Mob Boss Series Book #1: The Russian Heir

Chapter Seventeen: Insubordination

Keira's POV
Life is a deep pool of lessons.

I can confidently say that now that I have lived long enough to share experiences with the younger generation I'm leaving behind. I know too well what it means to be young and hopeful. It feels like it was just yesterday when I used to see and hope for the best in people. In a way I still do. Nature versus nurture. That's the debate. I still try to see the good and potential in people but life has nurtured me not be naively foolish. Some people are just not capable of change or good. Situations are the same. They change or stay the same. Simple.

So, if situations stay the same and the other alternative is change, can change be forced or is it influenced?

Through out history, we have seen many wars all carrying the banner of change. Change in freedom, change in power, change in accountability, change in retaliation. Change can be anything we want it to be. But for someone to wish for change there must be vision.

My situation that wasn't going to change is that I married into the mob. When I first met Nickolas years ago on the roof top of a building under construction, all I saw was a business man. Never did it occur to me that he was from a mob family. He identified simply as Nickolas Bale. A man with Greek roots. I only learned about his Italian roots when we visited Florence and he introduced me to his family. I only knew he had Mafia links after Don Giovanni's death. That is when Nick came clean. A total of five years after I met him is when I really began to know him.

When he told me the truth, I had two options. Reject him and the mob or accept him and the mob and wither way, these two things came joined to the hip. I love him deeply and I chose him and the mob. Besides, even if I was to restrain myself from the love I feel for him, would he let our children go? No. Not my Nick. If chasing me down in a car chase to stop me from leaving him us anything to go by, he would never let the kids go or even me. His love and madness are linked in unity. There's no existence without him. That is my reality and I love it! I'm addicted to it.

Choosing Nick and the mob meant adjusting. People are not brick walls. We are not rigid. We are built to adjust and adapt to situations. I did not land on my feet running. No. First I felt like I had stalled. It was two distinct lives separate from each other. On one hand, mother, wife and CEO. On the other hand, regina mia. As some people suffer from culture shock, I had my own shocks and one of them was accepting who my husband was when he was not a father and a CEO. I have seen Nick at his darkness. I still love him regardless of that. If anything I love him more for showing me who he really is and trusting me not to bail out.

I couldn't be the Kei everyone knows in both roles. I tried that and it didn't work. There's a sad truth about people and it is that they take advantage of good people. Once you put yourself out there to be supportive and generous, you can easily become a door mat to be stepped on. I know most people are told to be themselves but being myself did not work when I was being regina mia. I slowly learned that it takes balance to be regina mia. There were only two ways about it. Absolute darkness or total misery because I was trying to be myself. I found an in between and it's called adaptation.

For a long time I always wondered how Nick did it. When he came home and his little girls embraced him he was a totally different man. He was a father and a husband. Simple. I saw it too in Mancini. That separation in roles is what I needed and I'm glad I mastered it... fairly, not perfectly.

"Life is progress. We keep getting better if the mind is focused." I told my granddaughter as we took a stroll through the busy streets of New York. "This grief you feel for losing your sisters will never pass but it will get easier. Don't force your mind to get to a point where grief is normal. There's nothing normal about the people you love suddenly leaving your life or even leaving at all."