He Led Me Across the River

3.

Right in front of my eyes was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen... a beautiful river with lanterns floating on it. I was in awe, Gio really went all out... but why?

"Wow!" I breathed. "This is beautiful, Gio. I can't believe you did this, I-" I rambled. As I was talking, Gio started laughing pretty hard in my face; I had no idea what was so funny. "Oh-oh my gosh Mia! I didn't do this!" He said in between laughs. I was humiliated. 'Why would he bring me here if he didn't do this?' I thought. After a good three minutes of just laughing, he calmed down.

"I brought you here to show you the river, I didn't know that there were going to be lanterns floating on it." Gio said. Yup, still humiliated. "I'm sorry Mia," Gio reached for my hands. "I hope you're not mad at me." "What? Mad at you? We aren't dating Gio, so I don't expect you to do this for me." I said. Gio looked a little hurt, but that quickly went away and was replaced by his usual bad-boy smirk.

We kept walking along the riverside until we got to a bridge... well actually, a log acting as a bridge. Gio looked at me, then at the log, then back at me and started walking on it. At first, I didn't move because it looked dangerous and if I died, I didn't want my body to be lost in the river. But then, I took a deep breath and started following Gio across the river.

As soon as we got to the other side, I was mortified. There were dead animal bodies everywhere and the forest was littered so bad, you could barely see the dirt on the ground. I turned to Gio and asked him, "What the flippers, Gio?!! Why are we here? We could get rabies or something!" He just rolled his eyes at me and kept walking. I couldn't stand to look at the dead animals anymore that I decided to just follow Gio. Once we were out of the forest, I realized that we were in a neighborhood. However, it wasn't your average neighborhood with a lush green lawn and a white Pickett-fence... it was a ghetto neighborhood. My dad told me about this side of town, where the druggies live, the gangsters do business. I was terrified, to say the least. I looked at Gio and started freaking out.

"Gio, w-what are we d-doing here?" I stammered. Gio grabbed my hand and led me towards a house that was actually kind of cute. It was painted white, it had a one-car garage and had a brown fence that looked like it needed to be replaced. Once we got to the door, Gio knocked three times before a middle-aged woman came to the door, looked at Gio and threw her arms around him. I was dead-confused. As soon as the woman let go, she looked at me with a sneer. I immediately felt uncomfortable, so I put my head down.

"Ma, this is Amelia. She goes to university just outside of town." Gio said. 

"I know exactly who this is, tesoro." She said with a sour expression in what I'm guessing is Italian. 

"Mama, she's not like that, trust me. If she was, do you think I would've brought her here to meet you?" Gio asked, which kind of surprised me. 'Not like what?' I thought.

"She better not be, I don't want you dating one of them." She spat.

"What does she mean by them?" I asked Gio.

He sighed, then said, "Our enemies."

"Enemies? What are you talking about?" I asked, completely clueless as to what he was saying.

Gio let out a long breath before saying, "Our rival gang."

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WOOOOHHHOOOOO finally an update! I'm sorry for taking so long but I just started a new semester so things have been pretty busy. There might be some spelling/grammar mistakes but I didn't have time to edit it lol. Anyways, I hope you all liked it and what are we thinking...? Next chapter, Gio's P.O.V? 

Teeheehee, we'll see :)