Bloody City: Temptations

Chapter Thirty One

Arianna

As midday crept through the windows of the house I blinked away sleep and registered the heavy weight around my middle which could only be Alessio's arm from how it was positioned.

"Good morning Arianna," he grumbles his tone thick with the timbre of sleep, and making his voice at least three octaves deeper.

Rolling over I stared at him, as a brief smile covered his lips then disappeared returning to his neutral expression which for me always seemed to include the corners of his mouth slightly turning up.

"Good morning Alessio," I say staring into his eyes as he carefully moved all the hair that had fallen over my face off and behind my ears.

"I think it's the afternoon I got home at eight in the morning," he says rubbing sleep from his eyes, and staring at the ceiling while I admired the sharp angles of his face as he did so. Alessio was many things and honest to his word was one of them. I did worry that him allowing me to run the Casino business in Genoa would become a problem for him even if he had allowed women to become made if they proved themselves, just like the men. I had never wanted to be made but I would be a manager for the Familia if possible.

"Your men probably have about a dozen issues for you to deal with," I point out and he mutters something before turning to look at me.

"I need to go shower, then I will go to work, also Matteo will somehow have everything managed so that I can take on the task of dealing with the Vincenzo Familia, they've likely been brought to a storehouse, or possibly even the home of the Familia the one that the main crew works out of in Genoa and not the old townhouse in the middle of the city which all of the Capo's used as a work office," Alessio says though he had told me about the other things that occurred there. I could tell that he didn't like that his men brought their mistresses to what was supposed to be a work building. Outside of Familia territory I knew of the wish that some women had to have their husbands find a mistress and leave them be.

I couldn't wish that for myself.

Alessio then slid from the bed his wound still tightly wrapped even as he went into the bathroom and shut the door to shower sleep away and prepare him for his day. I wouldn't even pretend that I didn't know what he had done, or did do on the daily, but I was willing to forgive him for it, I wasn't exactly pure either I knew about the life and what it meant, many former mafia members had spoken of their experiences in the life, and what it meant to become a made member in the past. Alessio's past would haunt him for a long time though I doubted it would disappear because it made him the Boss of the family in the end even if he was worried about how it may affect me.

Getting out of bed I walked into the closet and pulled on one of the robes I'd wrapped myself in each morning since I had gone shopping on day two of being her in the golden cage of Alessio's estate. Even if I didn't consider it a cage I was expected to be poised, and beautiful and a trophy wife for the Boss of the Familia. That was supposed to be my honour and I wasn't ever going to be.

I didn't mind that there was other women who did want to be one, but not me. Before I had been made the future wife of the Boss of La Cosa Nostra in Europe, I'd been used to the Mafia politics in Vicenza and the area that my Father had control over but Alessio was a master of power plays, he'd strengthened the Mafia here after its swift decrease in power and yet here he was still building his influence. I felt it was more of my correct position to help him build his power. Each day he tried more and more to open up to me, let me in one small step at a time and he didn't seem bothered by me asking so many questions, and in return I would be more then just a wife by title.

Going downstairs I almost ran into Lino who stiffened upon seeing me and I began to wonder what he had told his head of security before I had arrived in Varazze.