The Mafia's Angel | 18+

𝙀𝙡𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣

𝘼𝙧𝙞

✦⋆𓆩✧𓆪⋆✦

Nothing could stop the rage that entered my veins at the sight of Ariella sitting on my bed sobbing.

I managed to mask the anger as I sat through another bullshit meeting with an allied family, and gave the okay for him to start selling whatever new drug was on the market along the border of our territories. I didn't listen when he explained the new powder, I just stared pointedly at that little flashing light that told me the call was still going. I didn't listen as he explained the profit margins and what the Abelli family would be receiving, I hardly heard him mutter his condolences before the light on the receiver dimmed out.

I masked the anger to the best of my ability when Eliana and Elio marched into my office and laid into me about how I shouldn't use Ariella as a shield for my grief. I only let a flicker of that burning flame of anger rise to the surface as Eliana laid into me, and I saw the way Elio positioned himself to jump in front of my cousin in case I lost my temper on her as I did with him as if I would ever dream of laying my hands on Eliana, on any woman no less. And that subtle motion made me lose my temper more, but before I let loose on Elio, I told Eliana to get the fuck out. Ignored the devastation as she rose to her feet.

The anger was pushed down when I entered the kitchen and saw Ariella talking to my cousin. The heated anger cooled when I wrapped my arms around her, and a blissful calm blanketed my shoulders, bringing me a moment of clarity when my head roared for days. And when she climbed into bed with me, her onyx hair spilling over her shoulder and my arm, I did nothing but trace the shape of her face until she fell asleep, a blissful peace that she deserved after a week of nightmares. I watched her with fascination at how this beautiful woman persevered when everything pulled her under. She faced her trauma the same way a sunflower grows. Climbing up and up and up as they reached for the light to give them strength.

The anger had boiled over again when I saw the stained pillowcase, where Ariella had said she didn't deserve to be here. It was that memory that had me barreling down to my office, and dialing the number of Erik's villa in Italy.

The line clicked over and before Erik could even speak a greeting, I was growling into the phone, "I should fly to Italy right fucking now and kill you."

"Hello to you too Ari," Erik purred, but I could hear the tension in those words, everyone around me balked at my anger. Everyone hid from it. But not Ariella, never Ariella, she never ran from me. "For what do I owe this pleasurable phone call?"

"I told you that if you fucking ever hurt your sister, I would hunt you down and ruin you."

"Indeed," Erik sounded so calm, and that only stroked my anger more, "Yet I haven't spoken to her, so I'm not sure how I'm hurting her."

"Exactly that! She sat and had to listen to your family be brutally slaughtered, she needs her older brother, and yet he's nowhere to be found!"

"She hid in her room Ari, how the fuck do I look at her and not resent her for that?"

"Ariella listened to your father's orders!" My voice rose and Erik fell deathly silent, "Frank called me and told me what he was going to tell Ariella because he loved her so fucking much. He knew he couldn't save Portia and Lily, and your father wasn't going to let them die without him, so he went into your sister's room and begged her to stay inside, begged her to live." My stomach twisted at the memory of the grief in Frank's voice as he told me what he was going to tell his eldest daughter, "And you're turning your back on her because you're a fucking coward, she was sitting in bed saying she should've died with them, she's alone. You are part of the reason she feels that way!"