Menacingly✔️

Chapter Twenty-Six

"I'm in the mob Angela." He finally spoke, with great force. He wasn't happy to get it off of his chest but he knew it had to be done. Adriano noticed how her face had instantly paled and she went to take a step back but stopped herself. "The mafia, borgata, familia, Cosa Nostra, whatever you want to call it." He said, straight. Angela was speechless, unable to get a word out of her mouth. She needed time to think.

"No..." she said in disbelief. "They aren't real?" for everyone knew of the mafia, of organised crime and gangs, but she had never thought that the Mafia was a real thing in this day and age, only something people would talk about in books or movies. She thought it had dissolved years ago but what would she know? Angela knew next to nothing about this type of thing but suddenly, everything began to add up in her brain: He was from New York, he spoke Italian, he carried around guns and had guards, he had money and she had never been told anything else about his work except that it was a "family business". Mafia, it was one word that explained it all for Angela. No more questions were needed.

Why had she not guessed earlier? But Adriano couldn't be involved in something like that could he? She thought. She didn't want it to be true, because although she knew little about the real Mafia in New York, she did know something about how they earned their money and what they done for a living. Angela had been somewhere else, and had yet to notice Adriano with his head in his hands.

Once she saw him, the shame radiating from him, she moved a step closer. He had hung his head in shame, the first time he ever felt like a disgrace when explaining what he done for a living. For Adriano felt slight humiliation, having to tell the most pure and kind-hearted person he had ever met that he was a part of organized crime, he was involved in a lot of things that weren't right, that were evil, he had even killed before. He didn't know how this new information he had given to her would make her feel or what she would do now.

He didn't want her to run away, he didn't want her to be afraid or disappointed in him but he would have no reason to be angry with her if she did feel that way. Angela, on the other hand, couldn't explain what was going on in her head at this time. She was confused, bewildered.

"I can't help it Angela, I can't help being this person. Soon my dad's going to retire and I'll have to take over, like he did with my grandfather and what he done with his father. I'll be the Don and I can't change that. This business is what I've grown up around, it's what I've been thought. I'm stuck Angela, I'm stuck."

Angela had surprised herself with what she had done next. She understood what he had meant now, about being bad and being a monster, she knew what he done for a living and for some reason, she couldn't shake the feelings she was beginning to have for him. Whether she wanted to or not, Angela was unable to detach herself from him after her discovery. It felt stranger to her, nothing could stop her from feeling sorry for him as he sat there, stuck in a rut she knew she couldn't help fix. He was born into a life that was full of danger, a mafia life, one that he could not get out off if he wanted for that or not.

All she could do was walk between his parted legs and put her arms around him, trying to comfort him as much as she could.

"I don't want you to be a part of any of this, I won't let you be sucked in. You're good Angela, the only thing I know right now that is good. I'm ruined, I can't let it ruin you too." Angela was startled by how his voice had come out amongst the silence in the apartment. It had sounded like when someone was crying, or on the brink of tears except he wasn't crying, he hadn't shed a tear through any of this but the shear pain that dripped slowly from his voice was evident to her.

He said nothing for a while, just hugged her, his grip getting tighter and tighter. He didn't want to let her go, afraid of what she do next, of what words she would chose to tell him goodbye. This was it for them, she was gone before anything had even started between them but he knew that was how it should be shouldn't it? Adriano only her tighter as minutes passed, a tear slipped from her eye as she leaned into his chest.