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New York City, New York
Mancini Mafia
GIULIA
After our return to the De Luca building, I check on Neri. The nightlight reveals both the nanny and Neri sleeping peacefully, in their respective beds.
With his dark curls and square jaw, Neri looks so much like his father, I sometimes wonder what there is of me in him. Raff says he sees it in Neri's enthusiasm for life and affectionate nature.
An affectionate nature I know will be trained out of him by the time he becomes a made man. Raff has agreed to allow our son to finish high school before being inducted into the mafia. And like my husband and brothers, Neri will get a business degree before taking any official role.
It's as normal of a life as I can negotiate for my son.
Raff has already started training our son for life in the mafia. Thankfully, he's implementing my father's methods of using play to teach Neri, rather than the much stricter, formalized training Raff started when he was a mere toddler.
As part of the marriage alliance bargain, Raff spent the four years that I attended university in New York, learning under my father. His choice to follow my father's counsel regarding our son, rather than Patrizio's, is one of the reasons I can't help but love the infuriating man.
There is one area of Neri's training I insist on following neither father on. I refuse to teach my son to bury his emotions at such a young age. Neri is allowed to show his anger, his sadness, his hurt and his happiness…around family. Raff insists Neri cannot cry, or even laugh too loudly, in public.
It's a compromise I can live with.
Because that freedom to show any emotion was not afforded to either of my brothers. By the time I was born, neither Severu nor Miceli ever cried, and they almost never laughed.
I grew up knowing my father and brothers would both die and kill to keep me and my mom safe. However, I craved the hugs I saw school friends receive from their fathers. I was jealous of the joking camaraderie they had with their siblings.
Life as the daughter of a don prepared me in many ways for my life as the wife of an underboss who will one day rule over Las Vegas. But deep inside, I'm still starving for the affection I will never receive from the people I need it most.
I lean down and kiss my son, silently promising him that as much as I can make it, his world will be a different place than mine.
Returning to the guest room I have used since my marriage, I prepare for bed. My phone rings as I’m drying off from my shower.
It's Raff requesting a video call. I yank the shower cap I'd worn to keep my hair dry off my head and wrap the large, fluffy towel around my torso, tucking it above my breasts to hold it in place.
Swiping my finger across the screen, I answer the call and then prop the phone up on the counter. "Hello, Raff."
It's only eight o'clock there, but his handsome face is drawn in lines of weariness. "Amate. How was the dinner with your brother's fiancée?"
I pause in smoothing lotion down my leg. There is that word again. Beloved.
"Honestly? Strange."
"In what way?" The familiar hunger in his gaze tells me that he's watching my post shower routine closely.
Do I let the towel edges part to show more of my naked thigh? Why yes. Yes, I do.
"Francesco Jilani has two daughters and one of them is in her mid-twenties," I say as if I'm not doing my best to tease my husband with my body. "But I've never seen her at any of the social functions."
Raff's eyes narrow, but he replies in kind. "I didn't realize he had an older daughter. Is she married?"
"No and she'd be a better fit for Severu. You should have heard her arguing the merits of bitcoin with Miceli." I lift my other foot onto the stool and administer lotion down the length of my leg.
"Your brother doesn't seem to get that bitcoin is as big a gamble as the games in our casinos."
Really? He can still talk about ways to launder money? I need to up my game.
Giving a not-so-accidental peek at my feminine center, I lower my foot to the floor. "I think she convinced him."
"I'm impressed."
