The Mafia's Queen

|Ch 21| The Mafia's Queen

A visit from a dark cloaked figure

Stephanie is forced to stand beside her father's desk chair like a child who has just been scolded.

Her eyesight is glued to her flats where they are unwilling to look up and into Estephano's eyes luscious green ones that she knows will pierce a feeling into her like needles.

She wants to look up at him but she's afraid that if she does the moment their eyes meet she will start to cry.

Stephanie knows her father will not allow her and Estephano to see each other again even if she begs and the worse part of it all is going to be seeing the anger and hope in Estephano's eyes dim into darkness filled with loath for her weak heart and lack of trying.

But there was nothing she could do, her father would have his way no matter what! Estephano and his clan were all walking on thin ice. Eduardo had the upper hand and it was up to Stephanie to get them over the frozen lake without her. Even if it meant she fell in.

In the end she doesn't get to choose as her father has already made up his mind for her. This was it whatever her and Estephano had ended today.

What hurts more is that she will never see Emily again, never will she keep Melanie's promise to visit for tea, but most importantly she will never see Estephano again and a big part of her feels guilty for having led him on with the kiss they shared earlier today. She was stupid and drunk in love, all that kiss did was make their bond stronger so when it snapped in a few seconds the sting will be that of more pain imaginable.

Heartbreak was hurdling towards them both.

The conversation both her father and Leonardo were having in front of her goes mute to Stephanie's ears as all she can focus on at the moment is her fast beating heart that has her ears tingling with warmth.

She was scared of what was going to happen next, she feared the outcome of what her father had up his sleeves. He was never this quietly arrayed and it alluded her to feel suspicion and fear. Two emotions she had never felt when in the presence of her father.

Standing in his office right now Stephanie realizes she knew so little of her father, she only knew his kind and caring side, the father side of him. She never knew who her father was to others or how he worked and right now she was getting a taste of this business side of her father who was the bad cop and she did not like it.

For the first time in her entire existence, she feared her father the man that she relied on for comfort and safety.

Right now he seemed like a stranger as he smoked a cigar Leonardo had gave him when they had sat down.

'Since when does he smoke?' Stephanie asks herself her body shivering slightly in fear of who this stranger was that took her fathers place who she had not seen in a month.

The truth was that the man that was once Stephanie's dad was a shell of who he used to be. He was more careless and felt as if his little girl was slipping through his fingers like water.

Realizing his daughter would no longer need him Eduardo felt misery and anticipation swell like a balloon in him. Just as he lost his innocent daughter he was losing himself but he was determined to stop fate and that is why he was not himself, he was mad, going haywire to protect his child without realizing the harm he would only cause said child.

The man that once did things out of kind heart and for those around him was no longer selfless he was now selfish and was going to do all he can in his power to protect his Stephanie and make sure she never fell for these men's lies, he was keeping his little girl close ti him as it was all he had left in this fucked up world.