I scoop her into my arms and savor the soft giggle that spills from her lips.
“Where are you taking me?” she asks.
“To bed, to lie with me.”
She doesn’t argue, and I pull the covers back and set her, beautifully naked, beneath them.
I walk around to the other side of the bed, half expecting her to change her mind and leap up to run away, but she doesn’t, and when I climb beneath the covers too, she wiggles closer to me.
My heart somersaults. It clenches and releases and beats with uneven rhythm.
The unsteady pulse in my veins is something I am not used to. Something I’ve never felt before.
***
It’s getting late, and we’ve been talking for ages already.
I keep thinking,this is incredible, I don’t want this to end, why can’t it be like this always.
“So, if you could choose to live a different kind of life, would you?” she asks, looking up at me with those beautiful honey-brown eyes.
“If I could choose not to be in the mafia?” I repeat her question thoughtfully, scrunching my brows. “That’s a tough one. The mafia is all I have ever known. I’m sure there's a list of pros and cons somewhere, but I don’t know what they are, because I’ve never lived a normal life. I don’t have anything to compare my life to.”
“That’s a fair enough answer. Um…I guess I should reword it. Are you happy with your life?”
“Right in this moment, I’m thrilled,” I chuckle, pulling her a little closer.
She laughs, sweet and beautiful. “That answer is just avoiding my question altogether. How about this…” she scrunches her nose. I love it when she does that. She looks deep in thought, trying to figure out a way to ask me the same question.
Instead of letting her try again, I try to answer instead.
“In a way, asking me to choose between mafia and a normal life, whatever 'normal' might be…is asking me to conform. And if that is part of the question, if I have to conform to leave the mafia, then no, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Most people are satisfied with the mundane. They don’t want more than that. I wouldn’t be satisfied. And it’s not about the house orthe cars or the clothes. It’s about the freedom. The freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want.”
“I wish I knew more about this freedom you’re so casually talking about,” she pouts sulkily.
Guilt throbs inside me. “I know, I haven’t exactly…”
“Oh, no, I don’t mean you specifically,” she rolls her eyes, “even though you did kidnap me. I mean my whole life. Overprotected and with my brother trying to control everything.”
I chuckle, letting out a sigh of relief. “It doesn’t seem like you’ve just accepted his rules, though. It seems like you make your own as you go along.”
“Oh, definitely. I wish Illyin could see that I’m actually doing pretty damn well taking care of myself and being smart about it,” she says thoughtfully.
“Until you got kidnapped. That just proved all his worries right,” I laugh, knowing I’m pushing my luck.
She rolls over and punches me playfully in my stomach. I clench my muscles and groan in fake agony.
“Ow,” she complains, rubbing her knuckles. “It’s like punching a solid wall.”
I pat my stomach with my hand. “An unbreakable force,” I say arrogantly.
She laughs and shakes her head. “You are insufferable,” she grins.
There is a moment of silence. Comfortable, quiet silence where I still have a smile traced over my face.
After a while, I speak from my heart. “I might choose to leave the mafia. It would depend on a number of things, thesecurity of my financial future being one of those things. But a more important factor would be, am I going alone? Or do I get to take someone with me?”
“Who would you take?” she asks immediately.
