A Famiglia Christmas

by Daniels, A. J.

  The tree is still undecorated, but there’s green garland running along the edge of the fireplace mantel and up the railing of the stairs. Four stockings are hanging down over the fireplace and there’s a string of Christmas tree lights lying across the living room floor like they were in the process of being untangled and then someone abandoned them. I find Braxton and the others in the kitchen, standing around the island.

  “Did you make gingerbread cookies?” I ask my husband, wrapping my arms around him from behind and planting a kiss behind his shoulder.

  Braxton twists and lifts his arm so I can snuggle closer to his side. “I made the shortbread ones. Brielle made the gingerbread.”

  “Mmm,” I hum and reach out to snag one of the undecorated cookies on the sheet in front of him. He tries to swipe it back but I’m too fast and pop it into my mouth before he can grab it.

  He growls, leaning down to nip my bottom lip. “You’ll pay for that later.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I grin, sucking a crumb off my thumb and loving the way his midnight eyes blaze with lust.

  “Alright, not in front of the kids,” Antonio teases, grabbing a plate of already iced cookies and starting towards the living room. “Let’s get this tree decorated!”

  Kai slaps Toni’s ass before following his husband out of the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn. Stefan and Brielle follow behind them with a laugh.

  "Did you ladies find what you were looking for?" Braxton asks, turning back to continue piping colored icing onto a snowman-shaped shortbread cookie.

  “We did.” When Lily and I left we didn’t tell him where we were going because I had a feeling he would get all growly about his little girl going out to buy a gift for a boy. Never mind that, that boy is a part of this family. To Braxton, any male who captures his daughter’s attention is immediately on his shit list. I inwardly sigh, I really do feel sorry for the unlucky bastard who falls in love with her. He’s going to have a hell of a time convincing Braxton that he’s good enough for our daughter.

  Kai calls for the kids to come down and then almost immediately, it sounds like a stampede coming down the stairs. Dylan and Skylar are in front, shoving each other out of the way to try and be the first one down the stairs. Lily is behind them and Cooper behind her.

  For the rest of the evening, we eat all the junk food in the house; homemade cookies, brownies, pie, and popcorn and help the kids decorate the tree in silver and gold ornaments because let’s face it, when you have kids you, as the parent, are more there as an extension of their arms when they can’t reach the higher branches, and tree coordinator. I don’t know how many times we all uttered the phrase, “this part is looking pretty empty.” But I wouldn’t change it for the world.

  “Alright, who’s turn is it to pick the movie?” Braxton asks the group.

  "Me!" Skylar says, jumping up from his spot on the floor to grab the remote from the coffee table. He scrolls through the list of movies on demand until he stops on Die Hard. Dylan and Cooper high-five him after he goes to sit back down, but Lily's face is turned down into the biggest pout I've ever seen. I'm sure if it were up to her, she would've picked Frozen to watch again or Moana. Neither of them are Christmassy, but my daughter doesn't care. She wants to watch what she wants to watch.

  Dylan and Skylar sprawl out on their bellies on the carpet in front of the couch while Cooper and Lily cuddle up on the giant circular sofa in the corner and the adults on the leather L-shaped one. Jessika and Alessandro have just put Cameron to bed upstairs, and we all settle in to watch Bruce Willis kick some serious ass. I don’t care what anyone else says, Die Hard is definitely a Christmas movie.

  Chapter 11

  Braxton

  “Hello?” I answer the phone, stepping out of the Chalet and onto the patio into the cooler December air.

  “We got something. How long will it take you to get to Sherwood?”

  I check the watch around my wrist as I step up to the railing and curl a fist around the smooth wood. “A couple of hours at most.”

  “We’ll try to hold off until then,” Ciaran says then hangs up.

  The front door creaks open behind me and the sound of my son squealing, Dada, breaks me out of the thoughts of what Ciaran may have found.

  “Everything okay?” Klara asks, balancing Nico on her hip while he reaches out for me with cheesecake covered fingers.

  “Ciaran has something for me up in Sherwood Point. He’s sitting on it until I can get up there,” I answer, taking our son in my arms and freeing up Klara’s hands so she can clean his fingers with a wet wipe.

  “You going now?” Her eyes lift to lock onto mine, the blue of her irises darkening until they blend into the pupil.

  “Klara—”

  She shakes her head cutting me off and fists a hand in my shirt and gently placing her other hand on Nico’s back. She leans in to rest her head under my chin as we both watch Nico play with the gold chain around my neck. The simple golden cross pendant was a pendant from my Ma after my father died and I officially took over as head of the family. It’s barely left my neck since.

  “Promise me you’ll finish this, Brax. Promise me that those people who took our baby girl and Cooper will pay. Promise me our family will sleep easy tonight.”

  “I promise.” I kiss the top of my wife’s blonde head and hold my family a little closer, soaking in the way Klara still melts into me and the way the smell of her perfume or body wash sends my blood rushing south.

  After several more minutes, Klara pulls away and takes Nico back in her arms despite the protest from the sixteen-month-old. “You should probably take Jessika with you. She’s going to want in on whatever it is you have planned.”

  I pull her back into my arms with Nico between us and kiss her forehead before doing the same to my son. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She grins up at me and with one hand supporting our son, her other one wraps around my neck, forcing me down to meet her lips. “We’ll be here waiting when you get back, and tomorrow we’ll celebrate Christmas knowing our family is safe.”

  “I love you, Klara De Luca,” I say, nipping at her bottom lip.

  “Ditto.” She smiles, patting my chest.

  I watch her and our son go back into the house we're renting for a few more days. As soon as she closes the door behind them, there's this heavy weight pressing down on my chest and no amount of deep breathing helps in easing it. I turn back to look out over the railing. I rest my hands on the smooth wood and hunch over.

  They took my baby girl. They took my daughter.

  My arms begin to shake. The pressure in my neck and shoulders tighten until they're trembling. I inhale a deep breath and exhale a shaky one. Goddamnit! I straighten up and run an unsteady hand through my hair. It was naïve of me to think that children would be off-limits to others like me too. How fucking stupid could I be? When I found out Klara was pregnant, I should have packed us up and moved to an island in the middle of the Caribbean. We could've lived free there with different names and different identities. Braxton and Klara De Luca would've ceased to exist, and our children would be safe.

  A hand lands on my shoulder and I jump, twisting to lay whoever it was out. I stop short when I see Antonio.

  “Don’t. Don’t go down that dark path,” he says, having somehow read my thoughts.

  “They would’ve been safe up on that hill if we’d have left everything behind the minute, we found out she was pregnant.” I begin to pace the length of the house, wishing I had a whiskey and a cigar right now.

  “Maybe. Maybe Lily and Nico would’ve been safe, but what about Cooper? He was in that room too that night. He was forced to take his first life that night. What about Dylan and Skylar and Cameron? Your protection spans a lot further than your immediate family, B.”

  Fuck. He’s right. I’ve been so worked up about Lily being taken that I haven’t taken the time to consider Cooper.

  “You’re right. How is Coop doing?”

  Anton
io shrugs, walking over to the railing and leaning a shoulder against one of the posts. “Alessandro says he’s hardly been sleeping. Since we got him back, he’s been isolating himself from the other kids.” He pauses and glances over his shoulder to where I’m still pacing back and forth. “Even Lily. He’s confused and he’s hurting, B. Guarantee the kid thinks he’s a monster.”

  I stop pacing beside Toni and blow out a harsh breath. “Do you remember the first time we had to take a life?”

  He nods, chuckling. “I was so damn scared; I almost pissed my pants. We were sixteen.”

  “We all were. Do you remember what my dad told us before we went through the door?”

  Toni sobers, straightening up from the post. The side of his face ticking with the clenching and unclenching of his jaw. “That it was either us or them and we had to choose. Either we killed them, or they killed us.”

  “Cooper was faced with the same decision that night. Them or him and Lily.”

  “He’s ten, Braxton!” Toni turns on me, his neck and face turning a horrible shade of red.

  “It doesn’t change the fact that he made the same decision we all did. The only difference is that we had no one to help us make sense of it except each other. That boy has all of us to help him.”

  “That wasn’t the only difference. His was life or death, ours was supposed to be a lesson in learning how to become a man,” Toni argues back.

  “You’re right.” My phone beeps, reminding me I’m supposed to be halfway to Sherwood Point already. “Let’s go handle this and then we can come back and make sure he doesn’t end up several shades of fucked up like the rest of us.”

  Antonio laughs. “You still won’t say fifty shades, will you?”

  “Fuck no.” I shudder at the memory of overhearing a drunk Brielle confessing to Klara about her and Stefan’s safe word in the bedroom. It’s one thing to grow up with and know details about someone’s life, it’s another thing to know the intimate details of said person’s life.

  Antonio and I gather Alessandro and Jessika, leaving Stefan with the others to make sure nothing happens in our absence, and then we’re on the road within ten minutes and heading north to Sherwood Point.

  Chapter 12

  Klara

  I’m woken up by the sound of the attached bathroom door clicking shut and the sink turning on. Glancing at the alarm clock on the bedside table, I see that it’s after two in the morning. Throwing back the covers, I slip out of bed and walk over to the bathroom door, not bothering to knock before twisting the handle and pushing it open.

  The first thing I see is Braxton's reflection in the mirror. He hasn't looked up at me yet, but I have no doubt that he heard me come in. I quickly close the door behind me in case Lily decides to get up for a glass of water or chance waking Nico up and walk up behind my husband.

  His head is bowed, back hunched over and palms resting flat on the white marble countertops. When I get closer, I can see his shoulders and arms trembling. I slip my arms beneath his and hook them around, resting my hands against his shoulders and kiss the right one before moving to repeat the same thing to the left.

  “Baby…” I have no idea why I’m whispering when we’re the only ones in here, but it just seems appropriate for the moment.

  “It’s done,” he says, but he still hasn’t lifted his head or looked at me.

  “Braxton,” I say, tugging on his arm and forcing him to turn around. When he does, I’m not expecting the sight that greets me. “Oh my god,” I gasp. I reach out, my fingers hovering momentarily over the bloodied scars decorating his chest and stomach. “What the hell happened?”

  He pulls away from me, sidestepping me and turning on the shower before yanking down his jeans and boxers. “They fought dirty,” is all he says before stepping under the stream of water.

  I go about gathering the first aid kit from underneath the bathroom sink and then turn to lean against the counter and watch as Braxton soaps himself up. As the white suds begin to form, they start to slide down the ridges of his hard abs, then down to the middle of his V and I’m mesmerized as they keep travelling over his half-hard cock. Snapping out of my trance at Brax’s deep booming voice.

  “Are you going to get that ass in here or you just going to watch?” He asks repeating my words from earlier in the week, a cocky smirk on his lips as he fists his hardening length.

  “I’ll play after I have a chance to clean those cuts,” I say, folding my arms across my chest and settling further into the counter behind me.

  Braxton’s smirk grows. The hand around his cock tightening as he starts pumping his length slowly at first and then faster. He leans his shoulders against the shower wall, his eyes never leaving mine as he continues pleasuring himself.

  “You don’t play fair.”

  “Oh, I play plenty fair, Mia Bella. It was your choice not to join me.”

  “Braxton—” My words die on my tongue when a guttural groan falls from his lips. His head thrown back against the shower wall and his eyes are squeezed shut, his fist still pumping his length.

  Shit, I can’t take it anymore. I strip off Braxton’s old college t-shirt that I wore to bed and shove my sleep shorts down my legs, stepping out of them and immediately into the shower. Lowering to my knees in front of my husband, I swat his hand away and replace it with my mouth.

  “Klara,” he grunts, gripping his fingers in my hair and snapping his hips forward to fuck my mouth with his cock.

  I relax my throat and encourage him to take whatever he needs from me.

  “Your mouth feels so good, baby,” he breathes. “Oh, fuck. I’m gonna come.”

  I take him all the way to the back of my throat until my nose is buried in the trimmed hair at the base of his cock, and swallow. Braxton curses, his body going rigid and then he’s coming down my throat. I swallow it all, licking my tongue around his cock before pulling off and licking my lips.

  “Fucking hell,” he pants as I stand to my full height again. Braxton pulls me into his arms, not caring about the cuts on his chest and abdomen.

  "You can repay the favor after I get these cleaned up," I say, cupping his still semi-hard cock in my palm and giving it a small squeeze before stepping out of his embrace and the shower.

  I grab a towel from the heated rack and wrap it around me first before handing Braxton his, but he ignores it and crowds me against the counter with his front to my back. He moves my hair off my back and over my shoulder, his fingers trailing down the skin at the curve of my neck.

  “Did I tell you how much I love you today?” he whispers, his lips brushing the shell of my ear making me shiver.

  “I think I recall you saying something along those lines this morning,” I tease, grinning when his eyes meet mine in the mirror.

  He spins me to face him, his hands moving to cup my face between his palms. Braxton leans down to rest his forehead against mine. His eyes are closed but I can see the struggle on his face.

  “I fucking love you, Klara. I don’t know what I did in a previous life to deserve you, but I thank God every day that you walked into my club that night.”

  “I love you too, baby.” I wrap my arms around his waist and just hold him for several seconds, but the feeling of something being wrong keeps nagging at the back of my mind and I can’t take it anymore. I need to know. “Is everything okay, Braxton? What happened tonight?”

  Braxton sighs. He kisses the tip of my nose before lifting his head so he can see my face. “Something’s coming, Mia Bella.” He pauses, taking a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Something I can’t stop.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  He steps out of my grasp, grabbing the towel I had handed him earlier and wraps it around his hips. Once it’s secured, Braxton begins pacing the length of the small bathroom. After a couple back and forths, he stops in front of me and runs a hand through his hair.

  “It means we enjoy tomorrow and the rest of our time that we’re here. We hold our
family close and we never fucking forget that feeling.”

  “Braxton, you’re scaring me. What the hell happened?”

  “A war is coming.”

  Chapter 13

  Antonio

  “Santa came! Santa came!”

  I’m woken up by little six-year-old hands pushing on my arm. If I didn’t know it was Christmas and we were on a family vacation with three other families, I would almost be afraid that there was an earthquake. These boys have no idea how strong they actually are.

  “Five more minutes,” Kai groans from beside me and I would bet everything in our joint bank account that he dragged the covers over his head while one of the other twins is trying to shake him awake too. My husband is like a teenager when it comes to waking up before ten a.m.

  “Daaad!” a voice says in my ear.

  "I'll give you twenty bucks to go play video games and give your dad and me ten more minutes."

  There’s silence and I’m afraid the twenty-dollar bribe isn’t enough anymore for the twins but then I hear two pairs of feet running out of our room and down the hallway.

  “Don’t open the presents!” I call out, and predictably it goes unanswered.

  A warm body rolls against me and tucks itself into my front. “I knew I loved you for a reason,” Kai says, his breath puffing out air against my chest.

  “Oh? Is that the only reason?” I kiss the top of his head, and wrap an arm around his waist, pulling him closer until I can feel his hard length brush against my own. I groan and thrust my hips forward again.

  “Definitely not,” Kai answers, sliding his thick cock along mine.

  “How long do you think we have until they come back?” I ask, sliding my hand down his back to cup his ass.

  “Not long enough,” he moans, then licks a path up my chest and nips at my jaw.

  “It’s been too long, Kai.” I remove my hand from his rear to slip it between us and shove down his PJ bottoms just enough for his cock to spring free before doing the same to my own. With nothing between us, I wrap my palm around both our cocks and stroke, using our combined pre-cum as lube.