Raised by the Mafia

19. The Treasure (Ryan)

It's not cold outside, duh. It's L.A.; it never gets truly cold here. However, after the pulsating heat of the party, the breeze touching my burning face is just what the doctor ordered.

"Come on, Ryan, where do you live?" my wife nags.

I squeeze her elbow to my side and say nothing, squinting down the wide driveway to see if the limo is coming. A yawn comes on, and I let it out with gusto.

"Don't strain your jaw," she says.

"Never a moment's peace with you."

"Ha! What do you need peace for, Ryan?"

She's a live wire. An asp and a live wire. No matter what I compare her to, it always ends up an attractive thing. Dangerous, yet attractive.

Boy, am I a delusional fool or what?

The fucking party was a perfect demo of what Naz was born to be. A glam wife who knows what's what, keeps her teeth shut and spawns the next generation. A woman who is schooled on what to do while the husband is in jail, how to conceal serious money, how to side-step the moral norms, all those lovely soft skills of the mafia wife. There was a room-full of women like that inside. Scali's turning my once girl-pal Bryn into one of them, and it can't be stopped now.

A glimpse inside Naz's suffocating love affair is enough to get it why she swam against the current and wanted to be something else. Can't say that proving herself the bigger thug than the boys seem like a worthy life goal either. To me, that is. To her, it can be different.

What do I care? I tug my bowtie with the arm that's not tangled with Naz's, suddenly short on air. The ridiculous thing strangles me. Should I rip the buttons off?

Her fingernails scratch my thumb. "Stop trying to force it. It's like the Chinese finger trap, so you're only making it worse. Here..."

The fabric, both the white of the shirt and the black of the tie, releases its grip on me under the feather-light touch of her fingers. "Just look at you, wasting these soft wifely skills on me."

"You're very welcome, Mr. Bond."

Naz and Luca would have devoured each other eventually. I should have left them to it, and I didn't.

Against my better judgment, the red-hot anger flashed through me when I saw her with Luca. I hated him for so long my reaction shouldn't have been visceral. I should have expected him come at Naz. But for a second, or half-a-second, or a tenth of a second, her vulnerability messed me up.

Was it in the curve of her neck, the tightening of her fingers? Was it a twitch too brief to describe, imperceptible without my training in reading people's body language?

Whatever it was, it triggered me. I charged in, not thinking, not analyzing, nothing. I had to save her from Luca's grabby hands, and that was it. Stupid, fucking idiot.

Our limo finally rolls to a stop in front of us, and we pile in.

Naz kicks her heels off and leans against me, head on my shoulder, a mass of blonde curls tickling my freed neck. "Where do you live, honey?"

I should elbow her away. Instead, my arm wraps around her, skin and silk moving softly under the palm of my hand. She needs it, the arms to hold her, even though she'll vehemently deny it. I need to hug her. It's not because she's pretty. Luca's actually a more handsome man, than Naz is a beautiful woman. It's the attitude more than the assets, I guess.

Basically, I have no trouble believing that Luca is a vile son of a bitch, while Naz... I'm not all that sure she's a monster.

There, just look at a dreamy smile playing on her lips. Her eyes are shut. Naturally, she can be daydreaming of robbing someone or fucking Luca, but I don't know. I doubt it.