Fall (A Mafia Crime Family Romance)

by Bella Love-Wins

  “Good.” He turns back to Nonna Romano again. “I won’t let anyone in my organization touch that deal,” he stresses, defiant.

  His mother stuffs her hankie into her bag again and pushes off the armrests, getting to her feet. She reaches for her walking cane, and instead of using it to support her body, she points it at the boss. “I am not going to let you destroy your papa’s legacy. I won’t stand by and wait for Mauro to take out every member of his family. One of your father’s brothers will step up. Do not speak to Mauro again. I will talk to him now. Do you understand me, boy?”

  “You don’t need this headache, Mama. I’ll take care of t—” he starts, but Nonna Romano crashes the end of her cane down on the tabletop with a force I didn’t expect.

  "No! Listen to me, boy. I am still your mother, and I said I will talk to Mauro. I am going to fix this. You hear me? I don't want to hear another word from you on this."

  It’s near impossible for me to keep my focus on the two of them as they continue to argue. The boss is leaving the country? With Natalia and his mother?

  And he’s leaving me in charge of his entire operation?

  I sit up in the armchair, straightening out the knot that’s formed at the base of my chest. This news has twisted up my insides. No matter how I look at it, it’s bigger than I expected.

  Everything’s about to change.

  I’m going to be the interim boss. The Don of Romano’s territory.

  And I’m about to lose Natalia before I have her.

  I almost don’t know which part of it scares me more.

  The boss has been grooming me for years for this moment. I used to fantasize about being in his shoes. I just never dreamed that the day would ever come. And now that it’s here, I’m not sure I have it in me. I know every aspect of his business, every facet of the organization, and every contact. From his lawyers to accountants and real estate developers. From corporate CEOs to facilities managers, I know them all.

  “Antonio.” The boss calls my name amid Nonna Romano’s raised voice.

  “Yes, sir,” I answer, clearing my throat to subdue the obvious anxiousness I can hear in my own voice.

  He squares his shoulders, and when he looks at me this time, his unquestioned authority comes over him again, as clearly as the suit he’s wearing. “Have one of the men accompany my mother to her room.”

  “Yes, boss.” Rising from my chair, I head for the office door and signal the first man from his protection detail in the hallway. I relay the instruction, and within minutes, he and Nonna Romano are out the door, on their way to her room.

  “She’s still got some fire in her. I swear to God.” The boss shakes his head and reaches for his phone after a brief pause. “Got any questions?” he asks me.

  “About taking over for a while?” I ask, and he nods but doesn’t say a word. “I’m sure I‘ll have some. Wasn’t expecting this kind of…” I stop speaking to gather my thoughts for a moment.

  The boss doesn’t need me to be uncertain, or to second guess myself or his decision.

  He needs confidence at a time like this.

  He needs strength.

  I owe this man everything. He kept my little family together all those years ago. Took me from the gutter and allowed me and my kid brothers to have a proper life. There’s not a thing in this world I’d ever refuse to do for him if he asked me to do it.

  “I’m ready, if this is what you want,” I tell him, each word thoughtful and deliberate.

  “I agree,” he answers. “You’re ready. Thank you, son. You’ll do fine. And I just want you to know that I’m grateful.”

  “It’s the least I can do,” I tell him honestly.

  I’ve always told myself that one day, this man might ask me to kill for him again. Back when I was his trigger man, I would do it without question. So this order to watch over things while he’s away, well, it comes with the territory.

  “You’ll have the Pinuccis to help with anything that you need,” he informs me, referring to Lorenzo and Cristiano Pinucci. Lorenzo has been Romano’s lawyer and consiglieri, a trusted advisor since long before I came along. And his son, Cristiano recently became the family’s accountant. It’s a relief to me that they’re not going anywhere. I know every aspect of the business, but Lorenzo and Cristiano are the ones who understand and implement the intricate details of this company’s operation.

  “That’s great to hear,” I say.

  “There’s only one thing I’m going to ask of you.”

  “Anything, boss.”

  "Natalia is not to know any of this until tomorrow. It's her birthday. She deserves at least one happy day before we drop the bomb."

  “Absolutely,” I agree. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Father? Can we talk?”

  The sight of Natalia at the office door not even a minute after her father orders me to keep this news from her is startling at best. It doesn't help that she looks like she just stepped out of the shower. Her long, dark hair hangs on one side of her shoulder, revealing her long, slender neck and narrow collarbone. And the little number she has on. Jesus fuck. It's a white, sleeveless mesh dress, and it hides nothing.

  From her tiny waist to the lush curves of her wide hips and fit legs. Jesus. If she didn’t bother to put on a black bra and matching panties, she’d be practically naked. She must have bought it in Italy. I have to reposition myself to hide the bulge of my thickening cock that throbs on the inside of my dress slacks.

  And there’s no way in hell that I can look anywhere in the boss’s general direction right now. If he could see the lust and need on my face, if he figures out that I’ve been fantasizing about all the ways I’d fuck his daughter, in virtually every room in his house, under his roof, right under his nose, I’d be dead in two seconds flat.

  "Your party's almost here, princess. You should get ready," he tells her and briefly glances away from his phone. His attention is not in the least bit affected by her attire. With the pool in the backyard, we've all seen Natalia in very few clothes. Before she left for Italy this summer, I never really noticed her body. But Jesus, I can't stand to look away now.

  "What did you tell Nonna?" Natalia demands in a question. "She's distraught. I can hear her shouting on the phone. You know how she prattles off in all Italian when she's agitated."

  “Don’t worry about Nonna,” the boss dismisses her. “She’s talking to her cousin in Italy. Everything’s fine.”

  “Something’s wrong and no one’s talking,” Natalia seethes. “I have a right to know, Father.”

  The two of them exchange a hard stare that lasts a lot longer than I want to witness. When her eyes shift from his face, they trail across the room and land on me. I feel all the air leave my lungs like it’s been sucked from the entire room. Her eyes are dark with anger, but the questioning look shows her fear too. No one in this family is truly innocent. We know the Romano name has come to stand for many things, none of them cute or cuddly.

  Romano does not back down. He waits for her to remember who’s in charge. It’s the buzzing of her phone that ends their showdown.

  “Shoot. The stylists are all here,” she announces.

  “Your friends will be along soon too,” the boss adds. “I meant to tell you.”

  “This is not over, Father,” she says, still defiant and demanding, but as suddenly as she showed up, she huffs out a breath and leaves.

  From top to bottom, we’re all on a need to know basis, so it’s not the first time we’ve shielded Natalia from the rougher inner workings of the empire that will one day be hers.

  And I’m sure it won’t be the last.

  The Romano family faces a new threat. With only a week to come around to the big boss’s order, leaving the country within the next few days is a good idea. There’s no point waiting around for the axe to fall. But Argentina? I get why they need to leave, but fuck. South America is a world away.

  And I’ll be here, managing things until the big boss calms
down or a new deal is made.

  I have less than three days with her. Soon Natalia will be out of harm’s way.

  I should be relieved that she’ll be safe.

  I really should.

  But there’s a tightness in my chest, a longing to do something, say something to her.

  I just never imagined that being second in command would mean having to let her go.

  6

  Natalia

  If I can just have a moment alone with Nonna, I’m sure I’ll have my answers.

  She’s been off and on the phone to Italy for a while now. Her room is beside mine, and although I can't make out a word she says, I can tell by her frenzied tone that she’s upset.

  Except, the stylists are here, and so are my two best girlfriends from high school, Cassandra and Tammy Lou.

  My two only real girlfriends.

  When you're the daughter of a powerful mob boss, the odds of having a teeny tiny circle of friends is unbelievably high. The chances of them poking and prodding you for details about your vacation that never happened are even higher. Cassandra and Tammy Lou have been tag-teaming me all afternoon since they showed up, wanting to know what hot Italian stud I banged over the summer.

  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been away for weeks, but neither of them has figured out that I’m putting on an act. I’m distracted and frustrated that Father is keeping me out of whatever’s going on. I have no doubt that they’ve missed me, and that they care. I think it’s the excitement surrounding my birthday that has rendered them incapable of reading me. They’re truly innocent in some ways, oblivious of the fact that they’re walking into a quiet storm brewing in the Romano household.

  On their probing about men in my life, they also don't realize that Nonna watches me like a hawk. It sometimes feels like she has eyes behind her head, and both sets of eyes are perpetually on me. Even if I wanted to get laid while I was doing all that sightseeing, it would never happen. Not under Nonna's watch.

  First of all, I’m still a virgin. I’ve never even been kissed. My girls should know by now that I wouldn’t give it up to some dark stranger just because I happened to be single in sunny Europe.

  Second, I'm promised to Santori Giorgio. Practically engaged. Not that they know. That arrangement is a tightly guarded secret between the Romanos and the Giorgios. But the truth is, my soon approaching arranged marriage is not the reason I haven't tried to live it up while I was in Italy.

  There's only one man I want.

  Antonio DeLucci.

  And that has never changed.

  But it hasn't stopped my girlfriends from giving me the third degree.

  The three of us have been rotating through the stylists that Aunt Francesca hired. While one of us is getting our hair done, the other is being worked on from makeup or picking out a designer dress from the wardrobe stylist that was part of whatever package deal Aunt Francesca arranged. And of course, we all had mani-pedis. The afternoon flies by with the never-ending string of questions about my trip and updates about their own summer pursuits. In a way, they've saved me from the maddening annoyance of not knowing what's going on with the famiglia.

  For all of Father’s hiding, I’m sure it’s big.

  He’s trying to maintain an allure of calm, but I’ve never seen him so worked up.

  I just wish he’d trust me.

  “Time to spill, lady,” Tammy Lou says beside me, flicking her wavy bright red hair over one shoulder as she extends her perfect French manicured hand over to me.

  "Spill about what?" I ask while the hair stylist puts my hair up in some fancy updo I wanted to try.

  “It’s the third time you’ve stared over at that wall. Do you have bionic hearing or something?”

  "No, it's nothing, really," I utter the half-truth, and as I don't believe the half-hearted words coming from my lips, I add, "I'm just worried about my Nonna."

  “Is she okay?” Cassandra asks, and as her head tilts, her bouncy blonde curls spring around her heart-shaped face.

  “Yes, she’s good. Dealing with some family drama back home.”

  "Something's bothering you," Tammy Lou persists when the stylists leave us alone to take a short break. In a way, I'm comforted that she noticed. She can usually read me like an open book because we've been friends all through high school and she's one of the most intuitive people I know. Cassandra is slightly similar. She's been my next door neighbor since forever. My family vetted her and her emergency room physician parents years ago. So because she's seen me in every possible emotional state, she can tell when something's bothering me.

  “Can you believe this crap?” Cassandra blurts out all of a sudden, stretching out her smartphone with the screen facing us, changing the focus to her, thankfully.

  “What's that about?” Tammy Lou narrows her eyes at me with the question.

  “Remember Steven, that guy I dated as a sophomore?”

  "The wide receiver at Saint Francis who dumped you by text minutes before he was supposed to take you to the Spring Carnival?" Tammy Lou recollects correctly, and I nod as the drama from the boys' private school across the street from our all-girls school comes back to me.

  "Yes, that Steven. Can you believe he had the audacity to keep messaging me? Read this crap. Wait, let me scroll back so you can read the message trail from back before the afternoon he dumped me."

  “How about you read it to us,” I tell her, grateful for the distraction.

  "It reads… okay here's where it started." She takes a beat and clears her throat. Steven goes, ‘If you're not busy, I'm alone tonight. My parents are out, and my brother is leaving soon.' So I answer with, ‘I'm a little busy with my girlfriends tonight. Sorry about that. But I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at the Spring Carnival.' I was such an idiot. Anyway, the next day he goes, ‘I think we're looking for different things, Cassandra. We should start seeing other people.''

  “That guy was such a fucking asshole,” I mutter, growing angry again for my friend. “Transparent and full of himself. I’m glad you never gave him another chance.”

  "Well, he just texted me after all this time. Can you believe this shit? He must think I'm the most desperate girl in West Jersey. His message says, ‘Wanna hang out?'"

  “What a dumbass,” Tammy Lou says. “No apology, no how are you doing?”

  Cassandra shakes her head. “Not one damn word,” she answers, and starts to type something on her phone.

  “Hey. What do you think you’re doing? Don’t reply, girl,” I tell her firmly. “Delete it. Or just block him. That son of a bitch doesn’t deserve a response.”

  “He just sent another text. It says, ‘Do you want to play, babe?’”

  "You're kidding me, right?" Tammy Lou shouts out in a giggle. "If he were standing here right now, I'd beat his ass."

  “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?” she laughs out. “I mean, he’s still on my Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and we’re a match on that dating app I was telling you guys about. I think he was drafted into the NFL from Clemson U.”

  "Come on, now," I say. "That boy is so not worth it."

  “I know.”

  “Listen to us,” Tammy Lou adds. “First of all, what dating app?”

  “Subtly Singles. You know, with stress on the sub part. It’s a dating site where subs meet doms and stuff.” Her head tilts to one side and her eyes narrow, her lips in a one-sided pout as though she’s trying to recollecting something. “Wait, did I mention I talked to this guy in one of their virtual dungeons who wanted to buy me for a night for something like fifty grand? Trust me, I now know where to go if I’m ever hard up for cash.”

  “Where the hell do you find these things?” Tammy Lou muses through a giggle, shaking her head. “Anyway, on the subject of Steven, please don’t go all starry eyed-on him just because he might’ve signed a big, fat pro-football contract.”

  Cassandra’s face goes soft. “But he’s so big and broad… and he has those perfect
dimples I could never say no to.”

  I’ve seen that look before. She’ll cave if we don’t stop her.

  Tammy Lou takes a long sip of her iced tea then sets down the glass. "If it were me, I'd reply with something like, ‘Sure, I'll play with you, baby. Just meet me on the corner of screw you and go fuck yourself.' That motherfucker needs to get a grip."

  “You’d better watch your language around Mr. Romano,” Cassandra warns her. “Right Natalia? Mr. Romano’s no joke.”

  “I’d like to watch more than my language around your dad,” Tammy Lou confesses, her voice thick and teasingly suggestive.

  "God, this again?" I whine, cupping my hands over my ear to make my point. She's been girl-crushing on my dad since we've been friends, and she's not given up yet. "First of all, yuck. He's my father. He's about to hit fifty, and he's way too old for you."

  “Bitch, please. He doesn’t look like fifty. I’d totally kick it with an older man. So experienced,” she teases.

  “Shush. And second… did you hear me when I said he’s my dad? The answer is no, Tams. Just no.”

  “But he’s so big and broad… and he has those perfect dimples I could never say no to,” she says, mimicking Cassandra’s words and high-pitched tone.

  “Oh hell no. You realize my dad’s at home, right?” I remind her. “He could be standing on the other side of that door right now. What would you do if he walks in and hears you, huh?”

  “I dunno,” she admits. “Fall into his arms...let him throw me over one shoulder and take me away caveman style… whatever he wants.”

  “Your dad is kinda hot,” Cassandra says, adding fuel to Tammy Lou’s fire. “But your new bodyguard is way hotter. What’s his name again? Vino? Vito?”

  “It’s Vinny. But on the subject of my dad... stop.”

  “But he’s so manly… and big… and firm,” Tammy Lou goes at it again.