t know how to not do it
at all. I thought about every major mobster I’d ever heard of. Eventually the
lines died out. It wasn’t that the bloodlines stopped, but eventually, the
family tree exhausted itself. The ruthless, reckless, cold-blooded nature of
the leaders didn’t carry on to their children, and once they were gone, the
business dried up. That’s what Luca and I were looking at. We were tired.
We had people we cared about more than we cared about the stupid,
mobster law that existed around us. Why did it have to be this? Why
couldn’t we walk away?
Because of men like Horatio and the Binachis. Marco was why we
couldn’t walk away. He’d tried. He’d even tried to do it with all the walls
up and his guard as high as it could go. Still, he was probably sitting,
staring out his window right now, wondering when the shoe was going to
drop. Every time a fork hit the floor in his apartment, he and Kelly were
probably jumping sky high. People didn’t just walk away from this life. My
dad said that phrase more than he’d said anything in his entire life.
Once you are in, you don’t get out.
I understood now. It wasn’t because you didn’t want to. It wasn’t even
because other people didn’t want you to. It was because it was like a one-
way cage. Once you went in for the cheese, the only way out was when a
superior hand came down to take you out, and it probably wasn’t going to
be breathing and walking. Luca could want out. I could want out. Gabriel
could want out. It didn’t matter. We were already in the cage, waiting on
that superior hand. We didn’t know when it was coming, and we had to
hope our families weren’t standing in the way when it showed up.
My dad steeled himself because it was the only option he had. Because
the more he loved his kids and the more he loved his wife, the weaker he
was. Anytime he ran to pick them up off the ground when they were crying,
they grew to believe that maybe there was happiness in the world, and for
the Varassos, there wasn’t. There were fleeting moments, veils over the pain
that were thick enough to hide the truth but thin enough to break soon after.
Willow, Kelly, Amanda, Molly, Anna, and Antonio, they were just veils.
My brothers and I had been born with a curse that ran deeper and thicker
than the blood that coursed through our veins. We were Angelo Varasso’s
sons, and that meant one thing and one thing only—we weren’t getting out.
 “I’ll do it,” I said after a long, drawn-out silence. “I’d rather do it than
have someone else do it, so I can minimize the damage.”
“Yeah,” Luca agreed. “It’s for Marco, remember? They could get the
drop on him any day. We’re behind the ball sorting this out already. Go
immediately.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I will.”
I was already thinking of the best way to tell Willow I was going to
need to be gone for a few days without telling her what I was going to do. If
she knew, that would be it for sure, no questions asked.
There was a knock on Luca’s door, and then the doors slowly opened.
Molly peeked her head in. “Is Willow in here?”
I furrowed my brow. “No? Why would Willow be in here?”
“I sent her up to your room to get you. How long have you been in
here?” she asked.
“About forty minutes,” Luca replied, then his eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
“No.” I gagged and felt like I was going to puke. “No, no, no.” I
clamored into my pocket to get out my phone and dialed Willow’s number.
It went straight to voicemail. I pressed dial again, but it went straight to
voicemail again. I lurched, feeling again like bile was going to come up.
“How long ago did she get here? What was she doing here?”
Molly’s hands were cupped over her mouth. They slid down her chin
and tucked under it. “Luca and I felt bad about what happened before, so
we wanted to surprise you with a bonfire with Willow here. I went to get
her from her place. We got back a while ago.” Molly shook her head. “What
did you say?”
I upheaved, and everything that I’d eaten and drank came spewing out
of my mouth.
“Molly, go get water,” Luca said.
I could only see the carpet and what I’d just expelled from my body. A
hand found my back and rubbed. My stomach twisted again, sending more
bile cascading out of me. There it went. The only thing in my life that made
me happy. The only thing in my life that made me feel somewhat human. It
was gone. Melting away in a blazing fire, even with me raking into the
flames with my bare hands, willing to burn to salvage what I could.
Everything my fingers curled around, turned to ash in my hands, and
sprinkled back into the flames. I was hot. I was so hot. Sweat trickled down
my forehead.
My throat tightened and tightened until it didn’t feel like I could use it
as a mechanism for breathing anymore, but when I went to breathe in my
nose, the stale, sour smell of my vomit fled up my nostrils, flipping my
insides again. I hurled once more, feeling my ribs starting to protest at the
repeated motion.
“I’ve gotta go to her,” I murmured.
“You’re not going anywhere—thank you—here.” Luca put a bottle of
water under my nose, but I pushed it away with my hand, sending the bottle
flying across the room, spraying water everywhere.
I weakly got to my feet and started toward the door. Molly held out a
hand to try and stop me, but I dodged around her. Each movement gave my
body an added burst of pain, and even though I was dizzy and my stomach
burned, all I could think of was getting to Willow. I was almost to the door
when Gabriel walked in. I was already falling forward from my feet when
he saw me, and he barely managed to charge in front of me before I hit the
ground.
“Whoa! Alessandro, what’s wrong?” he groaned. “Ugh, you stink.”
“Willow,” I grumbled. “I…have to get to…Willow.”
“I’ll bring you,” Gabriel said.
I nodded and tapped his shoulder. “Thank you.”
Gabriel kept me aloft until I finally started to feel like I could walk on
my own two feet again. We walked to his car, and I climbed into the
passenger’s seat. He hopped into the driver’s seat and started the car, a look
of concern on his face.
“Alessandro, what happened? If you think she’s in danger, there are
probably guys closer by, and we should call Ricky.”
“Ricky,” I grumbled. “Call Ricky.”
Alessandro used the screen on the center console of his car to navigate
to Ricky’s number and call him. The phone trilled a few times, and I was
nervous that he wasn’t going to pick up.
“Gabe? What the hell is going on?” Ricky barked. “What did you guys
do to Willow?”
“Ricky,” I replied.
“Sandro? What’s going on?” Ricky’s voice was more gruff and angry
than I’d ever heard it.
“Is she there? I need to talk to her,” I said.
“It’s Alessandro, he says he wants to—whoa!” A loud crash blasted
across the line. “What the fuck is wrong with you? That would have killed
me if it had hit me!” There was some shuffling and Ricky started breathing
a bit harder. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. What did you do?”
“Luca and I were discussing what to do with the mole, and she
overheard,” I explained. “She…she heard me agree to kidnap his kids.”
“Jesus, Sandro,” Ricky breathed. “Why wouldn’t you be more careful?”
“I didn’t fucking know she was there!” My head was pounding. I felt
like I was having the world’s worst hangover, and I didn’t even get the
benefit of a night of drinking and partying. “Please, you have to get her to
talk to me.”
“She just threw a fucking vase with your flowers in it at my head. I’m
not going back up there. You’re welcome to go up there yourself,” Ricky
said.
“I’m on my way.”
 Gabriel clicked the end button on the call and picked up the speed,
charging toward Willow’s family’s place. The car was hardly to a halt in
front of the house before I was jumping out of the front seat. I had no idea
what I was going to say. I couldn’t tell her it wasn’t what it sounded like,
and I couldn’t tell her I’d never actually do that—none of that was true. All
I could do was explain to her how much it killed me, and hope that that’d be
enough.
I rushed for the front door, but before I got to it, it opened for me.
Willow was framed in the doorway, her eyes puffy and full to bursting with
disappointment. More painful than any of that were the packed bags
gripped in her hands.
“Willow.” I dropped to my knees. “Please don’t go.” Ricky was
standing behind her with his keys gripped in his hand, and his mom was
next to him, her own eyes swollen and red. “I know,” I started. “I know I let
you down.”
Tears streamed down Willow’s face without ceasing. I wanted to grab
her, and hold her, and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but I
didn’t know that to be true any more than she did. All that was left was to
beg. To stay at her feet and ask her to forgive me when I knew I didn’t
deserve it. I wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my face into her
stomach.
“I love you so much. Please. I don’t want to lose you. We’re meant to be
together. You’re my soulmate.” In any other situation, I’d never display any
form of weakness to anyone. My dad would throw me into a river if he saw
me on my knees, but I was willing to do what he never was. I was willing to
fight for the one I loved. Sorry dad. “Please don’t go.”
“Look at me.” Willow’s voice was an eerily low octave that I didn’t like
hearing in place of her typically sweet, melodic tones. I craned my head up,
seeing how even her once vibrant, blue eyes were a deep blue, like a sea in
a storm. “I’ll stay.”
 “You will?” I gasped.
“If you can tell me you weren’t going to do what I heard you planning
with Luca, and don’t lie to me, because I’ll know.” She was staring down at
me, a woman who already knew the answer to a question she’d asked.
I stayed quiet, my own eyes filling with tears. I dropped my head and let
my arms loose to droop from around her.
“That’s what I thought.”
Willow walked around me, pulling her bags alongside her. As Ricky
passed, he set a hand on my shoulder before continuing on. Willow’s mom
closed the front door, and I stared at it in desperate silence as I listened to
Ricky’s car start and, eventually, pull away.
I had to get to her.
She was gone.
21
 WILLOW

I sat on my bathroom floor back at my apartment in California, thinking

back on everything like it had all been a bad dream. How had I gotten
so swept in Alessandro again? Why did I allow him to convince me to
overlook what I knew to be true, what I had seen with my own eyes? I
thought back on everything. He’s comforted me by my grandfather’s
fountain at his funeral. He’d shown up at my mom’s house while I was
swimming to tell me how he felt about me, whether I liked it or not. The
recreation of our first date. Meeting Molly and the kids for the first time,
and sharing a meal with them like a big, happy family. Spending the day in
the hotel room, laughing at dumb reality shows. Deciding to be together.
Making love in my bedroom, making love in the living room, making love
in the garden, and making love in the hotel. I’d covered myself in
Alessandro, slathered myself in him, and it was going to be much harder to
wash him off the second time around.
Especially because…
“Is it done yet?” Sasha asked.
I looked at my phone, the timer slowly ticking toward zero. “No. Two
minutes.”
“God,” Bella hissed. “Since when are six minutes, like, fifteen minutes
long?”
 Sasha’s and Bella’s faces each took up half of my computer screen,
which was sitting open on top of my toilet. Sasha let out a whimper. “Ugh. I
wish I could be there with you, you poor button.”
“I wish you’d told me. I would have gone with you,” Bella added.
The truth was, I didn’t want to involve my friends in my bullshit any
more than I already had. I’d already been dragged under the Varassos’
imposing shadow, and the last thing I needed was for them to be cloaked as
well.
Alessandro’s smile crept into my mind, and I pushed it away. As soon as
I made empty space, the scene of him on his knees, begging me to stay,
took its place. I buried my head against my knees as though it would stop
my thoughts from coming, but no matter what I did, Alessandro was there.
My skin was remembered every place that he had touched me, and my lips
tingled, missing the feeling of his lips. I’d kept my guard up for so long,
and refused to let him or anyone else shove my car into another lane. I
knew who I was, and I knew what I was doing. Who was I now? What was
I doing? Sitting on a bathroom floor, waiting to receive what could possibly
be the worst news of my entire young life? Why did I suddenly want my
mom?
“Now?” Bella asked. “I’ve been watching the clock, and it has
definitely been two minutes.”
I glanced at my phone, which still had an illuminated three and zero on
it. “Thirty seconds.”
“You can check it early. It can take up to six minutes, not definitely six
minutes,” Sasha said. “I Googled it.”
“I’m gonna wait,” I replied.
We sat in silence as the final few seconds ticked down, and then my
phone went off. Even as the tone rang, I sat there unmoving.
“Willow?” Sasha asked.
 I stared up at the small white stick up on the bathroom counter. I didn’t
want to look at it. It didn’t matter what I saw, it wasn’t going to make me
happy.
“Willie?” Bella murmured.
My phone was going off, echoing through my bathroom in a blast of
arrogant noise that was somehow getting louder and getting quieter. I didn’t
have control of my limbs. I was pressuring myself to move, but nothing was
happening. I was cemented in place.
“It’s okay, sweetie. No matter what happens, we’re gonna be here for
you,” Sasha said.
“Take your time,” Bella added. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“What if it’s positive?” I whispered. “What if I’m pregnant?”
I couldn’t bring a baby into the world, poisoned with Varasso blood.
That baby would never be free. He would always feel the crushing weight
to rise to the occasion of the empire his father and his brothers built. My
baby would have that mean streak, the one that could bring a man to do
what Alessandro was planning to do. My baby would be Luca Varasso’s
nephew. My baby would be Angelo Varasso’s grandchild. Would I forever
look at my own baby and be reminded of the world I’d been forced into?
The one that took my father, my mother, my brother, and the love of my
life? Could I keep the truth from my child for his entire life? Give my child
my last name, say his father was dead, and never face the truth? Would that
even work? If Alessandro found out the baby existed, what if he came for
him like Angelo took Gabriel? What if he took my baby from me?
“Breathe, Willow.”
I didn’t even realize how heightened it’d become. How constricted my
windpipe felt, like one of the Varasso brothers had their hands clasped
firmly around my throat. Of course, if I was really pregnant, then one of
them would.
“Sasha, can you get there?” Bella asked.
 “Yeah. I’m leaving the red carpet now. It’ll take a couple of hours, so
just hang in there, okay?” Sasha said.
“No, I’m okay,” I mumbled back, all the nerves in my body dead and
weak. “I’m okay.” I took a deep breath and stood up from the bathroom
floor. I walked over to the pregnancy test, which I had deliberately left face
down on the counter.
“Okay,” I said aloud, “one, two, three.” I flipped the stick and felt my
world flip upside down. Two bright pink lines looked back at me. “It’s
positive.”
“Shut up,” Bella replied. “Are you sure?”
I dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, my eyes already collecting
tears. I held the reading end of the stick up to the camera. Both Bella and
Sasha leaned in, and then their hands went to their mouths.
“Oh my god,” Sasha said. “Damn.”
I dropped to my bottom and stared at the stick in my hand. Was it my
greatest dream or my worst nightmare? For days on end, I dreamed of
having a family with Alessandro. I saw the way he was with Anna and
Antonio and knew from the depths of me that he was going to make a great
father, but now…? Could a man who would kidnap three children for
something they didn’t do honestly be a good father? I’d only ever heard the
Varassos say awful things about their dad, and with the way Luca behaved,
he was due to fall right in line. I didn’t know how Marco was as a father,
but I also knew he was in the witness protection program, living under a
completely different name. Did being a good father and being on the run
overlap on a Venn diagram? I wasn’t so sure.
“Okay, stay calm,” Bella hummed. “He doesn’t even have to be
involved.”
“He will be,” I whispered. “It’s the one thing the Varassos swear by—
family. If he finds out I have his baby, he’ll take it from me.”
“He wouldn’t,” Sasha said. “He loves you.”
 “He’s about to take three children who he doesn’t even give a shit about,
Sash,” I cried. “If he actually has a tie to my baby, he’ll definitely take it.”
“He can’t do that,” Bella said. “You have rights, and the state will
protect you. All the things you’ve seen and heard, all you have to do is
threaten to go to the police, and they’ll back off.”
“They don’t back off from problems, Bella. They take care of them.” It
was already happening. The confusing and terrifying world of ducking the
Varassos. How was I ever going to protect a baby from them? “I can’t keep
it.”
“Aw, but honey, you’ve always wanted a baby. You talk about it all the
time,” Sasha explained.
“Yeah, and you’ve always told me that you would die defending a
woman’s right to abort, but you could never do that,” Bella added.
My throat burned, and my head throbbed. “I don’t know what to do. I
can’t bring this baby into the world. I can’t.”
“Well, whatever you decide, we’ll support you,” Sasha said.
“Agreed,” Bella said. “Promise us you’ll sleep on it. Don’t make any
decisions while you’re so amped up.”
I nodded, even though my mind was pretty much made up. “I will.”
“Are you going to tell Ricky?” Sasha asked.
I’d been thinking about that for the past hour as well. Ricky was my
brother, my twin brother. I remembered that story my mom told me about
the way we’d been when we were younger. If it was between the Varassos
and me, would Ricky have my back over theirs? When I thought of who I
would want by my side as I terminated my pregnancy, it was Ricky.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m afraid he’ll tell Sandro.”
“Do you really think he would do that to you?” Bella asked. “He’s your
brother, after all.”
I hated that I didn’t know. “I can’t say for sure. He’s really close with
the Varassos, especially Alessandro.” Tears filled my eyes again. Each time
they dried completely, they started up again. “I gotta go. I need to lie
down.”
“I’ll be back in town tomorrow, babe, and I’m coming straight there.
I’m not even going home, okay? Just hang in there, and call if you need
anything,” Sasha sang.
“Night or day,” Bella tacked on. “I don’t care if it’s two in the
morning.”
“I promise,” I said. “I love you guys.”
“Love you!” they resounded, and I ended the call.
I carried my computer out into my living room, unsure of what to do. I
couldn’t believe I was actually pregnant. How could I be so stupid? I started
to Google abortion clinics near me, and when I clicked on a page, I was
smacked in the face by pictures of sympathetic doctors and about a million
different choices. I was instantly overwhelmed. I definitely couldn’t do it
alone. I loved Sasha and Bella, and they were my best friends, but they
weren’t who I wanted by my side. I wanted my brother. My idiotic,
throwing rocks at my window because he thinks it’s a sign of friendship,
not romance, brother.
I reopened my video chat app and clicked his picture. It was a silly
picture of him sticking his tongue out and wearing a fake mustache from
some costume party he’d been to. When the feed went live, and I saw his
face, I immediately started crying.
“Hey, hey,” he comforted. “I know that it’s hard. Breakups aren’t easy,
especially ones like these.” He sighed. “I wished you’d let me come back
with you.”
I sniffled. “Me too.”
“You’ll get over Sandro one day, trust me. I know it doesn’t feel like
that now but—”
“Ricky, I’m pregnant.”
 His voice dropped off. He stared back at the screen as though I’d just
told him I was actually an alien. “W-what?”
“I’m pregnant.” I held up the stick. “With a baby.”
“Holy crap,” he whispered. “I mean, I assume it’s Sandro’s?” I nodded.
“Wow. Have you told him yet?”
“No,” I murmured back, “and I’m not going to.”
Ricky shook his head. “Willow, I know that he hurt you, but you can’t
keep his baby from him. The baby deserves to know their father.”
“The baby won’t know anything. I’m not keeping it.”
Ricky’s lips pursed closed again. “You’re not?” he huffed out, barely
opening his mouth to do so.
“How can I keep this baby? I can’t do this with Alessandro, but if he
finds out that I have it, he’s going to want to be involved. He’s planning to
kidnap children, Ricky. I can’t expose a baby to that.” Ricky didn’t say
anything, and I whimpered. “Say something, Ricky.”
“If that’s what you think is best, then I support you, obviously.” He
rubbed his hand through his hair. “When are you doing it?”
“I’d like to do it as soon as possible,” I said. “And I want you here with
me. I can’t do it alone.”
“I’ll buy a ticket right now,” Ricky said without hesitation. “I’ll be there
tonight.”
I nearly started crying again from relief. “Thank you so much.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Willow. You’re my sister, my rock. I’d do
anything for you,” He replied.
“Then I need you to do one more, really important thing for me,” I said.
“You cannot tell Sandro or any of the Varassos that I’m pregnant. They’ll
try to interfere if they know.”
“I want to be offended that you would even think I would, but I get it.”
He leaned a little closer to the camera. “You have my word. I won’t say a
word to a soul.”
 “Thank you.” I was relieved to know that I meant more than the family
to someone at least. “I’ll see you soon.”
“As soon as I can get there, kid. Get some rest.”
I nodded. “I will. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I closed my laptop, set it on the table, and fell back against the couch. I
rested my hand over my stomach as sadness consumed me. “I’m sorry, little
one. You didn’t ask for this.”
I closed my eyes and imagined myself having the baby instead. I
pictured a little girl with curls like mine and Ricky’s, but Alessandro’s
piercing eyes. She’d have his blazing tongue and my sharp wit, and she
would be a goddamn force to be reckoned with.
I imagined us living in a little house not far from the beach, sitting on
the back porch and enjoying a glass of lemonade while Alessandro fought
his way through assembling a playset that he knew he could put together
without the instructions, so he’d thrown them away and was now angrily
trying to figure out where the last screw went. I smiled, thinking about him
pacing a hole in the living room floor while he waited for her to get home
from her first date, or biting back tears during her graduation, because he
was a strong man, and strong men didn’t cry. I saw us sitting in the living
room with him, curled up on the couch on a lazy Sunday afternoon,
investing way too much time in the news of far off places that didn’t affect
us, and getting into piddly arguments about what we thought before
laughing it off when our daughter calls us old. There was such a beautiful
life waiting for us on a tangential reality, but that life would never come to
pass. I was doomed from the moment I met Alessandro Varasso, and I
refused to doom another life as well.
22
 ALESSANDRO

“Y ou with us, Sandro?”

I looked up at Luca, Molly, and Gabriel, who were all
looking back at me with deep-seated concern.
“I’m here,” I replied.
Luca locked his fingers together and set his hands on top of his desk.
“Do you need to take a day or two?”
I shook my head. “I’m good.”
When Willow left, she took everything I had with her. All of the joy I
felt was still sitting in the places I’d last gotten to be with her. Her
sparkling, diamond eyes and sweet smile had been replaced by her look of
anguish, the last thing I saw before she left for California again. There was
probably a time when my dad felt like he had something to look forward to
every day, too, then he cheated on my mom, and that was the nail in the
coffin. The only thing that kept him on the comfortable side of sanity was
the way she made him feel, and once she stopped trusting him, he slowly
started to solidify until he was nothing but a spiked crag. I was already
undergoing the transformation. I was never going to escape the life, and my
single spark of light had been snuffed out. What was the point of keeping
anything in me besides what it took to be the steely killer my father had
always wanted me to be?
 I was numb from the inside out. I felt like I could get stabbed or shot.
When it came right down to it, it was actually pretty good for business.
Things I cared about no longer made a difference to me, I was finally
hardened enough to exist in the organization without hesitation. All those
conversations I’d had with Luca about getting out and having a domestic,
happy life were far in the distance now. It didn’t take a genius to figure out
that those weren’t luxuries we were afforded as Varasso men. We’d taken
the strength buff upon spawning and gave up the happiness trait in
exchange. I supposed it was only fair. We couldn’t be as strong and
powerful as we were and live happy, stress-free lives. That would be
stacking the deck.
“Are you sure you’re up to dealing with the kids, still?” Luca asked.
“Why don’t I just go straight to Horatio?” I asked. “I don’t feel like
babysitting.”
“Because if Horatio is working for the Binachis, he’d probably let you
take his life to keep from turning on them, but if we have his kids, he has a
reason to talk,” Luca explained.
“Yeah, I’ll get him to talk,” I replied flatly. “I know everything about his
family. If I shove a gun down his throat and promise him that his lovely
wife and cute kids won’t live if I don’t get the information I’m looking for,
I’m guaranteeing you, he’ll talk.”
“You don’t sound like yourself,” Molly commented.
I shrugged. “So what? Isn’t this better?” I looked at Luca. “You said so
yourself, we either do this all the way or not at all.”
“This isn’t what I meant,” Luca huffed.
“Isn’t it?” I said, standing up. “This is exactly what the business needs. I
don’t know what the fuck I was thinking anyway. I’m not some weak-
minded, lovey-dovey guy. I’ll go talk to Horatio, get what I need, put some
steel in him for being a snitch, and then I’ll find whichever Binachi is
threatening Marco and take him out, too.”
 “Things aren’t that easy, and you know it,” Luca responded, then he
shot a glare at Gabriel. “Will you talk some sense into him?”
Gabriel looked up at me. “He’s right, Sandro. If you get reckless, you
could end up getting killed.”
“Whatever,” I said. “I’ll take them down with me.”
“Sandro,” Molly hummed.
“It’s not worth it. We’re trying to protect our brother, not lose one,”
Gabriel said.
I looked down at him, saw that innocent expression in his eyes, and it
pissed me off. “You’re barely our brother. So what does it matter to you?”
Gabriel recoiled and then dropped his head. “Sorry.”
Luca stood up from his desk, slamming his hands on it in the process.
“That’s enough. You don’t believe that shit, and it isn’t true. Any blood is
blood.”
I couldn’t believe him. To have the audacity to stand in my face and
defend Gabriel like he hadn’t been horrible to him ever since my dad first
brought Gabriel home. He sided with my mom and felt like Gabriel was a
stain on our family. He abused him every day, leaving me to protect him. If
it weren’t for me, Luca probably would have put a bullet in Gabriel the day
my dad died. He didn’t give a shit about the stuff my dad stood for, only his
own ego.
“Oh, now you’re going to defend him?” I said with a dark chortle.
“Where has that been the entire time you’ve been running him around like a
pack mule and degrading him to his face? Now you want to jump to his aid?
Why? So you look strong in front of your wife? I’m the strongest of all four
of us, and she knows it. If only I’d walked into her bedroom first.”
“Alessandro,” Gabriel huffed.
Luca walked around his desk, anger permeating off of him.
Molly stood up. “Luca, he’s just upset right now.”
 He stepped up to me until we were nose to nose. “Say something about
my wife again and see if I don’t cave your fucking skull in.”
“I stopped being afraid of you years ago, brother,” I growled. “If you
had the balls to cave my skull in, you would have done it already. Now, if
it’s quite all right with you, I’m going to go and do what a real leader would
have done weeks ago. I’m going to go handle our business.”
I turned around and started walking out. I felt a hand on my shoulder,
but I flipped around and pushed it away, sending Gabriel tumbling
backward and tripping over the chair behind him. Molly jumped out and
caught him just before his head made contact with the corner of Luca’s
desk. Luca charged forward and tossed a punch at me, but I ducked it and
swung in response, cracking the bones of his cheek beneath my knuckle.
My hand stung, but Luca collapsed to the ground with his blood spattering
across the carpet. With him out of the way, I continued out of the room, just
barely hearing Luca say, “Let him go, if he gets a bullet in the back, that’s
his fucking problem,” as I walked.
I made arrangements to have our dad’s private jet shuttle me to
California. I already had all of the information I needed to take care of
things myself. Luca still had a wife and children holding him back, but I
had nothing. I looked at my dad’s rings on my fingers, thinking that he gave
them to the right son. He’d known who would eventually need to sit at his
desk. Luca was weak. He clung to joys that weren’t his to have, and that
would ruin us. I felt the spirit of my dad situating itself among my bones.
He was right to rule with an iron fist. It was the only thing that could get the
job done. Emotions were for the broken, and as the jet touched down in
California, it hit me. I was no Varasso prince. I was meant to be the true
king of the family. My father knew it, and now I knew it, too.
I would take care of things with Marco first, and then when I got back
to Philly. I would take my rightful seat on the throne. This organization and
family belonged to me and me alone. I guess I had Willow to thank for that.
If she hadn’t left, I would never have realized that. The last thing, the only
good thing she did before she left me behind. Even with the death of our
relationship, she’d made me stronger.
I headed to southern California, first to meet up with a few of our
connections, and then I’d fully arm myself. There was every possibility that
L.A. was crawling with Binachis, and I needed to be prepared if one of
them tried to get the jump on me.
I scanned the vast array of weaponry our south dealer had. Assault
rifles, pistols, gauges. If it shot bullets, he had it in his arsenal.
“I gotta say, you weren’t the Varasso I expected to be the first to come
to see me,” the weapons dealer, Faci, grumbled, the huge stitched scar on
his face shimmering in the light of his shack shop.
I picked up one of the shotguns and cocked it, feeling the way it
balanced in my hands. “Yeah, well, unexpected is kind of my theme.” I
uncocked the shotgun, armed the safety, and then picked out a couple of
pistols. “What’s the damage?”
Faci waved his wrinkled and liver-spotted hand. “Nah. You just tell the
boss I helped you out.”
I took some money out of my pocket and slammed it onto the counter so
hard Faci jumped. “I am the boss.”
I traveled back to L.A. and to the address my informant told me
belonged to Horatio. I could see glowing lights shining warmly from inside.
I walked up to the window, looking into his house, and saw him sitting at a
table with his wife and kids, laughing over a meal. I hated him for freely
enjoying what I wanted so badly. He wasn’t born into death and darkness.
He probably just got married at a church, with his friends and family
surrounding him, and no one questioning his motives, or his love, or his
loyalty. I didn’t want to look at his happiness anymore. If I couldn’t have it,
no one could have it.
 Despite his home’s small size and the peeling paint on the frame, he
had, what appeared to be, a brand new Mercedes Benz in his driveway. I
walked over to it, pulled my rifle off of my shoulder, and smashed the butt
into the driver’s side window. A loud alarm started to blare throughout the
neighborhood, and I could see lights clicking on in all the houses, with all
the neighbors peeking out to investigate. I drew back into the shadows of
the night laid against Horatio’s garage door.
His front door opened. “Stay inside.”
He walked down the front stairs and over to the window of his car,
hissing “Shit!” as he investigated the shards of glass scattered around the
pavement.
I scanned the row of houses, with people already starting to recede back
into their homes. When I was confident no one was looking, I cocked my
rifle. I saw Horatio’s entire body rigidify. His head slowly turned toward his
garage, and I stepped enough into the light to reveal my weapon.
“Hey, Horatio,” I huffed.
“B-boss,” he responded. “L-look. My family’s inside.”
“I know,” I growled back. “It sure would be a shame if anything
happened to them.” I swiped my hand over the hood of the car. “This sure is
a nice car. Where’d you get it?”
Tears and guilt were gathering in the corners of Horatio’s eyes. “I’m s-
sorry, Boss.”
“Why don’t we step inside Horatio?” I asked with an evil grin. “Let’s
have a little talk.”
Horatio led the way inside, and I followed closely behind him, keeping
the barrel of my gun focused on his back. As we walked inside, his wife’s
face filled with horror.
“G-go upstairs, you three,” she murmured nervously.
“No,” I said, brandishing my shotgun fully once we were safely hidden
inside Horatio’s home. “I think they should stay.”
 The kids sitting at the table started to cry, and Horatio moved to stand
between them and me. “Please, Sandro,” Horatio whimpered. “My kids
ain’t done nothing wrong, man.”
“Yeah, well, I’m proof that sometimes you pay for what your dumb dad
did, but you know about that well, don’t you, Horatio?” I asked.
Horatio’s wife looked at him, terrified. “You said you got that money
from a raise at work.”
“Shut up,” Horatio whined.
“No, tell me more. Maggie, right?” Maggie gave me a weak, shaky nod.
“When did he come home with more money?”
Horatio shook his head, so I pointed my shotgun right at his face with
my finger on the trigger. “Go on, Maggie,” I coaxed.
“Right before the holidays,” Maggie responded with tears traveling
down her cheeks.
“Yeah, around Thanksgiving?” I asked.
She nodded, closing her eyes with realization. She side-eyed Horatio.
“Yes. What did you do?”
“I’ll tell you what he did, Maggie.” I looked over at him. “My brother is
in witness protection, taking care of his wife and child, and your husband
discovered his address and gave it to some people who want my brother
dead. Tell me, Horatio, do you think that the Binachis are going to spare my
brother’s kid like you want me to spare yours?”
“I’m sorry, Boss. I’m so sorry. My kids needed food, and I wasn’t doing
good in the tunnels. They told me they would set me up for life.” He started
to sob in earnest. “Just punish me. Don’t punish my kids.”
“Do you know where the Binachis are?” I asked. “Are they here in the
city?”
Horatio looked up at me, his head flailing wildly. “Y-yeah! I know
where they are! I been to their house before.”
“Then, let’s make a deal, Horatio. You like deals, right?” I asked.
 “Okay,” he huffed.
“You take me to where I can find the Banachis, and I won’t hurt your
family.”
“Okay, Boss. I’ll take you right now.”
“But Horatio, you know what’s going to happen if you don’t give me
what I need, don’t you?” I shifted my gun to point at Maggie’s face, and
children started screaming. Maggie closed her eyes, her bottom lip
shivering. “I’ll let you live so you can think about how your actions cost
your family everything.”
Horatio nodded. “Please, Boss. I’ll take you.”
“You understand that I don’t want to be played with. I’m really not in
the mood for it, Horatio,” I said.
Horatio nodded. “I got it, Boss. I won’t play games. I’ll take you there
right now.”
I gave him a fake grin. “Well, I’m glad we could see eye to eye,
Horatio. Now let’s go.”
23
 WILLOW

I t felt like everything I was doing was taking so much longer than it
should have. I didn’t know if it was because I was that reluctant to do
what I was planning to do that day, or if I was struggling to readjust to a
daily routine that didn’t include Alessandro. Getting out of bed took active
concentration. I had to count to ten to inspire myself to do simple things
like kick my feet out over the edge of the bed or toss my blankets to the
side. I put my feet into my slippers, but I stood there for five minutes
pulling my feet in and out because I thought that I was wearing them
wrong, and when I pulled on my morning robe to shield my barely dressed
body from my brother, I put it on inside out first. After feeling properly
dressed and ready to walk out into the hallway, I first plopped back down
onto my bed and sat there staring at nothing for ten minutes. I kept rubbing
my stomach, still not quite able to grasp the fact that there was a little life in
there. I could already feel myself developing a connection to the baby and
tried to cut myself off. Aborting was the right thing to do. A child didn’t
belong in a world ruled by the Varassos.
I eventually convinced myself to get up and make my way out into the
main part of my apartment. The door to my guest room was still closed, and
even if it wasn’t enough indicator that Ricky was still asleep, the fact that
stucco was falling from the ceiling at the sound of his snoring would do it.
I’d gotten used to the way he could tear a room apart with his snoring
sometime when we were kids. He had sinus problems already, but then
when we were teenagers, he’d taken a kickball straight to the face, jamming
the bridge of his nose and breaking a bone in his eye socket. It only went
downhill from there, as his ability to snore from his nose damn near
stopped, and eventually, my mom had to have his room made soundproof.
Even in her giant manor, it didn’t matter what room you were in. If Ricky
was asleep, you could hear it. I was already drumming up ideas for apology
gifts for my neighbors once he was gone. If they didn’t complain to my
landlord every single day he was here, they deserved a Nobel prize.
I pulled out my can of untouched-for-a-month coffee and carried it over
to my coffee pot. The last cup of coffee I’d brewed for myself was done in
the morning on the day I left for Philly. It seemed like no one there ever
wanted me to get coffee for myself. Ricky would bring it to me every
morning when we were both at my mom’s house, and Alessandro would
bring it to me when I was staying at his place. Even Molly and the kids
brought me a cup or two, as payment for playtime, of course. I grinned,
thinking about the days I spent at the Varasso estate. As bad as things had
gone with Luca, I didn’t regret staying there. It was nice to get to know
Alessandro’s family, the people he was so deathly loyal to. I could only
hope that I could find something else like that someday. Something less
intense with far less risk involved, but the loyalty wouldn’t be so bad. If
only Alessandro had that for me and not a family that wanted him to do
unacceptable things, we could have made it. I never got the chance to tell
him, but I thought we were soulmates, too. Guess that ship had sailed now.
I pulled out all of Ricky’s favorite breakfast foods and lined them up on
my speckled marble counter. Back in Philly, he could get whatever
breakfast he wanted at the drop of a hat. He didn’t have to pay for it, and he
didn’t have to go get it. It was magic for as involved as he was in it. He
snapped his fingers and, boom, there it was.
 He had been a bacon eater since birth. He liked it crispy and a little
burnt with eggs or some other such substance to dip it in. He could put
away multiple cups of coffee in a single sitting, but I knew him well enough
to know that he actually really preferred orange juice in the morning. He
liked cold beverages better in general, but he was a juice guy. Always had
been. I poured a glass of orange juice and started cooking his bacon and
eggs in a pan, and pretty soon, the guest bedroom door opened with my
twin trudging out.
He rubbed his eyes with a huge yawn. “Smells good.” He took a seat at
my kitchen island with all of his hair still a rat’s nest of curls atop his head.
“Bacon and eggs,” I replied, lifting the glass of orange juice and
handing it over. “Should be done in about five minutes.”
He grabbed the orange juice and took out half the glass in one gulp.
“Yum. I haven’t had orange juice in a long time.”
“Late nights making you rely on the coffee, huh?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, obviously lying. “So, how’d you sleep?”
“Weird,” I said. “I’m a stomach sleeper, but I felt odd sleeping that way
given the circumstances, so I was trying to lay on my side or my back.
Every time I started to roll around to my stomach, I would snap awake and
turn back to my back.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “I slept like a rock.”
“I know,” I responded through gritted teeth. “You’re paying for my
deposit when I get kicked out.”
Ricky chuckled. “Maybe that’s why I’m still single.”
“Oh, do you think that could be it?” I giggled.
Ricky’s expression turned somber. “How are you feeling about today?”
I dumped Ricky’s food onto a plate and slid it over to him. “Scared.
Sad.”
“Sad?” Ricky repeated. “You’re sad?”
“Of course I’m sad,” I replied. “I want a baby.”
 “Then, I don’t get it. Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“Because it would be irresponsible not to. I won’t give birth to another
Varasso. I can’t. What would life be for me and my baby?” I rubbed my
stomach. “I could barely date a Varasso. I certainly cannot raise one.”
“What if you said it wasn’t Sandro’s?” Ricky asked.
“If he ever asked for a DNA test, I would look like a bad parent, and he
could use it as leverage to take the baby from me,” I replied.
Ricky shook his head. “Alessandro would never do that to you. He
loves you way too much. He would never hurt you like that.”
“I knew you would defend him. I almost didn’t tell you about this, you
know?” I poured myself a cup of coffee, and when I brought the cup to my
lips, Ricky held out his hand. “No!”
“What?” I asked with wide eyes.
“Caffeine, baby. No-go, sis.”
“What does it matter? I’m getting an abortion today,” I said. I tried to
ignore him, but I couldn’t bring myself to drink the cup. I’d already decided
that I wasn’t keeping the baby, but it suddenly felt immoral. “I hate you for
ruining coffee for me.”
“How did I do it? You were the one who decided to go all who-needs-
protection with Sandro. I didn’t force you to do that,” Ricky replied.
“You know what, if you’re going to be all logical lawyerly, you can just
go,” I hissed, and Ricky laughed. I begrudgingly grabbed a bottle of water
from the fridge and drank it. “Are you happy?”
“I didn’t make you do that, either,” he said, “but yes.”
The doorknob to my front door started to rattle, and Ricky immediately
jumped up. He reached for his gun, and for a minute, I fell right in line.
Spending a few weeks with the Varassos rots the mind.
The door opened, and Sasha walked in, dropping her keys into her
pocket. “Um, hi.”
 Ricky looked over his shoulder. “You could have told me other people
have keys to your apartment.”
I scrunched up my nose. “I don’t have to tell you everything.”
Sasha was wearing an understated outfit of jeans and a tucked-in tank
top with white heels. She walked over to me and pulled me into a hug. “Oh,
honey. I’m here for you. It’s okay.”
I plied us apart with a laugh, scratching her cheek lovingly. “I’m okay.
My brother’s here. Ricky, this is Sasha. Sasha, Ricky.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow and held out her hand. “Hello. I’ve heard lots
about you.”
Ricky took it and shook it gently. “And I, you, mostly from movies, but
a little bit from my sister, I guess.”
Sasha let out a fake giggle. “All good, I hope.”
“Very good. I see you now, and I can see what she’s a fan,” Ricky
replied, still with her hand clasped in his.
“Um, whatever this is,” I motioned to them. “Stop it. Stop. It. Please.”
Sasha pulled her hand free and walked over to the coffee pot. “Oh, is
this fresh.”
“Yes, and please drink it. Smokey the Bear won’t let me,” I replied.
“I mean, you are pregnant.” She picked up the mug of mine with the
fresh cup I’d just poured and helped herself.
“I’m aborting!” I bellowed while Ricky stared at me with a shit-eating
grin.
“When are you going?” Sasha asked.
“The clinic opens at eight,” I replied. “I want to be there, like, right
when it opens. I want to get this over with.” I checked the clock hanging
above my front door and noticed it was quarter to eight already. “We
actually should be leaving, Ricky.”
“Yeah, if you’re sure,” he said.
 I nodded. “I’ll have plenty of opportunities to have a baby with a non-
psycho.”
“He’s not a psycho,” Ricky grumbled with a roll of his eyes.
“That’s what I told her,” Sasha said.
“Okay, you two are never allowed to be in the same place again. Deal?”
I started toward my bedroom to get dressed and turned around to look at
Sasha. I motioned for her to come with me, and she followed behind me.
“Do you want me to come?” she asked, sitting down on my bed while I
changed into a pair of comfortable leggings and a coverall blouse that went
down to my thighs.
“No, I have Ricky. I think that’ll be plenty. Can you be here when I
come back, though?” I asked.
“Of course, sweetheart. Whatever you need. I am going to take a nap in
your bed, though, because I hopped on the first redeye back to L.A. and
haven’t slept.
“Help yourself,” I said. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and then walked
back out to where Ricky was sitting, but he was gone. “Damn it. Ricky, we
gotta go!”
I continued over to the guest room and found Ricky looking at his
phone with shock on his face. “What?” I asked.
“Apparently, Alessandro went off the deep end. Pushed Gabe, punched
Luca.” He was dialing a number on his phone.
“What? That doesn’t sound like him.” I walked over and sat next to him
on the edge of the guest bed.
Ricky side-eyed me. “Glad we agree that he’s not crazy.”
It slammed over me like a building being demolished over my head.
Maybe somewhere inside of me, I knew Alessandro wasn’t crazy, but that
didn’t change the fact that he was willing to kidnap children. That was still
a man who shouldn’t be a father.
“Hey, Mol. What’s happening?”
 I nudged Ricky and mouthed speaker, and he pressed the button,
igniting the room with the sound of Molly’s panicked voice. “I mean,
Gabriel nearly cracked his skull open. He made these nasty comments about
me, and I thought Luca was going to take his head off. When he pushed
Gabe, Luca swung, but Sandro ducked and got the hit in.”
“I can’t believe that. Alessandro’s loyal to a fault. He’d never hurt his
own family,” I responded.
“He’s lost it, Ricky. He had the dead eyes that had, like, nothing behind
them. Ever since Willow left, it’s like he’s not even the same person.”
That thought crushed me. I didn’t have anything against Alessandro’s
family. In fact. I’d grown to care for them deeply. I made the decision that I
thought was best for me, but I didn’t think he was going to flip out on his
own family. I supposed I could have handled it with a little more grace, but
I could only think of getting out of Philly and as far away from him as
possible. I was worried, and I was scared. What was I supposed to do?
“When he and Luca were going over the plans,” Molly continued,
“Sandro snapped and said he was going to take care of things himself, and
then he left and took his dad’s jet to Cali. We hadn’t heard from him in
hours, but then one of my runners told me that he got a call from Horatio’s
wife last night saying that Alessandro had stormed into their house with a
shotgun threatening to kill them! He took Horatio with him to go and find
the Binachis on his own.”
“What? That’s psychotic!” Ricky shouted.
“Glad we agree on something,” I whispered to him, and he deflated a
bit.
Maybe none of us really knew Alessandro. Was he always so close to
the edge?
“Luca and Gabe left to go to California as soon as we heard, but they
had to fly domestic since Sandro took the jet. I’m afraid they won’t get
there in time. Do you think you can try and hunt him down? We reactivated
the GPS app for the time being to help find him. You should be able to see
it.”
I nodded my head at Ricky. I’d made a mistake, and I needed to fix it.
“I’ll find him,” Ricky said. “I’ll take Willow. Maybe she can talk some
sense into him.”
“Okay, but please be careful. We have no idea how many of the
Binachis are there. They’re armed and very dangerous. I’ve got some of my
men en route, too. There is another option if you absolutely have to use it.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, I might need to,” Ricky replied. I furrowed my
brow, unsure of what they were talking about. Ricky waved his hand at me.
“Okay, I’m gonna go. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Ricky, and be safe.”
“Thanks, you, too.” Ricky hung up his phone and immediately opened
the GPS app. “Oh, wow. He’s way upstate. About an hour. If we go now, we
might be able to catch him.”
Ricky and I ran out into the living room where Sasha was filling up her
coffee cup. “Whoa, where’s the fire?”
“Sandro’s here, and we think he’s going to do something really dumb,” I
replied. “We have to go find him, okay? We’ll be back.”
I heard Sasha protesting, but I was already out the door with Ricky on
my heels. We made our way down to my car and got in, and Ricky started
to direct me on the route to get to where it seemed like Alessandro was. I
saw him typing a message on his phone, sending a picture of the address to
someone.
“Who are you texting?” I asked.
Ricky sighed. “An ace in the hole.”
The hour seemed to tick by at a snail’s pace. Traffic was bad
everywhere. There were streets under construction everywhere, and if there
was a delay for me to experience, I was experiencing it. In the back of my
mind, I couldn’t shake loose the fact that I was supposed to be getting an
abortion at the moment. I supposed that would have to wait.
I stayed the course for where we were headed, praying to any god that
would listen that we got to Alessandro before it was too late.
24
 ALESSANDRO

T he plan to stop and observe the Binachis for a little while was a good
one. Horatio had guessed that there were only two or three of the
family members staying inside the house that he brought me to, but sitting
and watching for a few hours proved that there were actually about six. It
wasn’t a large house, only a rowhouse among a bunch that looked like it,
and it was most likely a cover house for them to keep tabs on Marco. I
looked down the line of houses, imagining that my brother, his wife, and the
niece I’d never met were inside of one of them. I couldn’t go knocking on
every door, though, at least, not yet. I had to get the Benachis out of my
way first.
I looked back at Horatio, tied up and gagged in the back seat of my
rental. “Well, well. You proved to be useful. Well done.”
He tried to mutter something, but I couldn’t hear it because of the duct
tape. I returned to watching the house, but it seemed like I’d officially
gotten down to where the same six people were rotating in and out at any
given time. I could take on six of them if I was quiet about getting in. I’d
leave Horatio in the car. He was pretty well tied up, and I didn’t think he’d
be getting out anytime soon, but to be safe, I looked back at him once again.
“Now, you say here. If you’re good, we’ll see what we can do about
getting you back home safe and sound, yeah?” Horatio started nodding, and
I smiled and nodded back. “Good.”
I was lying, of course. Horatio had been deeply involved in my family’s
business and had proven to be a turncoat. No one who knew as much about
the business as he did could turn and walk away. That wasn’t how it
worked.
I grabbed the guns I’d brought with me and climbed out of the car,
ducking down behind it. The house the Binachis were in was right on the
edge of a set of homes. I needed to get around back. If I could get in
without being seen, it was a done deal. When it seemed like none of the
Binachis were out and about, I slunk across the street and into the alley on
the side of the homes. I could see bodies moving around inside, but they all
seemed relatively unbothered. I hadn’t been detected yet, and with their
guards as low as they seemed to be, getting in was going to be a breeze. I
pushed past the trash cans and around to the back, where I saw a small
white door. I didn’t have any silencers. Once my first shot went off, they
would know I was there. I didn’t want to try and pull the same stunt I pulled
at Horatio’s in broad daylight with the amount of attention it would attract. I
was going to have to take a different approach.
I pulled out one of my pistols and walked up to the door, peering around
to make sure none of the rowhouse molding held any cameras, and then
knocked on it a few times, hopping back into the crook in the stairs. The
back door opened, and a man, who didn’t look to be particularly tough,
poked his head out. It didn’t make any sense to me. If they were planning to
make a move on Marco, why send such a pipsqueak? He stepped down the
stairs and turned into the alley, and I quickly seized the opportunity to hop
up onto the stairs’ landing and slide my way into the house. I could hear
voices inside, five distinct ones, and knew my count was probably correct.
As soon as everything started, it was going to happen quickly. I needed
them dead so that there was no threat to Marco and his family, plus it would
send a message to the Binachis that they were messing with the wrong
family. I was going to need to lure them to one place where I could catch
them all off guard, all at once. I noticed another small white door and
figured it led to a basement. It would have to do. I quietly opened the door
and slid behind it.
On the other side, I could hear the guy I’d coaxed outside coming back
in. “There’s nothing out there.”
“Check the basement, just in case,” someone responded.
“Shit,” I whispered to myself. I started down the stairs, but the door was
opening, and I knew I was out of time. The second the door opened, I fired,
striking the lean guy I’d goaded outside right in the chest. He fell face first
and slid down the stairs.
“What the fuck?” A voice boomed. He peeked around the corner of the
door, and it was all I needed. I fired at him as well, hitting him square in the
forehead.
He also dropped on the stairs, sliding a few feet down and gathering
near the other body. I was waiting for another body to come around the
corner when I felt cold steel press against the back of my head. They’d
gotten the drop on me. So ended my miserable life. It was probably just as
well.
“Well, well, well, look what we have here. If it isn’t one of the Prince
Varassos?” I recognized the voice. He was a high ranking member of the
Binachi organization, Colton. Not Binachi blood, himself, but highly
trusted, like Ricky was to us. “I have to admit, I expected you guys to take
the bait much sooner. Five months is a little long to leave your brother in
harm’s way, don’t you think?”
Fuck. It was a trap the entire time. My senses slowly started to return to
me one by one. It was like coming down off a very dangerous, very active
drug. Why I would rush in, thinking I could handle it all by myself, was
beyond my understanding. Whichever version of myself took over in
mourning of Willow was a dangerous and terrifying man. I only wished that
I could see Willow’s face one more time before I had a bullet in my skull.
“My brother was never in trouble,” I replied, playing cocky. “He may
have gotten away from the organization, but the life is in his blood. He’s
escaped death more than once. You people are hardly a threat.”
“Yet, here you are,” Colton replied. “Tell me, if you’re so big and bad,
why did you only take out two of my bottom men, and now my gun is to
your head?”
“I suppose that’s a pretty good question. Maybe you should be asking
yourself.” I played a bluff, hoping he would go for it. “No, no, don’t worry.
I’m sure you’ve got a handle on things.”
“I guess I’ll blow a hole in your brain and see if anything else happens.
How about that?”
I started writing mental notes that I wished my family could hear.
Dad, I’m sorry I let you down. I spent all twenty-four years of my life
trying to figure out which was up and only ever managed to go down. I took
care of Gabe, just like you asked. Luca’s going easier on him, and he’s
getting a little bit better at managing the business. Even without me around,
I think he’ll be okay.
Luca, I’m sorry I questioned you and made things so much harder for
you than they needed to be. Maybe I was trying to prove that I should have
been in your seat instead of you. Maybe I was jealous of what you had with
Molly and the kids. Either way, take care of them and get out while you can.
I never told you this, but I don’t agree with dad. I think even once you’re in,
you can get out.
Marco, I’m proud of you for looking out for yourself and your family
before us. Our expectations of one another are selfish and dysfunctional. It
kills me that I never got to see you again and meet my baby niece, but it
makes me happy to know that you’ve found an island of serenity in this
tumultuous sea.
 Gabe, I hope you keep developing confidence and learn how to become
your own man. Maybe consider finding your own special someone. Keep
her away from the life, and treasure her above anything. You won’t regret it.
Willow…
Willow…
Thank you for defining me, for giving me a reason to breathe, and for
giving me a reason to move. Thank you for smiling at me and laughing with
me and loving me. Thank you for trying to give me a chance that I didn’t
really deserve. Thank you for being my everything, always. I’ll love you
even in my grave.
The pop of a gun left me waiting for pain, if not death, but instead, a
body collapsed to my side. I looked down and saw Colton on the ground
with a bullet hole in the back of his head, already bleeding out. I whipped
around, and my jaw dropped. Standing in front of me, like he had every
right to be there with no announcement, was Marco, smoking gun in hand,
and his hair humorously dyed blond.
“Marco.”
“Goddammit, you better be glad Kelly made me go on a fucking diet.” I
glanced up behind him and saw the small, slotted window that Marco must
have squeezed through to get in. “You are a lucky son-of-a-bitch.”
I couldn’t control myself. I threw my arms around him. “Fuck, am I
glad to see you. How did you know I was here?”
“Ricky texted me.” He put a hand on my head. “Are you okay?”
Make that two of the Varasso brothers whose lives Marco had saved.
“I’m okay,” I responded.
“Are you sure?” He punched me in the shoulder. “It looked like you
fucking gave up.”
“I think I did, I—”
Another round of gunshots ricocheted upstairs. Marco and I both pulled
out our guns and started up. I tiptoed around the corner, my pistol aimed in
front of me, but when I walked into the living room, I was filled with even
more relief. The remaining bodies of the Binachi family were scattered
around with Luca standing amongst them. I didn’t even feel like I deserved
to approach him. I’d acted like such a haughty asshole.
“Luca,” I murmured. “I…”
“Got possessed by dad for a second there, didn’t you?” he grumbled.
“I think so. Maybe the old man’s spirit hasn’t left yet.” I stayed standing
in place, but eventually, Luca walked up to me.
He wrapped his arms around me in a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay, but if
you ever pull some shit like this again, or talk about my wife the way you
did, you and I are going to have a serious problem.”
“You talked about Molly?” Marco said, stepping into the room. “I’m
surprised she didn’t kill you.”
“Hey there, brother,” Luca greeted. “Nice do.”
Marco fake puffed it. “Thanks.”
“Where’s Gabe?” I asked.
He nodded back toward the door. “Outside with Ricky and Willow.”
My heart came to a screeching halt. “Willow’s outside?”
Luca stepped to the side. “See for yourself.”
My heart started pounding even faster than it had when I had a gun to
the back of my head. I was embarrassed to even face her after what I’d
done. I’d put myself in danger, I put my family in danger, and by her being
there, I’d put her in danger, too. What did I even have to say to her? Sorry
that you overheard that I was going to do this terrible thing, but if it makes
you feel any better, I went out and did a doubly terrible thing? I was never
going to get to be with Willow again. The sooner I made my peace with
that, the sooner I’d be able to move on in a way that wouldn’t leave me
storming through the streets of Los Angeles like a one-man army.
I stepped outside the front door, and sure enough, Ricky and Willow
were there, talking to Gabriel and Horatio. I let out a sigh of relief that
someone found him in the back of that car and let him out. Willow turned
and looked at me, and moments later, she was racing toward me at full
speed. I stopped and held out my arms, and she leaped into them without a
single moment of hesitation. I closed my arms around her, holding as close
to me as atoms would allow.
“I thought I was going to lose you.” She pulled away and gave me a kiss
on the lips, and I was blown away and confused, but not complaining.
She stepped a few feet back, cocked her fist, and punched me square
across the jaw, and it hurt, like getting smacked with a baseball bat. To say
she was sending mixed signals would be an understatement. “Ow! Why?”
“For fucking hitting your brother.” She pulled her fist back again, and
that time gave me a low jab to the gut. “For damn near killing Gabe.” She
grabbed my shoulders and kneed up into my abs, and I let out a gag, nearly
falling to my feet. “For making Marco come out of hiding to save your
dumbass!”
“God, I forgot how much I missed Willow. Hi, Willow!” Marco said.
Despite my dying in front of her, Willow waved back with a bright
smile. “Hey, Marco! I dig the blond hair!”
Ricky tapped me on my back. “Shake it off, man.”
I held a hand up. “I’ll be okay,” I strained out.
“Do you have any idea how scared I was?” Willow asked. “I thought I
was going to show up and see your dead body. Didn’t I tell you not to end
up in a situation like either of our dads? What were you thinking?”
“I guess I don’t handle heartbreak well,” I huffed back. “Willow, I need
to say that I—”
“Get down!” We all looked over, and Gabriel had pulled his gun out and
had it smashed against Horatio’s head. “Down!”
I rushed over with Luca and Marco right behind me. I grabbed his arm
and pulled it away. “Whoa! What are you doing?”
 “This guy still narced on Marco,” Gabriel barked, and none of us knew
where his sudden aggressiveness was coming from. Maybe he’d taken the
same airborne drug I had.
“Yeah, but trust me when I say he’s learned that lesson, right?” I looked
at him, and his head started bobbing up and down so quickly it nearly
looked like it wasn’t moving at all. “Horatio knows that we know where he
lives and where his wife lives, and if we have any more problems with
him,” I tapped Gabe’s back, “we’re sending in the crazy one.”
Everyone snickered behind me, but I was trying to help Gabriel
establish a little dominance. Luca walked over and put a hand on my head.
“We’ve got guys on the way. We’ll get this all cleaned up.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll stay. I’m gonna turn myself in.”
“What?” Luca waved his hand through the air. “No, we’re not doing
that. This isn’t that bad. They’ll get it cleaned up. It’s fine.”
“I did horrible shit that I have to be held accountable for.” I looked at
Willow. “I don’t want to be that guy.”
Willow shook her head. “It’s okay. Be that guy.”
“What? No. I promised you. I won’t take all the charges. It’ll be a long
time, but I’ll be okay.”
“No,” Willow said. “You can’t go to prison.”
“I deserve it,” I retorted.
“No, you can’t go,” Willow squeaked. “You can’t go to prison because
you have to be here with me.”
“I don’t deserve you, either,” I said. “I put you in all this danger and—”
“I’m pregnant.”
Only the wind made a sound for about five solid minutes. Finally, I
broke the silence. “You’re… really?”
She nodded. “I took a test last night.” I stepped in to hug her, but she
took a step back. “I’m not raising a baby in this world, Sandro. It’s either us
or—”
 “You.” I didn’t even let her finish. “It’s you. I mean,” I looked over at
Luca. “We’ll have to figure out how it’ll work, but…”
“You think I’d let you stay working for my organization after this fuck
up? Uh, no. You’re fired,” Luca said.
“W-what?” I asked.
Luca walked up to me and held out a hand. “You wanted out.”
I took his hand in my own. “You’re sure?”
Luca nodded. “At this point, Gabe is clearly more stable than you are,
anyway. Go, raise your family.”
I pulled Luca into a hug. “Thank you.”
I looked over a Willow and grabbed her hand. “Will you forgive me?”
Willow shrugged. “I’ll think about it.” She smiled at me.
“Then,” I got down on one knee, “will you marry me?”
EPILOGUE
 WILLOW

I stood, looking myself over in the tall, ceiling to floor mirror against the
wall. The top of my white dress was strapless and grabbed my torso in a
way that was flattering and not too sexy, capping it with a sweetheart
neckline. Carefully laid lacework spiraled along the bodice, leading down
to my waist and disappearing behind my navy blue belt. After the belt,
chiffon layers flared out and waterfalled toward the floor, covering even my
feet, which were equally decked out in white pumps with straps around the
ankles. I fluffed my hair, despite that after she finished curling it, Sasha told
me if I touched it, she would murder me. Around my neck hung the
beautiful engagement gift Ricky had gotten me, a diamond enclosed in a
web of silver, interwoven hoops. He gave it to me with the promise that, no
matter what happened, he would always be there for me. I didn’t need a
necklace to know that, but it was times like this, as I was standing alone, a
regular ball of nerves, that it was nice to have a reminder.
There was a small knock at the door behind me, and I turned around.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and in walked my dad. He’d been granted a furlough
from prison to attend my wedding because in the twelve years he’d spent
there, he hadn’t made a single, solitary wave. I was smart enough to know
that it was probably Varasso protection keeping him safe, even on the
inside, but whatever the reason was, I was glad he was there.
“Daddy,” I said with a smile.
It had been that entire twelve years since I had seen him last. After
everything finally settled down, I came to regret never going to see my dad.
I finally understood that the decisions he made as a young father, he’d made
because he thought it was what was best for Ricky and me. All that time,
I’d believed that he chose the Varassos over us. Actually, he was sacrificing
himself to make sure that my mom, Ricky, and I were well taken care of,
without even a second thought. He knew the Varassos would make good on
their promises to make sure we were covered, and he was prepared to rot in
prison to see it through. My mom, my dad, and Alessandro, they’d all
taught me an important lesson about thinking in black and white—I’d miss
the color. The beautiful things that are hidden just behind what appears to
be tragedy and misfortune. I understood it much better now.
“Baby, you look…” He was getting choked up already. “Like your
mother.”
I smiled. It was as nice a compliment as any. “Thanks, Daddy.”
He stepped forward, wiping a few tears from his eyes. “Wow. You’d
think prison would change a man.”
I chuckled. “I’m glad it didn’t.”
I welcomed his embrace as he wrapped his arms around me, and it felt
good to be hugging him again. I hadn’t had him there for my birthdays, my
prom, or my graduation; that he could be there for my wedding day meant
the world to me.
“Well, I just wanted to wish you good luck, not that you need it.” He
stroked my cheek. “That Alessandro better act like he knows how lucky he
is.”
I thought about Alessandro going berserk the day he moved to
California. He saw my cobbled together apartment of cheap furniture, found
mostly from flea markets or garage sales, and dropped to his knees in
dramatic, movie star fashion, saying I deserved the best and that the
apartment was getting a complete overhaul. I was still committed to not
accepting any lavish gifts paid for with the Varassos’ blood money, but
Alessandro assured me all the money he brought with him was what was
earned at some of their above the board businesses, like a restaurant Marco
had purchased and a casino Luca had invested in. It wasn’t that fashion
buying didn’t pay well, especially for the kind of clients I worked with, but
I wasn’t a picky kind of person. I supposed maybe it was me trying to reject
my mother’s obsession with money by doing the exact opposite of what she
did. Regardless, Alessandro spent the next few weeks buying me everything
I so much as breathed in the direction of. I eventually had to start punishing
him when he didn’t clear money with me first.
“He does,” I responded.
“Well, I’m gonna go take my seat,” he said. “I’ll see you out there,
probably bawling like a baby.”
“Okay, Dad. I love you.” I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him on his cheek.
“I love you, too.” He walked out of the room but left the door open with
a wink as he stepped through.
My dad was at my wedding, for which I was grateful, but he wasn’t
walking me down the aisle. He understood entirely when I told him that I
was granting that honor to someone else. In fact, he’d told me he wouldn’t
have it any other way. I stepped across the doorframe, and leaning against
the wall outside was Ricky. He was the one I’d be arm in arm with. The
man who’d taken the best care of me ever since the day we were born.
He grabbed his chest like the wind had been knocked out of him.
“Wow.”
I did a little twirl. “Right?” I had, of course, purchased my own
wedding dress using my connections and fashion expertise. I knew I looked
good in it. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that.
 He stood upright and made a loop with his arm, and I linked mine into
it. He kissed my cheek, and then we started off down the hallway. We’d
gotten even closer since he came to live in California with Alessandro and
me. I wanted to believe that it was because he couldn’t see living without
me, but in truth, I thought his number one motivation was the way he hit it
off with Sasha. When I was staying in Philly for those couple of weeks after
my grandpa’s funeral, I’d heard him turn page after page of stories about
the scores of women he’d been out with. Ricky was a guy, and guys were
guys, but deep inside of him, he was a romantic. He’d seen Luca with
Molly, Marco with Kelly, and Alessandro with me, and really wanted the
same for himself. He had some idiosyncrasies, but nothing I thought was
impossible to love. Apparently, Sasha shared the sentiment.
They started dating not long after Ricky and Alessandro moved in. We
were so busy getting ready for the baby, and Ricky was behaving much like
a child who was reluctantly becoming an older sibling. He kept trying to
distract Alessandro while we were working on the baby’s room or begging
me to go do things with him even when I didn’t feel up to it. It was all the
experience Sandro and I needed to know that we would probably stop after
one kid. I complained to Sasha, and she started to come over to help distract
Ricky. The distraction took the form of many dates until soon, my own best
friend was coming over to see my brother instead of me. Then, I was the
one acting like the baby.
Still, as their relationship grew, Alessandro and I started to enjoy having
them around as a couple. We could do couple things, and Alessandro was a
fanatic for anything overly domestic in nature, a carryover from thinking
he’d never have that kind of life. We appreciated the way it brought us
together, that was until we overheard them having sex in a room not far
away. Alessandro and I could both, miraculously, sleep through Ricky’s
horrid snoring, but the raucous love-making was a bird of a different color.
 “Yeah, we’re going to need to get a house,” Alessandro said instantly,
and I couldn’t have agreed more.
It was over a year later, and Ricky and Sasha were still together. He was
killing it as a defense attorney in L.A., and the media loved seeing him on
Sasha’s arm during red carpet events and on social media.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Ricky asked.
“Nothing. Everything,” I replied.
We made our way to the top of the Varraso estate’s marvelous, curved
staircases and looked down. People were sitting on either side of the foyer,
in all manner of formal dress, looking up at us. We’d gone atypical, lining
the foyer with chairs and placing our wedding arch right in front of the front
yard fountain. The back fountain was prettier, but to be avoided due to bad
memories. A quiet chorus of strings filled the air, and everyone stood up
from their seats. Ricky led me carefully down the stairs, something we’d
practiced about twelve dozen times to ensure that I wouldn’t fall. There
were sniffles coming up from random spots across the crowd, and it took
everything in me not to ruin my own makeup with emotions as well.
We walked between the two groups of people, not divided in any
particular way, just interspersed with our family and friends. Toward the
back of the seating were a majority of the Varasso’s lower men, and most of
them had tears in their eyes. We continued on into closer family and friends.
I spied my cousin Hannah and her husband sitting among the fray. We
crossed through the door frame and down the front steps, where I could
finally see Alessandro standing, waiting for me in front of the white-rose-
covered arch. Gabriel stood behind him as his best man, followed by Luca
and Marco. To the right, Sasha and Bella were already standing, in rose-
colored dresses, smiling at me as I walked.
I grinned at the rest of our family. My parents and grandmother, all
drenched in tears. Molly and Kelly, each with their children next to them. In
Molly’s lap, waving at me with Molly’s aid, swiping her tiny hand up and
down, was my baby girl, Alexis. We’d stuck with the theme of A-names in
the family; Anna, Antonio, Amanda, and now Alexis. She had her dad’s
curly brown hair all over her head, and our pristine blue eyes, with my
freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. She squealed when she saw
me, and I stopped briefly to walk over and give her a kiss on the forehead.
A second later, Alessandro was next to me, with his hand on my back,
waving at Alexis. We started to walk away to continue with the ceremony,
but the second we moved away, she started to scream. Everyone laughed as
Molly tried to calm her, but she was reaching out for us and filling the
entire, massive yard with her bellowing.
“Okay.” Alessandro stepped up and lifted her out of Molly’s hands. “I
guess we’re getting married with a baby now.”
It seemed only fitting. Nothing with the Varassos was normal.
There was a time when that thought was daunting to me. I thought life
was supposed to be normal, that the more par for the course things were, the
greater chance life had of being easy. I wanted a life with Alessandro that
didn’t have pressure. I guess I was afraid too much pressure would break
us, as it had done so many times before. I’d seen the Varassos crack under
pressure, all of them, Alessandro included. I’d seen the effect the life had on
them, which was why I was so desperate to keep Alessandro out of it. He
had responsibilities now, our little girl, and our new lives. I demanded he
take it seriously, and he did.
He enrolled in school not long after arriving in California. He’d always
been a whiz with computers and techy stuff. It was something he found very
interesting. Even though we did eventually move away from the apartment
that sat next to the tech farm I’d told him about, it wasn’t long before he
went over to inquire about a job. The people there were shocked to see him,
never having had a guy of his stature walk in looking to work on computers
before. They let him take up a low-level position while he worked on his
degree, and once he graduated, he’d move up the ranks, probably at an
alarming rate from how much they adored him.
Alessandro balanced Alexis in one arm, took my hand with the other,
and walked us both to the arch. I giggled the entire time, as all throughout
the priest’s speech and even through our vows, Alexis pulled at
Alessandro’s hair and smacked at his face.
It was so unorthodox, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Do you, Alessandro Vara—”
“I do,” Alessandro barely let the priest get the words out.
“Okay,” the priest said, turning toward me. He opened his mouth, but I
held up my hand to stop him.
“I do.”
“Then, by the powers vested in me by the state of Philadelphia, I now
pronounce you husband and wife.” He smiled at Alessandro. “You may kiss
—”
Alessandro’s lips were on mine before he was even done with the order.
When Alessandro pulled away, he grinned, swiping his thumb along my
cheek. “Can’t really avoid the Varassos now. you are one.”
I smiled back at him. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.”
Alessandro Varasso was probably the only man I would have let
convince me to be with him three different times, and now that I was his
wife, I was going to have to get used to the craziness that came with that.
My daughter would not be involved in the life, of that I was certain, but I
had to accept what Alessandro had tried to convince me of all along. Family
was more important than anything else, and as a Varasso, the mob was in
your blood. We were looking at freedom for now, but it didn’t stop me from
having a tiny bundle of nerves sparking at the back of my brain.
They took the form of Angelo Varasso saying, “Once you’re in, you
never get out.”
 A MESSAGE TO MY READERS

Thanks for purchasing this book. As an author, there’s very few things
better than having a reader go through one of my works. If you enjoyed
Cruel Prince, then I’d appreciate you leaving an honest review on Amazon.
Reviews are the lifeblood of my publishing endeavors. A 5 star-review
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To leave a review go to:

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 OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

Prequel: Devil´s Pawn

He kidnapped me.
Locked me up in his mansion.
Would it be too crazy to fall in love with this monster?

Luca is the oldest son of a mafia boss.

He’s the sanest one in his family, if you ask me.
His little girl makes him human.
But danger is still his middle name.
 I’m drawn to his power.
His devilish gaze that wants every part of me.
He has a dark soul that fills a void in mine.
Reminding me of things that I’m capable of.
After his father’s assassination, Luca is the new king.
And he needs a partner in crime.
A queen.

I’m the woman in his bed. In his heart.

So, what does that make me?

Book One: Fallen Knight

 He kidnapped me.
Locked me up in his mansion.
Would it be too crazy to fall in love with this monster?

Luca is the oldest son of a mafia boss.

He’s the sanest one in his family, if you ask me.
His little girl makes him human.
But danger is still his middle name.
I’m drawn to his power.
His devilish gaze that wants every part of me.
He has a dark soul that fills a void in mine.
Reminding me of things that I’m capable of.
After his father’s assassination, Luca is the new king.
And he needs a partner in crime.
A queen.

I’m the woman in his bed. In his heart.

So, what does that make me?

Book Two: Cruel Prince

 I gave my innocence to a mafia prince...
But I haven’t told him that I’m carrying his baby.

My life was mundane before I met Marco.

I didn’t know how dangerous he was until it was too late.
He’d already hired me as his assistant.
Marco has my body… and my heart.
He also holds my career in his hands.
The only way out of this is to run for my life.
Even though I know he’d do everything to hunt me down.
Now, I’ve asked for something impossible.

Would he abandon his mafia family to be with me?

And how would he protect me and his unborn baby if our lives were threatened?