Bred In Violence (A Mafia Romance Book One) #𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝟏

Chapter 44

Take me out. Let me sit opposite you while the candle burn as I look deep into your eyes. Take me out, flirt with me, brush your fingers lightly on my cheek. Take me out because you want to be alone with me." 

~Sophie to Raphael~

*Unedited*

Raphael

"Do you think it was a girl or a boy?" Romano asked, he was sprawled on my office leather seat the same one Sophie had slept on last week. His face on one arm rest while his feet rested on the other.

The pen I was holding dropped, turning my eyes to his face, I wasn't aware he or any of them had thought about the miscarriage, hell l didn't want to think about it but I did. Sometimes, those few times that I was alone or watching Sophie as she slept, I thought about it.

Was it a boy or a girl?

"I think it was a girl" I pushed my seat back, whirling it so I could sit facing the huge window behind me.

"A girl with red hair and blue eyed as her mother" I finally said after a few minutes of silence

Romano did not say anything for a while and neither did I. He was still lounging on the couch because I could hear his feet tapping on the arm chair. This conversation placing me in a very uncomfortable yet needed situation, forcing me to think about a child whom I had watched Sophie mourning over leaving me almost unscathed

In most times, the baby was faceless in my eyes, yet sometimes she was a little girl with Sophie's eyes and hair.

"I imagine her as a girl too" Romano said, his voice penetrating in my brain. "Running through the house in a high pitched voice looking for her dolls" I realized then that in his own way Romano was mourning as well.

"Why not a son?" I asked, rotating the seat in order to face him. It should have been uncomfortable to talk about this with any of the guys but it wasn't. We had matured I guess. Somehow between forming a mafia organization, a family and a business empire, we had grown up into men who had become comfortable talking of a child and a woman who had become important in our lives.

"Maybe its because boys grow up to be men and I already know all about that" He said softly "But a girl is a novelty, a gentility, softness that would somehow reflect on what kind of men we really are or have become—a reflection of us.

'I don't know about that." I said, rubbing my scalp with one hand like I was massaging it with only a single hand. "I'm afraid I would be a terrible father" I confessed.

What did I really know about being a father?

I grew up on the streets while my father lived in a mansion. The only other experience with fathers I had witnessed was with the fathers in the mafia who treated their children like bargaining chip or sold their own fresh and blood to form alliances.

"I don't think you need to worry about that. Sophie would never allow you to be a lousy or an absentee father"

I smiled at the truth in that. Sometimes I thought Sophie's petite form was deceiving; hiding innate strength waiting to erupt should anyone be clueless enough to underestimate her.

"I guess we will never know whether it was a boy or a girl" I said as I stood up walking towards the door. I couldn't continue working or having this conversation, it was becoming wrenching and I hated dealing or dwelling on things I couldn't change.

It was my biggest failure. Watching Sophie cry and not being able to do anything to make her feel better. I hated it.

Romano walked a step behind me, his footsteps almost undetected as we both walked in perfect harmony each of us wrestling our own demons.