UNDERCOVER LOVE (English Version, Gay Romance, Mafia)

PROLGUE

"A smile is worth a hundred words"

 "Wait, Leander!" I heard my grandmother calling after me behind me and of course I stopped immediately, because a real Italian nonna was not to be trifled with.

"Here, my boy... I've packed you the rest of the pasta..." she said to me as she patted my cheek good-naturedly and shortly afterwards held out a white plastic bag containing the rest of my dinner.

"Thank you, Nonna... that wasn't necessary..." I mumbled in response, but she immediately interrupted me: "Oh, fiddlesticks, Leander..."

Her warm, deep brown eyes scrutinized me and my thin figure with slight concern and she moaned: "Oh my sweetie... you've lost so much weight in the last few weeks..."

"I've just had a lot of stress in the last few weeks, Nonna...I'll put on weight again, don't worry...", I tried to reassure her and at that moment I could hardly prevent my thoughts from straying to my ex-boyfriend for a brief moment. Luckily, I had eventually found the explicit chat messages on his cell phone and I had immediately kicked that cheating asshole out the door.

I didn't want to hear anything from him personally or his half-hearted assurances of apology. And I had shouted that right in his face just the other day when he had said to me that maybe we should give it another try.

Perhaps I had inherited my Italian mother's temperament in this respect and not the level-headedness of my Asian father.

"Don't be so sad about that idiot... he doesn't deserve you, darling...", my grandmother added and she scolded me: "I've never really liked him... this arrogant and know-it-all attitude of this Connor really got on my nerves..."

"Nonna, I'm leaving now... I have to hurry now so I can catch my train..." interrupted her mostly never-ending torrent of frantic Italian and I breathed a fleeting kiss on my maternal grandmother's cheek before leaving the traditional family restaurant in the heart of San Francisco.

I shouldered my shoulder bag as I walked along the deserted streets, spurring myself on to hopefully catch my train at the last minute. But unfortunately that didn't happen on this fateful night.

"Uncle Hiro?" I asked, slightly confused, when suddenly, out of nowhere, someone grabbed me by the sleeve of my light jacket and pulled me frantically into a dark side street, causing the plastic bag to fall out of my hand and my dinner, carefully and lovingly packed by Nonna, to smack onto the hard asphalt floor.

"What are you doing here?" I wanted to know from my father's taciturn, usually not very empathetic brother and looked at him in confusion: "What's going on?"

"Please... Leander... I have to go into hiding..." the quiet Japanese man finally stuttered and breathed frantically as he pulled a pile of files and papers from under his coat and pressed them into my arms the next moment: "And you have to keep these documents for me..."

I was now even more confused and I looked at the small, slender Japanese man with wide eyes: "What's going on anyway? Why do you have to go into hiding?"

My uncle was about to answer when suddenly a pistol shot cut the air like red-hot iron and it was only when I noticed the large, slowly spreading bloodstain on Hiro's white shirt that I woke up from my stupor.

I held my uncle, who was writhing in pain and slumped at my side, while I turned around frantically and suddenly saw a handsome man in his late forties in an expensive suit standing at the end of the alley: "Hiro, did you think you could get away from me like that?"

"Who the fuck are they?" I yelled, still in complete shock as I held my injured uncle in my arms and fumbled for my cell phone in my right pocket with my free hand.