The Mafia's Queen

|Ch 14| The Mafia's Queen

Innocent 

As the day carried on so did their words and neither one wanted to leave the round room where they were at ease knowing no one was around to break them apart. 

No one to judge and critique them on what was wrong and what was right. 

They didn't want to leave their little paradise...Well Stephanie didn't at least.

Noticing Estephano's gaze on her neck she frowns when she realizes the world from outside was slowly seeping its way inside the room with its memories.

Staring at Stephanie, Estephano couldn't help but gaze at the slowly purpling bruises in the shape of fingers, his father's fingers that had enclosed around her soft raw flesh like the marks of hate.

He almost lost her and he felt like he had failed her.

As if she knew what he was thinking she nibbles on her bottom lip nervously unsure of what to say as she recalls the look Leonardo was giving her when he had her pinned against the wall his hands throttling her leaving behind an aching fire in her lungs.

"Estephano?" She softly calls out to him instantly bringing him out of whatever daze he was sucked into.

Nodding his head for her to continue she plays nervously with her hands on her lap, "What did you mean about the rose picking you with its thorns last night?" She timidly asks him recalling the way they last left things.

Frowning he knows he can't tell her the truth for he was not allowed to involve her any more than she already is with the Mafia. 

Shaking his head he looks up at her beautiful hazel orbs, the shade he has grown to adore as of recently.

 "Just forget it, really it was nothing just nonsense." He tells her avoiding eye contact now that her question floats around the room unanswered.

Her lips now set in a frown she nods understanding that he didn't want to talk about it, "How did your dad have my necklace? I left that back in Milan, how did it get here?" She asks Estephano hoping he may know how her precious jewelry had made its way into his father's hands and why he was fuming at the sight of it. It was after all just a necklace.

Sighing in frustration he recalls the sight both him, his father and brother had walked into the moment they stood in the foyer.

Blood was spread around the surface of the once shiny spotless clean white marble coating it in dark crimson with the stench of metal in the air while a cold corpse lay in a puddle of red with the life sucked out of it.

Estephano was exposed to death as that was exactly what the mafia entitled the majority of the time, but he was used to killing his enemies and watching their bodies wither away but when it came to one of his own it was always hard to watch knowing that perhaps if they were not one of them then they would still be alive and breathing.

The thing about the mafia is that it's amazing in the sense of wealth, respect, and luxury but everything good has bad in it as well for example the risk of losing your life, the life of those you care about, as well as the constant danger you put yourself in. That was the Mafia life for you it was fun, wild and most importantly risky as hell. Everything Stephanie was not used to nor prepared for.

She came from a life where she was protected from all that was the definition of him, he was a criminal and her father was the law. She loses herself at the sight of blood, he feasts at the sight of blood, he kills, she heals, she is the sun, and he is darkness, he is the ying to her yang.