The Pledge: Mafia Vows

by SR Jones

  “And now?” I ask.

  “Now, I just want to be in your life. If you’ll let me. You don’t need me to keep you safe, Stella, because in a few days Yannis will be dead. And tonight, Stuart died. You’ll be free if you want to be. I need you to know that. If you wish to, you can go home and live a normal life.”

  I smile in the dark. “Alesso, going back to live a normal life after being with you would be like going back to black and white movies after seeing technicolor.”

  “I’m too old for you. I’m fucked in the head. I do bad things.”

  “I do crazy things,” I counter. “And you’re not that old. There’s no difference in our ages to Maya and Damen, and they’re working out just fine.”

  He pulls me in closer.

  “So, we’re an item.” He kisses my neck again. He seems to love that spot.

  “Yes, we’re an item.”

  He kisses me again and then again. “Go to sleep, Stella. You’ve had a long day, and in the morning, I’m going to take you again, but this time slow and gentle.”

  My smile widens. Slow and gentle sounds good.

  I close my eyes, feeling safe and happy with Alesso’s big, warm arms around me.

  He’s everything I want, and I’m glad we’ve finally managed to find our way to one another.

  It’s been almost a month since we bought Star at the auction, and it’s been messed up.

  We’re back in Athens now. Myself, Alesso, Markos, and Star.

  I moved in with Alesso. It’s crazy, but my life has been crazy for ages, and frankly, it feels right, so I don’t care if other people think it’s too soon.

  I also get to live with Maya and Damen, which is cool. I love having her in the same house. We get on really well. I did have a strange wobble at first, when it suddenly hit me that my boyfriend had seen my best friend naked numerous times, and that she put on porn shows for him.

  No matter how much I told myself he and I weren’t a thing back then, it still burned. One day, though, I ended up talking to Damen of all people about it, and he put my mind at rest. He told me it didn’t bother him because he knew Maya only did it out of being trapped in a bad place, and that Alesso hadn’t ever found it remotely hot anyway. Then he’d shrugged and said how he had no clue, but she simply wasn’t Alesso’s type. He’d told me he was a jealous man, but he had let it go as he honestly didn’t think there was anything to be jealous of.

  I did the grown-up thing, the adult thing, and let it go too.

  Things are good, but there’s a strange pall hanging over the house, and it’s to do with Star. She’s so … strange. Damaged beyond anything I’ve seen before. She simply won’t accept that Markos isn’t her Master. She is upset, and seems worse daily because he won’t make her his.

  We can’t simply keep her here, and I’ve told the men they should hand her over to the authorities, but Justina disagreed with me. She told us that after what she’d been through, after Andrius saved her, if he’d let her go, she’d have been a total mess today, instead of okay.

  Justina’s view is that we bought Star, we saved her, so now we are responsible for her. She’s visited twice and spent a lot of time talking with Star. She says she’s clearly come from some sort of cult. Trouble is, Star is loyal to them.

  We have basic information now on the place she came from thanks to a man Alesso and Andrius captured the night they killed Stuart, but he doesn’t know much other than the place’s location. It doesn’t even have a name apparently.

  Star could tell us so much more, but she isn’t talking.

  It’s a stalemate. She has a room in the house. She isn’t under lock and key, but Alesso told me she has got a tracker implanted under her skin anyway. It was part of the details in the paperwork, so if she did leave, we can find her quickly. Damen is trying everything he can to find out who these people are, their numbers, if they are heavily armed and all the other information the men need before they can act. In the meantime, we women try to break through to Star, but to no avail.

  She says she only wants Markos because it is ordained that he is her destiny, and poor Markos is completely freaked out by the whole thing and won’t go near her. She pines, he sulks, and the rest of us try to carry on as if we don’t have a captive of sorts in our midst.

  Stalemate.

  I sigh and run my hands through my newly darkened hair. It’s still short, but it is back to my natural color thanks to an expensive color job.

  My clothes are not the same as they used to be. I’ve decided that my style is comfortable. I don’t like the old wardrobe I had before everything fell apart, even though I now have it back. I don’t feel I fit the clothes I wore in Crete, either. My style is … not stylish. I’m most comfortable in fairly plain things. Jeans and a sweater, or if it’s warm, a linen dress and flats.

  I asked Alesso if he minded my newly discovered sense of boring style, and he stared at me as if I’d grown another head and told me it didn’t matter what I wore, I would always be beautiful to him.

  Alesso.

  He’s an enigma still in some ways. I do believe he has a good soul, and always will, but I have to admit he’s hardened. Some of his views are at total odds with mine. He calls me a bleeding-heart liberal, and I suppose I am. He’s much more conservative, and kind of authoritarian too. He also can be cold as hell about things and people. One day last week, he told me off for giving money to a homeless beggar. I stared at Alesso for a beat, then went and gave the man more. I told him in no uncertain terms that he’s welcome to his views, but I have mine.

  The more I get to know he and Damen, the more I realize they are like mirror images of one another. Damen’s surface is all hard, serious, scariness, but underneath he has a more laidback, playful side. Alesso can be laid back charm personified on the surface, but underneath, he’s harder and much more serious than I’d have guessed.

  It’s like there is the public Alesso, and then the private one, and the private one is a much quieter, more solemn man. I love them both. He loves me too. He tells me. Not as often as I’d like. Alesso doesn’t throw words around easily, but he does tell me, and he shows me every day.

  From the smallest things, like bringing me coffee in bed most mornings because he knows I’m a terrible morning person, to the big stuff like supporting me in whatever I want to do.

  The door to the bedroom opens and the man I’m thinking about saunters in. He’s wearing dark trousers and a dark shirt, and he looks incredible. I wonder if I’ll ever get bored looking at him. I doubt it.

  There’s a view, a few miles outside of the city, here in Athens, and it’s stunning. A vista of blue sea and endless skies, framed by a cliff jutting above the ocean like a sentry. I’ve loved that view for as long as I can remember. I would go there with my parents and just drink it in. I couldn’t get enough of it, and it never failed to astonish me each time I saw it anew. Alesso is like that view. I could drink him in forever, and each time I see him I get a jolt.

  He crosses the room and smiles at me. “You ready for this?”

  I nod. The ‘this’, is a meal with my parents, who are in town, along with my grandparents. My mother and father are deeply unhappy with me. They see me as having made a catastrophic life choice in being with Alesso. Mother warns me each time we speak that it won’t last. Can’t last. He’ll break my heart. Daddy simply says I can come home anytime I want. They don’t get it. I am home.

  Alesso shifts from one foot to the other, and it’s a tic he’s got that I recognize. He’s got something he wants to say and is unsure about it. My heart does a little extra beat or two, as apprehensions sets in. Is he going to tell me he won’t come to the meal? He knows my parents hate him, but I need him there to back me up in this.

  “I bought you something,” he says. “It’s … well, the thing is … I hope you like it, but you might not, and if you don’t you can say and it’s fine.”

  “Alesso.” I put my fingers over his lips, stopping his words. “What is it?�
��

  He takes a leaflet out of his back pocket and unfolds it. I stare at it for a moment. It’s a dog shelter. Here in Athens. Oh. My. God.

  I grin and shake my head. “You bought me a dog? A puppy? Or an adult? I don’t care which. Is there a picture of the dog?”

  He frowns and then he shakes his head. “I didn’t buy you a dog, Stella.”

  Oh, he didn’t?

  “I bought you the shelter.”

  His words have barely started to sink in when he carries on.

  “It was going to close down. You love animals. You don’t have anything to do all day, and I figured that sooner or later, the lack of direction would drive someone as intelligent as you nuts. So … it seemed like the perfect solution. But, if you don’t want it, we can pay someone else to run it.”

  I can’t speak. Shit, I’m going to cry. I grab a tissue from a box on the dresser and dab at my eyes.

  “Are you okay? Did I do wrong?” Alesso’s gorgeous eyes are full of doubt. Not an emotion I see from him often and it makes me cry more.

  “No,” I manage between sobs. “It’s the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me.”

  I kiss him, hard, and I don’t care if it messes my lipstick. Then it gets heated, and he’s lifting my dark skirt up as he pulls my panties to one side.

  His clever fingers find my clit, and in no time, I’m ready for him. He bends me over the dresser, undoes his zipper, and with a deep groan of satisfaction thrusts into me.

  We’re both fully dressed, and it’s a quick and dirty fuck. I come hard against the dresser and he spills in me with a groan.

  He kisses my neck as he withdraws and whispers in my ear. “I love you. I love how much you feel things. I like experiencing the way you see the world through your kind soul. I made a pledge to you once, to not touch you first, do you remember?”

  I nod.

  “Well, I’m giving you another pledge. I’ll always try to protect your kind soul, and your loving heart because they are precious. I might not be good at this … relationships, but I’ll always do everything in my power to protect you, and keep you from being hurt, in any way.”

  They are lovely words, but he has a kind soul too. It may be buried deep, and it may be surrounded by layers of hardness built up over time and harsh experiences, but it’s there, and what he did today proves it. I make my own pledge then, to love and cherish this man, and try to give him a place of comfort in the cold world he inhabits.

  We’re late arriving at the restaurant, and my grandfather sighs and checks his watch as we walk in. Oh, Lord, I hope he’s not going to be in one of his extra nasty moods tonight. It’s been such a lovely day.

  We sit after I introduce my grandparents to Alesso. My parents have already met him, and they greet him with cool pleasantries.

  My fingers flutter over the cutlery, picking it up, putting it down, smoothing over the handle of my fork. A warm hand envelopes mine and Alesso holds my fingers still, soothing me. The way he always does.

  After we all order, and drinks are served, Mother wastes no time in questioning me.

  “Have you thought any more about applying to school?” she asks.

  “No.” I swallow down my mouthful of salad before carrying on. “I don’t want to go to school.”

  “Darling, I know you’re with … Alesso here. And we’ve accepted this, despite our reservations, no offence, Alesso.”

  “None taken,” he grunts.

  “But you can’t simply … swan about the house like some housewife from the nineteen-fifties.”

  “I won’t be,” I tell her. “I’m starting work next week.”

  “Oh? Doing what?” Dad wipes his mouth with his napkin and takes a sip of his red wine.

  “I’m running an animal shelter.” I smile at them.

  Mother seems to not get what I’m saying as her frown deepens and she looks from me to Daddy and back again. “I don’t understand. Where did this come from?”

  “I’ve always wanted to work with animals, and now I will be.”

  “So … you’re the manager?” she asks with hope in her voice.

  She wants something to report back to the social circles we move in that will sound good.

  “Nope,” Alesso says. “She’s the owner.”

  “What? How? You don’t have that kind of…” Daddy looks at Alesso, and his eyes narrow. “I’ve accepted her relationship with you,” he says, voice low. “But is this your way of keeping her under your thumb? Buy something for her, install her there, get her to love those animals, and then use it against her if she ever wants to leave?”

  I lean forward, about to tell Daddy not to speak to Alesso in such a way, but once more Alesso’s warm hand covers mine. “No, Sir.” He shakes his head. Wow, he called my dad, Sir, and there’s real respect in his voice.

  “I understand why you’d be concerned. The shelter is completely in Stella’s name. It’s totally hers. It’s got an injection of funds, which will keep it stable for the next three to five years, beyond which I am sure Stella is more than capable of turning its financial situation around and drumming up support for the project. If you want, I’ll happily send the paperwork for your family lawyer to go through, so you can see it is all legit and above board. It is all hers, no strings at all.”

  “Why?” Mother almost shouts. “Why would you do such a thing? It must have cost a fortune to put enough in to turn it around.”

  “Because I love your daughter,” Alesso says simply. “I love her, and I want her to be happy, and I think this will make her happy.”

  I blink rapidly as once more tears threaten.

  “I want her happy, too,” my father says. “And safe, and your kind of life … it isn’t safe.”

  “I’ll keep her safe from any threats that ever come her way.”

  “Threats that she wouldn’t be exposed to in the first place if not for you,” Mother snips.

  “With all due respect, Mom,” I interject. “The threats came about due to my friendship with Maya, and then my own bad decisions. Alesso is not to blame at all.”

  She purses her lips but dips her head once in a gesture of acceptance of what I say.

  Things are drama free for a blessed few minutes, and then it starts.

  “An animal shelter,” Grandpa says. “I suppose it fits. You never were good with people.”

  “Daddy!” Mother admonishes.

  “What? It’s true. I’ve often wondered if she were adopted. Look at her? None of the poise of her mother or grandmother, and none of the beauty, either. What the hell have you done to your hair? It’s horrible.”

  Alesso places his napkin, which he’d been wiping his mouth with, on the table hard enough to make the silverware jump.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t utter one more word,” he says to Grandpa.

  Grandpa laughs. “You don’t scare me, you cheap hoodlum. Take her.” He gestures to me with his knife. “She’s a waste of space.”

  “How fucking dare you speak to her like that?” Alesso stands, and I think he’s going to do something crazy like hit my Grandpa, but he doesn’t, he takes my hand and turns to my father. “We’re leaving. If you had a backbone, you’d tell that nasty old shit to shut the fuck up and never speak to your daughter in such a way again.”

  Daddy splutters and starts to say something to Alesso, and then to my Grandpa, but Grandpa mutters whore under his breath and the table falls into silence.

  Alesso’s whole body goes rigid, and I swear I can almost feel him locking himself down so he doesn’t beat an old man to a pulp.

  “We’re leaving now, and you’re never seeing your granddaughter again, and if we have kids? You don’t get to see them, either. You’re a fucking bitter, nasty, old man. Go fuck yourself.”

  “Classy,” Grandpa snorts.

  Alesso turns back to him, eyes blazing. “It’s a damn sight classier than picking on your granddaughter, someone you’re supposed to love and cherish. Now, you’re an old man, but
be warned, my patience only goes so far, and one more word from you, and I will put you through that fucking fancy window over there.”

  Alesso takes my hand and we turn to leave, but I stop him. I turn back to my grandfather. “What Alesso says is true. You are a nasty, bitter old man, and I don’t want to see you anymore. Grandma, I love you and would be happy to see you if you wish to, but don’t bring him.”

  Then I wave at my Mother and Father, and with my head held high, walk out of the restaurant with Alesso.

  When we get back home, I’m so churned up by the events of the evening that I want to jump Alesso’s bones and work it out in bed. I love him so damn much. Tonight, he gave me the courage to stand up to my grandfather for the first time in my life.

  As we step into the hallway however, Damen greets us. “Meeting, now.”

  “Okay,” Alesso says. “Go on up, honey, and I’ll be there soon.”

  “No, she should come,” Damen says.

  We file into the living room, and I see Maya, Markos, and Cole all sitting sipping at drinks.

  Damen stands in the center of the room and looks at us all. “Tonight, Yannis Pappas died. He had some very kinky sex and took far too many drugs.”

  “Oh, such a shame,” Cole drawls.

  “In a few days, it will hit the news. There is nothing to trace this back to us, or to Andrius and his friend. Pachis, the politician, will never find out what happened, and I’m still working on getting as much information on him as I can, but in the meantime, we leave him alone and watch him from afar. So far as Yannis goes, we won’t speak of this again, ever. If we bump into Lefteris, we offer our condolences and we say nothing. A huge threat to us is gone, but if anyone gets even an inkling we were involved in this, we’re in the shit, and it’s going to ignite that war with Lefteris that none of us needs. So, we say nothing, and we go about our business as usual.”

  “What about my father ... I mean, Spiros?” Maya asks. “He’s been working with Yannis.”