“Then get behind the wheel of the car and drive,” she said.
Nico (The Rossi Mafia)
by Savannah Rylan
Chapter 1
Kennedy
I was the first one to arrive at the bar. Apparently, it seemed like everyone else had other things to do. Was it too eager of me to turn up there so early? I tried not to think about it as I sat at our usual table and ordered a beer.
Eventually, nearly twenty minutes later, my friends Carly and Sarah turned up.
“Kenni! Look at you!” Sarah squealed. It was strange that she was making such a show of seeing me. We got together for brunch just a week ago. The three of us hugged and as soon as we sat down, our friends Silvia and Mona walked into the bar.
Carly and Sarah squealed again and the four of them fell into tight hugs. It was almost like they were loving the attention…no, it wasn’t almost that. It was definitely that. Nothing had changed since high school. My friends loved the attention. They enjoyed the fact that other people at the bar were now turning to look at our table.
I still wondered, even though I’d known these girls for a decade now, why they included me in their group. I was nothing like them. Sarah and Mona used to be in the cheerleading team. Silvia and Carly were equally popular.
I was neither.
I guessed the reason was Ava.
Ava and I had been best friends since fourth grade. She’d picked me—the dorky redhead—out of everyone in class, to sit beside. Ava on the other hand, was a beautiful raven-haired stunner. She was the kind of girl everyone wanted to be friends with. Every guy in high school wanted to bang.
It was no surprise that Carly, Sarah, Silvia and Mona had naturally gravitated to her. And since I was Ava’s best friend, they had no choice but to include me in that group.
By now, I’d grown to like them. I wasn’t nearly as close to them as I was with Ava, of course—but they were my friends. I’d known them for what felt like forever.
“It’s a shame Ava couldn’t make it,” Sarah said, when we finally settled down.
“She has a thing tonight,” I spoke up, gripping the bottle of beer in my hand.
“I’ve been looking forward to this night all week!” Carly declared, rolling her eyes.
“Me too. Nobody warns you that it gets harder as your baby grows up,” Silvia added.
“How old is she now?” Mona asked.
“Two and three months, and it’s only getting worse. Thankfully Steven helps out when he can, but he works a lot. I can’t blame him,” Silvia replied.
“Oh, he’s a good dad. I can’t say the same for Chad. I mean, he’s trying…he’s really trying, you guys. But sometimes I feel like he just doesn’t have the daddy genes in him. You know?” Sarah said.
“Oh, honey! It’ll be okay. At least he’s trying. It could be a lot worse!” Carly leaned in towards her to give her a hug.
I drank some more of my beer. I didn’t really have anything to contribute to this conversation. I wasn’t married and I didn’t have a kid. In fact, I couldn’t even remember when my last serious relationship was. While my friends were dropping into the marriage game like flies, I was the only one left standing.
“Last night, Jordan called me up at nine…right after I took the roast chicken out of the oven. He tells me, he can’t make it home for dinner because he has an important client meeting,” Carly said with a sizzle in her voice.
The others rolled their eyes in unison. We’d been hearing about Jordan and his antics for months now. Carly was clearly unhappy. The last time I gave her my advice—which was to dump his ass, the others gasped.
She can’t divorce him now. Not for another few years at least! They don’t have a kid yet. She’ll be losing out on child support!
I didn’t understand. If you were unhappy, you got out. Right? Sometimes I asked Ava if any of our friends were happy. Because all they did was bitch and moan about their husbands and how having babies had ruined their perfect figures. Ava always laughed at that, and said I was too naive and too romantic. She insisted that real life was exactly like that. I loved Ava, but I thought she was wrong.
I’d made up my mind. I wasn’t going to commit to anyone or anything unless I felt true happiness. The kind that would make me leap out of bed every morning with joy. A reason to start the day with a skip in my step.
Carly’s squeal interrupted my thoughts. I saw now that Mona was showing them photographs of her recent trip to Paris. The others were crowded around her phone, swiping through the photographs and bursting with excitement at how lucky she was.
Had they forgotten about how miserable Carly was just a few days before that? She’d found incriminating text messages from some other girl on her husband’s phone. That Paris trip was a way for him to apologize and she’d fallen straight for it.
I chugged my beer again. None of them had even noticed that I wasn’t a part of their conversation. They were immersed in exchanging notes on their pseudo-fabulous lives. I wished I could be happy for them.
With a sigh, I looked around the place. My eyes fell on a guy sitting at the bar. I could only see his profile and realized that he looked familiar. He looked a lot like Nico Rossi.
I focused on his profile, looking past the people who were blocking my path of vision. It couldn’t be him! He was still in Seattle?
The more I stared at him now, the more I was sure. There was no mistaking it. It was Nico. I hadn’t seen him in six years, not since high school…but I would have recognized that face anywhere.
He had the same dark hair, bronze glistening skin and gray eyes. His features were chiseled, like cut out of a marble rock. In the past years, he’d grown more handsome, more masculine.
I could see the way his biceps bulged under the thin cotton t-shirt he was wearing. The width of his muscular shoulders. Everything about Nico Rossi was delicious now. Just like it always was.
I gulped as I stared at him. Around me, my friends continued talking. They hadn’t even noticed me staring at a guy at the bar.
Nico appeared to be deep in thought. In a crowded place like this, there was little chance that he would have noticed me anyway.
I still couldn’t believe it was him. He’d left high school so abruptly, disappeared without a trace. Just when I was beginning to have hopes that something could happen between us.
Unlike me, Nico had always been popular in high school. He didn’t have to try too hard. He was crazy-handsome, in that bad-boy way all our mothers warned us about. He was the quiet type, a loner…and had a reputation for dating hot older girls.
I knew I was nowhere on his radar. I didn’t think he even knew I existed. But then one night, he turned up at a house party. Nico didn’t usually make an appearance at those things. He was too ‘cool’ for them.
Was it pure luck that we got talking that night? It seemed to me like it was. My friends were all getting drunk and making out with guys who usually turned out to be bad kissers.
Nico and I remained sitting on a couch, talking in hushed tones and making fun of people. That was the first time I ever spoke to him. That was the first time he’d even known of my existence.
He was too good looking; I couldn’t help but want him to kiss me. Then miraculously; he did. It was a slow sensual kiss. Right there on the couch, with pop music playing in the background. When he kissed me, it felt like he had my heart in his hands. Nobody had kissed me like that before.
“Nico…” I’d whispered breathily when he pulled his mouth away from me.
“Not tonight. I want to take you to dinner first,” he’d whispered in my ear.
I thought he was asking me on a date. I imagined us going to dinner, then going back to his car…and him taking my virginity. But that dinner never happened.
After that house party, I waited for him to call, I looked for him in the school—but it seemed like Nico had just fallen off the face of the earth. He never came back to school, nobody seemed to know where he’d gone. My hopes a
nd dreams of a big romance with Nico Rossi was crushed.
And now, he was right there, at the bar. Just a few feet away from me.
And I was bored. My friends didn’t even notice me.
There was only one thing to do.
Chapter 2
Nico
At another bar by myself, I nursed a drink in my hand. These nights were no different from the other. I went to a new bar every other night, just to drive away the boredom and the frustration—but it never helped. I was still alone with my thoughts. I was beginning to feel like a prisoner in my own world.
Just the thought of having to wake up the next morning and go to work with my father, was driving me nuts. It was the family business, I had a duty to my legacy, I was the only son. Those were facts, I knew about them. However, these days I was starting to question them more and more.
I was losing faith in my father. I had no confidence in the way he was running the business. Most importantly, he had no confidence in me.
My father and I were poles apart, and I was aware that he was disappointed in me as a son. If I could run this business, I would reduce the violence and the risks, and try and steer the family business towards a more legitimate enterprise.
The Rossi family came from a long line of crime. Back in the day it Italy we were one of the head families of the Italian Mafia. Now decades later we had moved over to the States, and continued our mafia lineage. These days, we laundered money through building contraction contracts. Granted, my family had made a lot of money in that but I believed it was time now to put that in the past. To go legit.
My family’s lifestyle had always been one of violence and death threats and always looking over your shoulder. That was not how I wanted to spend the rest of my life. My father knew that and he saw it as a weakness in me.
I sensed my phone vibrate in the pocket of my jeans and I pulled it out. Of course. It was my father calling. Earlier that evening, I’d stormed out of his office in the midst of another one of his explosive rants.
“What?” I snapped, when I answered the phone now.
“Where the Fuck are you, Nico?” my father was growling.
“What do you want?”
“You were supposed to watch over the drop-off tonight!”
“You’ve sent your men to take care of it. Why do you need me there?” I asked and I heard my father sigh.
“Because, you, my son, are family. For every business transaction that we conduct—we need a member of the immediate family. Why are you still questioning me on this?” my father was growling on the phone and I could sense he was trying his best to not erupt again.
“Well, do it yourself then because I’m not going,” I grunted.
“If you weren’t my son, you’d be fucking lying in a ditch somewhere. Bleeding out of your guts!” he lost his temper now, he was shouting. I clenched my jaw, my nostrils were flared with rage.
“Do it then, dad. Have me fucking conked. Isn’t that what you want anyway? For me to disappear? Fucking do it,” I said through gritted teeth.
I could hear him breathing hard over the phone. Was he actually considering it? I narrowed my eyes as I waited for a response.
“The next time you defy me, Nico, maybe I will,” I heard him say.
I clicked my phone off, ending the call with him abruptly.
Fuck you. Fuck you.
I was repeating the words under my breath. He had me under his thumb. I wasn’t even my own man anymore. I was capable of making no personal decisions, my father controlled my whole life. Just like he controlled everything else about the business.
Six years ago, when he forced me to drop out of high school and get inducted in the business—I was excited. I’d spent all my childhood and teenage years looking up to my father. He was a no-nonsense, self-made man. Someone to be respected. Someone who looked after my family and was feared by others.
I wanted to emulate him. I wished I could become even half the man that he was. I was starry-eyed and looking forward to making a mark in the family business.
But then, pretty quickly, I discovered how ruthless my father really was. He was feared by others because he had a reputation of causing bloodshed, for not stopping with the violence till he got what he wanted. My father wasn’t respected, he was hated. Feared, yes, but hated too.
When I saw my father in this new light…when I realized what our family business was really about; I wasn’t so sure if I wanted to be a part of it anymore.
But I couldn’t just get out. I was a Rossi. I was bound to this for life. The only choice I had in this was to try and make a difference. To try and change things. But that didn’t suit my father either. He was opposed to change. He’d built an empire, made loads of dough by conducting his business in this violent aggressive way—and there was no way he was going to change things around now.
I swirled the whisky in my glass and took a large sip of it.
I felt trapped. By my own father. By my own family. The wise thing to do would be to go oversee the drop-off like my dad wanted me to. I was not looking forward to witnessing the consequences of defying my father.
I breathed in deeply and was just about to get up from my chair when someone joined me at the bar.
“Hi,” the girl said, turning to me. I crossed my brows, ready to make an excuse to go. I wasn’t in the mood for a fuck. Which was usually what girls were looking for when they came up to talk to me at a bar. Wasn’t it?
But something about this girl, made me stop in my tracks.
“How are you?” the girl asked. I stared at her unashamedly. She had fiery red hair that fell in waves around her shoulders. Her green eyes were large and they sparkled now. Her eyeliner was thick and dark over her eyelids, making it impossible for me to drag my gaze away from her.
She had curves in all the right places. Not like the skinny blondes I was so tired of fucking. She was wearing a sexy black dress with a leather jacket. She had that don’t-mess-with-me look going for her. My cock moved in my pants instantly. I was always up for a challenge.
“Much better now that you are here,” I replied and leaned towards her. She was smiling, her eyes shining bright as she focused on my face. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about this girl. Something had made me instantly forget what I was sulking about before.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” she asked.
Was I supposed to recognize her? She must have seen the confused look on my face because she suddenly broke into laughter.
“Wow. This is proof that I was a complete dork in school!” she exclaimed. In school? I knew her from school?
I scanned her quickly. Trying to recall any traces of familiarity. It was when she tucked some hair behind her ears that I remembered. She’d done it that night too…it was like a nervous tick. She kept tucking hair behind her ears, even when there weren’t any stray strands to tuck.
This was the girl I’d spent the evening with at some lame house party. We’d kissed. I was supposed to call her back. I had every intention of taking her on a date. But then life happened.
“Of course, I remember you,” I replied and she arched her brows in challenge.
“Oh yeah, what’s my name?” she asked. I clenched my jaws as I stared at her.
“Kennedy Anderson,” I replied and I watched as her eyes widened in surprise. She didn’t think I actually knew her name. The thing was—she’d made an impression on me. She wasn’t like any of the other girls I knew. She’d changed now—lost the glasses, the freckles on her cheeks were gone too and she dressed sexier. Other than that, she still had that spark about her.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said and I grinned.
“Nico Rossi,” I replied, extending my hand to her. She shook it. Firm shake. This girl was not to be taken lightly.
“You didn’t have to tell me your name. I have it written down in my diary, at the back, in the middle of a heart with an arrow through it,” she said.
What? This
girl was crazy!
Kennedy threw her head back and laughed again.
“Don’t worry, it’s not like I’m still hung up on you or anything. It was just a teenage crush. I’m sure you’re not surprised,” she said and took the stool beside mine. I let out a sigh of relief.
I was glad she sat down. She was exactly what I needed to get my mind off my frustrations.
Chapter 3
Kennedy
I couldn’t believe it was actually him! I was sitting beside Nico Rossi and he remembered my name!
Six years was a long time. It wasn’t like I’d thought about him often in that time. I’d dated casually since then, lost my virginity to a guy in college who barely lasted a minute inside me. Over the years, Nico and that kiss had faded to the background, but I hadn’t forgotten him.
I’d always wondered what happened to him, and sometimes I thought about how hot he would have been in bed. After that kiss, I waited for him for several weeks. To turn up magically in school again. I had my heart set on giving him my virginity. But he was gone.
Now, he was here and he still looked hot as hell.
“What are you having?” he asked. I ordered the beer myself and I could sense his eyes on me the whole time. Nico was watching me, assessing me. I turned to him, feeling the back of my neck burning up.
“What happened to you? You seemed to vanish into thin air suddenly,” I asked.
Seeing Nico again, talking to him…had transported me back to those teenage years. When I was too shy to talk to guys. When I didn’t think I was good enough to be asked to Prom. Nico lit those feelings in me again. I was back to being a giddy teenager around him.
I watched as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Personal shit. My granddad got really sick and my dad needed me to help him look after the family,” Nico said. He was looking at his glass of whisky as he spoke. I felt this irresistible urge to just reach for him and throw my arms around his neck.
What was wrong with me?
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