by Seth Eden
He scoffed before looking down at the twin to his left again and motioning over toward Denise. He immediately stepped from Anthony’s side and walked between Gabriel and me to take Denise’s arm in his hand. He dragged her back across the office and threw her to the ground at Anthony’s feet.
She looked up at Willow and shrugged. “You should have left it well enough alone.”
Somehow, Willow had figured out that going with Anthony was a far worse punishment than eating some of our bullets. Anthony reached down and took a fistful of Denise’s hair into his hands. “You’ve let me down for the last time.”
“I’m sorry, Ant,” Denise whimpered, and though my brothers and I all seemed shocked by the turn of events, Willow seemed totally unphased.
Anthony held Denise roughly at his side. “Anything else, little dog?”
“Just one thing,” Willow said. “You know where we’re going. I assume that information will stay as quiet as mine will.”
Anthony let out a more joyous laugh. “Hah! I’m almost sad I didn’t get to you first, pup.” He looked into Willow’s eyes, an expression that was equal parts impressed and angry. “My mouth will stay shut, as will hers.” Anthony shook Denise’s head at that. “I’ll see to it.”
“Good.” She smiled brightly. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
“Hang on to this one, Varassos. If you’d had her the whole time, Angelo might still be stomping around.” He looked to the twins. “Let’s go.”
“W-wait!” Dario yelped. “You can’t leave me here. What about our alliance?”
Anthony sneered. “Consider it broken.”
With one last look at Willow, Anthony turned and dragged Denise out of the office, the twins walking out after him.
I rushed to Willow once they were gone and forcefully pressed my lips to hers. “That was…” Smoke was puffing out of my nose like a dragon. “When I get you alone…”
Willow winked, and I almost had an orgasm.
“Okay, before that…” Marco said, sounding a little disturbed. He turned and looked down at Dario. “Let’s take care of this.”
Police sirens screamed out into the silence. They’d be converging on the manor any minute. We had to go.
“Shit,” Molly huffed.
“Mol,” Luca said. “Take Stacy and Willow and get out of here.” Molly opened her mouth to protest, but Luca held up a hand. “I know, but this is between him and us.” He looked at Molly seriously, and she nodded. “Thank you.”
Molly started out of the office, and Stacy was right behind her. Willow gave me a kiss before pulling herself from my arms, and a few seconds later, the three of them were gone. I shut the door to Dario’s office and turned around, and all of the Varasso brothers had converged on Dario. He wasn’t fighting anymore, only looking back up at us exhausted.
“I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say?” he grumbled.
Luca shook his head. “No.” He set the barrel of his gun to Dario’s head. “I’m sorry to have to do this to you, but you’re the last thing between us and the rest of our lives. We owe it to Angelo to make good by him. He may have been an abusive, cheating, son-of-a-bitch, but he was still our dad, and you murdered him for nothing.”
“I didn’t know,” Dario said.
“Well, now,” I responded, “you do.”
Not one of us flinched as we rained a series of bullets into Dario, mangling him beyond recognition. We stepped back and looked at him as a wave of relief washed over us.
Finally. It was done.
Epilogue
Willow
The tapping on my face might have alarmed me a year ago, but now it was welcome, if not a bit annoying. There was a murmur of noises adjoining the gentle slaps, but they were difficult to make out in my still half-asleep stupor. There was another flurry of taps before a smack collided against my skin and sent a sting across my cheek.
“Hey! Be nice to Mama!” I peeled open my eyes, and Alessandro was lifting Adrian from my chest. “We don’t hit Mama.”
I giggled at the sight. Alessandro was standing next to the bed dressed in a Kiss the Cook apron with Alexis at his side tugging at his pants and our three-month-old son, Adrian, in his arms. Unlike Alexis, who took after Alessandro, Adrian looked more like a little boy version of me—Ricky, for those looking to get technical.
“Good morning,” I grumbled. “Thanks for letting me sleep in.”
“Of course. It’s Mother’s Day, after all.” He handed Adrian back over and then lifted Alexis and set her next to me. “Here, snuggle Mommy. I’ll be right back.”
Adrian dribbled and did his best to claw at my shirt, and I knew he was probably ready for his breakfast. I lifted my shirt, tucked him against my breast, and breathed in the calming feeling of his suckling.
“Mama, what’s he doing?” Alexis asked.
I pet her brown curls. “He’s eating, sweet girl.”
She curled up her nose. “He wants Cheerios.”
I chuckled. “Maybe, but he can’t chew them yet.”
She tilted her head. “Can’t chew?”
I kissed her forehead. “Right.” I opened my other arm. Alexis tucked herself against me, and I smiled with my children cuddled against me.
Alessandro and I found out not long after things got sorted out with the Binachis that we were expecting another child. Turns out, going eight months having a strained relationship and then nearly dying, resulting in a long, intense night of passionate love-making, gets you a baby. Who knew?
“Mama. I wanna see Tonio,” Alexis murmured, poking her brother’s hand lovingly.
“We’ll see him later, baby. Remember? We’re gonna have a pool party.”
Alexis jumped up on the bed. “Pool party?”
It was as if I hadn’t told her about a thousand times yesterday in an attempt to keep her from misbehaving too much and in exchange for cleaning up her bedroom. “Yes, remember? It’s Mother’s Day, so we’re gonna go see Aunt Stacy, Aunt Molly, and Aunt Kelly.”
“Aunt Kelly!” Alexis clapped her hands.
It wasn’t surprising that she had bonded with Kelly the most, given that she was the one taking care of the kids while we were all cleaning up things with the Binachis. Once she had recovered from having Apollo, she insisted upon still having weekly visits with the kids, Ricky, and Sasha. They’d gotten pretty close in the six months that we were gone, and even though that was over a year ago, they’d only gotten closer in the time that passed.
The weekly visits became additionally helpful when two of the Varasso women got into the latter half of their pregnancies. The same day that Alessandro and I announced that we were expecting our second child, Gabriel and Stacy announced that they were expecting their first. Their shortened honeymoon was likely the cause of their baby, but whatever the case, Stacy and I were thrilled to be having kids at the same time, who would be the same age. Luca and Molly’s elder child, Anna, was the oldest of our children, followed by their younger child, Antonio. Marco and Kelly’s daughter, Amanda, was next in line, and then Alexis.
We had a fairly large pool going amongst us as to whether or not I would pop first or Stacy, and it was Stacy alone who raked in an impressive three thousand dollars when we both went into labor on the same day. Gabriel and Stacy’s son, Aster, was born at noon on the nose, and Adrian came along three hours later. Birthdays were going to be interesting going forward, and my mom had already taken to calling them twins. They looked alike and already had a penchant for calming quickly if one was crying and then was placed by the other. It was very Varasso of them.
“Happy Mother’s Day!” Alessandro walked back into the bedroom with a white breakfast tray in his hands, adorned with a surprisingly delicious-looking breakfast. “I cooked this!”
“Did you?” I looked up at him nervously, and he laughed.
“I’ve been practicing every day for the last three months with Molly. Ricky had to scarf down an unreasonable amount of burnt pancakes, so thank h
im for taking the fall when you see him.”
Alessandro set the tray down over my lap, and I laughed at the smaller plate next to mine that had been topped with smaller portions of all of the same foods my plate had. Alessandro sat down on the edge of the bed, noticing that I was feeding Adrian, and grabbed a fork.
He pointed at Alexis’s plate. “Here, baby. There are pancakes.”
Alexis sidled up to the tray, grabbed her cartoon character fork, and started tucking into her breakfast. Alessandro motioned to the different foods on my plate until I nodded at the eggs, and then he poked his fork into the fluffy eggs and ushered them into my mouth. I chewed them apprehensively at first, then smiled. They were well seasoned, nice and hot, perfectly cooked.
When they were gone from my mouth, I smiled at him. “It’s good, baby!”
“Yeah?” he said.
“Yeah!” I motioned my nose toward the bacon. “Bacon, please.”
Alessandro set the fork down, grabbed a piece of the bacon, and set it in my mouth, and I bit into them. He’d noticed that I always cooked my own bacon with a little more char to them and had done his best to replicate it. He hadn’t done an awful job of it, maybe slightly too cooked, but still very good. He continued to feed me my breakfast while Adrian and Alexis ate until his watch alarm went off. He peeked at it and looked over at me.
“Wow. Time flies when you get to feed a goddess breakfast.” He started to poke the fork in again, but I waved my free hand.
“It’s okay, baby. Go get ready. I got it.”
He tilted his head. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Thank you.”
He stood up and kissed me on my forehead before turning his attention to getting some clothes ready. He slipped into the bathroom, and when he slipped out after an impressive five-minute shower, I sighed.
“God, you’re…”—I looked at the kids—“S-E-X-Y.”
He laughed. He was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt and had placed a black baseball hat over his curly hair. Even all this time later, I still wasn’t totally used to seeing Alessandro dress down. It was like when we were back in high school.
“Okay. I should only be an hour, and then I have to stop and grab a few things for the barbecue. Call me if you need me to come back and help you get the kids to the pool. Otherwise, I’ll meet you over there.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He walked over, leaned down, and gave me a kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you. Tell Dr. Davison I said hi.”
“I will.” He gave Adrian a kiss on the forehead and then leaned over the bed to kiss Alexis on the cheek. “Bye, baby girl.”
Alexis pouted. “I wanna go with Daddy.”
Alessandro’s jaw dropped. “Sweetie, you’re not dressed or anything.” Alexis was already clamoring off the bed and running out of the room. Alessandro sighed. “I guess I’m taking Lex with me.”
I giggled. “You know you can tell her no, Sandro.”
Alessandro looked up to the sky like that was a foreign concept to him. “No, I don’t think so.”
“You’re sure she isn’t distracting?” I asked.
Per his promise to me back after everything happened with Denise, once we got to Maine and settled into our new home, Alessandro started to see a psychiatrist. He was officially diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. He received medications to help him regulate it and saw his psychiatrist once a week on Saturday mornings. When I was in the last trimester of my pregnancy, he started bringing Alexis with him and spending the day with her to both distract her a bit and give me some time to rest. She only got to go to a handful of appointments with him, but it was enough for her to now demand to go with him every time.
“Dr. Davison’s office is full of stuff for kids. She’s used to patients having to bring their kids sometimes. It’s fine. Will you bring her suit to the pool?”
“Yeah.”
Alexis came back around the corner of our bedroom door, still dressed in her pink and blue pajamas, but had adorned a pink tutu and a scarf for some reason. “Ready!”
Alessandro looked like he was going to puke. “Um. No. You’re not going in that.”
Alexis’s eyes started to well up, and I could already see Alessandro losing resolve. “Lexi, if you wear your black pants, you can keep the tutu and shirt.”
“Okay, Mama.”
She fluttered away, and Alessandro sighed. “Thank you.”
I laughed, listening to Alessandro and Alexis argue about every little thing while they got ready to go. Once they were out the door and Adrian was finished eating, I got up and started getting us ready, as well. His morning nap allowed me the leeway I needed to take a shower of my own and prepare a bag with a swimsuit for Alexis, trunks for Alessandro, a handful of towels, and all of the things that I needed to take care of Adrian while we were out of the house. I walked into the living room for the first time to grab some snack foods for Alexis and smiled. There were balloons and roses sitting on the dining room table, with a bag with tissue paper sticking up out of the top. A notecard in front of the bag simply read, “From me and the kids.”
I pulled the tissue paper out and pulled out a rectangular, velvet box. I tipped it open and smiled. It had a sterling silver necklace in it with four pendants hanging from it that said, “Alessandro,” “Willow,” “Alexis,” and “Adrian.” I immediately laced it around my neck and smiled.
I went back to getting myself and Adrian ready to go, and then I set the security system in the front hallway near the front door and walked out of the house. I took in a deep breath of the beautiful array of flowers that had been planted in the front of our home, and Adrian babbled happily at the butterflies that flew around them from his stroller. I carefully navigated his stroller down the sidewalk and started off down the path that led from our house to our new estate’s swimming pool.
We were excited to put the life behind us, but the Varasso family wasn’t interested in being too far from one another. As such, Luca purchased twenty acres of land in Maine and had four houses built on the property. Each family started with a four-bedroom, four-bathroom home, with room to expand if needed, and each had their own unique additions. Our house had a garden, and I also had a huge design studio in the basement. Alessandro had a man cave of sorts that was a confusing amalgamation of gaming systems and screens, all that he’d all magically rigged to work together. He loved to go in there and tinker with his tech until he’d totally lost track of time.
Gabriel and Stacy’s home had a built-in yoga studio, and their backyard had a hutch where they raised rabbits. Sundays were typically reserved for all of the wives—and Gabriel—to gather for a personal yoga session from Stacy while Luca, Marco, and Alessandro watched the kids and let them play with the rabbits. We had attempted to get them to give yoga a try, but after Luca fell into Marco while trying one of the poses, starting an all-out brawl, all while Alessandro was asleep after never getting up from one of the other poses, we decided that Gabriel was the only of the guys suited to the hobby.
Marco and Kelly’s house had a full gym in the basement that the pair loved to use together. It had a large enough track ring that they could jog in the mornings and a full set of workout equipment that they welcomed any members of their family to use. Once every few months, Kelly would host a field day for the kids and let Anna and Antonio invite their friends from school. Marco always went a little crazy, buying prizes and making sure that there was at least one activity that each kid would excel at. There was no guessing why Marco and Kelly had risen to the coveted position of being the cool aunt and uncle, the ones who the kids wanted to spend most of their time with.
Luca and Molly’s home had a full-scale restaurant-style kitchen that Molly spent most of her time in, and Luca had developed a particularly strange hobby of crafting, something he did in a studio in their basement. They finally got the beach vacation they were dreaming of after things were over with the Binachis, and after the
y came back, Luca started using the shells he’d collected to make a variety of different things. For someone who lacked patience of any kind, he could sit in his studio for hours, meticulously putting together different designs, and whenever Anna needed creative help with a school assignment, her dad was eager to help. Molly officially adopted Anna, as well, and they became something of a dynamic duo in the kitchen, with Anna already saying she wanted to be a chef when she grew up.
Another home had been built on the property for Ricky and Sasha, with a mother-in-law suite for my mom. She still got into her weird hobbies, but Ricky and Sasha were pretty used to entertaining her, so it didn’t bother them to have her around. Sasha was still a big-time movie star, and Ricky was still her number one fan, although he’d taken to starting his own law practice in his spare time. He was the only one who I told about the conclusion I’d reached about the other three crime families, and he kept it safely locked away, just in case. He was still a retainer for the Varasso family, but only for their very above the board, professional consulting business.
None of the Varasso men were particularly good at just sitting around, but they were good at running a business. They considered starting a goods or service-driven business of their own but couldn’t agree on what they’d sell. It was Ricky who pointed out that maybe they could make their fortune in helping other people make their fortunes. Luca was really good at leadership and could train upper-level management and corporate officials on how to be good bosses. Marco had become a master at organizing security and could teach companies how to protect their employees, their businesses, themselves, and their assets. Alessandro was a techie and could modernize a company in the blink of an eye. He could have a company’s entire ten-year-old filing system uploaded to the cloud within seconds, complete with a system for finding and organizing their entire life’s work. Gabriel, the Varasso underdog, knew exactly how to master hierarchies and could help a company run efficiently from the CEOs down to the janitors.
