Wild Horses

This chapter dedicated to Harambe🔫

A/n yall... I got into a fully funded 7 year PhD program for English literature, which is funny considering I'm here writing fan fiction 😅 I'm in shock. Anyways, enough about my little life, here's the story 😊

It had been over a week since Lira's mom had died at the hands of Lenny Linguine. Abbacchio had known about Mom's condition the entire time. Why she had confided in a fellow alcoholic, and not her own daughter, hurt Lira to no end. But she was comforted knowing that her mom thought she was leaving Lira in good hands with Bucciarati's crew. The funeral had come and gone. It was small, mostly people from the neighborhood and other small business owners in the area, with the addition of five young buff gangsters dressed in black. Lira was only expecting Fugo to come and be her support, but when they all came to her mother's funeral, Lira felt she had made friends worth keeping.

The guys came over in shifts during the week for protection, and to help clean up the apartment, specifically the blood. The mafia has their ways. Lira salvaged what she could from her destroyed business, which wasn't much. Her sewing machine was smashed, the cord had been ripped out of the iron. Fabrics and yarn had blood on them. The front windows had been busted out and now had plastic sheets taped over then. Lira was trying to separate trash from things worth saving, but as she felt more and more disconnected, more things ended up in the trash pile.

"I missed my chance at having the best fashion designer in Napoli make an outfit for me," Mista said, only half joking, as he walked in to find Lira sitting on the floor of her shop, sorting through things which were all ending up in the trash pile.

"Sorry," she murmured. "There's some crap in a box over there that's not totally ruined. You can rummage through it," she said without looking up.

Mista looked in the cardboard box. "Heyyy my tuxedo jacket!" he said in his gravelly voice as he pulled out the jacket he'd let Lira take the night at the strip club. "Oh, there's blood on it," he observed. He rooted around and pulled out a short blue cashmere knit sweater with crossing white lines on it. All he said was "Wow."

Lira looked up at him and smirked. "You can just have that," she said, "I made it a while ago and I know you're into Fugo's belly shirts."

Mista grinned and peeled his shirt off, filling the room with the smell of gunpowder and salami. Lira side-eyed him so as to not be caught staring at his gorgeous tan muscles. He pulled the crop sweater over his head. "How do I look?" he asked with his signature grin and held his arms out. Lira giggled. It was the first time she had laughed since her mother's death. "That good, huh?" Mista said confidently.

"Amazing," Lira said as her giggles turned into full-blown laughter. "You look incredible." The sweater conformed to his muscles perfectly and tantalizingly framed his abs. Lira bit her lip and raised her eyebrows as she checked him out.

"Come on, gattina, don't look at me like that," Mista teasingly growled at her. She huffed. "I saw some designer pants in a shop window that would go well with this," Mista said. "I'd go try them on, but I have to guard you, sooo....." his infamous grin appeared. "Maybe you could come shopping with me instead of pushing all this trash around?"

"Huh?" Lira was caught off guard. "I haven't been to an actual clothing store since I was a kid."

"But you have a good eye," Mista buttered her up as he shifted his weight. Lira could have sworn he was flexing his abs at her.

"Ok," she obliged with a grin of her own. Mista was clearly a bit of a loose cannon. Shopping with him could be fun. "Just keep your pistol out of sight, ok?"

He chuckled. "Deal."

~][~

Mista walked Lira to the main strip of fashion boutiques in the wealthy part of town. It was filled with tourists and locals alike. Mista pointed at a tourist wearing JNCOs and snickered, "I want some of those," as he ribbed Lira's side. They laughed, with Lira chuckling out a "Fuck off."