The Mafia's Queen

|Ch 32| The Mafia's Queen

Perfectly Imperfect 

While Stephanie began to pack articles of clothing into a duffel bag she noticed from the corner of her eyes the way Estephano gazed at her with adoration. 

He was watching as if in a trance the way her hair would swing from side to side against her back as she ran across her room to her closet to gather more clothes. 

As he watched her pack in a haste he could not believe she was here or rather that he was here and they were really doing this. They were risking it all for love but their love was more than just an infatuation as both of their fathers believed. 

Their love was true and the most divine of all. Nothing like Rome and Juliet Estephano thought to himself, but someone, someone scoffed deep within the darkness.  

Estephano saw something peculiar others never saw in Stephanie, not even her own father. And he gravitated towards it like a moth walking into the light.

 When his eyes first laid upon her beauty and gentle soul they had glistened like green jewels. Before him he not only saw her beauty like most people notice about her but he also saw a lost woman who was afraid of what was waiting for her on the real world.

 To the naked eye she was innocent, kind-hearted and soft to the touch. While he was seen as a criminal, cold-hearted, and rough on the outside. he was her opposite. They were meant to be enemies in the world but he could not accept that fate, neither could she. He was slowly changing into a better man because of her, and he adored her for it.

He was born into a world where death was the norm and attending ambushes against rivaling mafia families were the common. He was raised to kill and steal. Crime was his name and respect was valued more than health. But did he really want all that for himself? Or was it thrusted upon him upon birth. The truth is he didn't even know the answer to these questions until this exact moment as he watched Stephanie move around gracefully in swift strides. The two preparing for the life they had together that was just over the horizen. 

Truth is he always thought that was what he wanted. To be the Italian mafia boss, the master behind one of the biggest crime organization where the adrenalin and title of being the richest and most feared man were his everything. But most importantly being the boss meant making his father proud and every man wanted to make his parents happy esepcially a father proud.

 However in doing as Leonardo expected of him Estephano was not able to find who he really was deep inside. The truth is that he was not all that evil from the inside. That was all Marquez. Estephano was actually a good man of morals and he not only got respect but he gave respect back to those who ever met him. He was a man of his word, he was a fighter, he cared for others wants and believes. He was a listener, and he had faith. A quiet man that looked like a villain to the eye but a sweetheart to those that really met him.  

Stephanie once only saw a man of danger and mystery when she first gazed into his green like grass eyes. She feared him and had no trust for him but time after time he showed her he was not capable of hurting her. She like many judged him by what she saw he presented on the outside and she could not have been more wrong about her first assumptions regarding who Estephano Bandoni was because as the days she sepnt with him extended she saw his true colors shine brightly through the dark veil once drapped over him. 

Now as she watches him look at her moving around with soft shimmering eyes she knew he was her sun that lightened the darkness that crept up behind her but what she didn't know was that she herself was his world in which he was centered around. She kept him sane and radiating while he kept her living and moving forward from her past that had trapped her into being the submissive naive little girl she had always been.