La Cosa Nostra

Chapter 12

"Care for a whiskey?" I turn to find Sergio standing at the doorway of the back door, two whiskeys in his hand.

"Sure." He hands me one, taking a seat next to me.

"My wife can be quite overwhelming at times." he says.

I turn to him and shake my head. "No, Giada's amazing. I'm just.."trailing off, finding the right words.

"Not used to all this?" he offers and I nod.

"Yeah."

He smiles, "Have you ever thought about tracking down your birth parents?"

I stiffen and he notices. "I'm sorry, You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"You just took me by surprise, that's all. I thought about it actually,before I left for college. I asked Thomas if he knew about them but he said that he never tracked them down when he took me in. He wanted it to be my decision."

"He did the right thing. So, why didn't you?"

"I was scared of what I would find. I didn't want to know if I was the child of  a rapist, drug addict or murderer, although that would have been ironic."

Sergio looks at me thoughtfully, "They could have been good people."

I smile ruefully, "That terrified me even more to be honest. If I found them and they were good people with families and children that they..wanted, I don't-" I shake my head, swallowing the lump rising in my throat.

"It's easier this way. In my line of work, you can't have any weaknesses. If I reconnected with them, they would become liabilities. I know I sound cold but that's the truth."

Sergio cocks his head at me, "My family is my biggest weakness but they are also my greatest strength."

I smile, understanding what he was trying to say. "And you're all lucky to have each other. I've been lucky to meet all of you."

He laughs, "somedays, they make me want to pull my hair out but yes, I am a lucky man."

I laugh, taking a sip from my whiskey.

"I'm gonna be blunt with you, Alessa. I would be luckier if I had you as my daughter-in-law." I almost choke on my drink and swivel my eyes to him.
I stare at the senior Moretti waiting for him to say "haha, got you" but all he does is look at me with a serious yet kind expression. Maybe its something in the whisky or maybe it's the fact that I was overwhelmed by the whole evening but I burst out into laughter. To his credit, Sergio just looks at me in amusement almost as if he knew that I needed to laugh or I was gonna pull my hair out.

I take a deep breath, pulling myself together.
"You can't be serious."

He chuckles at my expression, "I am. I like you very much Alessa . I think you would make an amazing Donna and an even more amazing wife to Luciano. Not everyone can handle this life but from what I've seen so far, you're an incredibly strong person."

"Would you say yes if Luciano asked you to stay?" he asks curiously and I gape at him. What did one do when the former don of the Italian mafia asked you to become his daughter in law?

I answer him in a firm yet warm tone hoping that he doesn't kill me.

"Im honoured that you think so highly of me, I truly am but with all due respect, Luciano would never ask me to stay."
Sergio still has that amused expression on his face, one that's akin to a parent listening to a child spew bullshit.

"Why is that?"
"For starters, we're both very different people who lead different lives. Then there's the fact that we barely know anything about each other."
"If you stay, you'll be able to get to know each other."
I shake my head ruefully, chuckling lightly at him.

"That may be true but it doesn't change the fact that I'm not right for him. You and Giada have raised a good man and Luciano deserves so much more than I can give him. You and I both know that the Donna can either be the downfall or the salvation of the Don and I will be the former. I won't do that to him, to any of you."

Sergio chuckles at me, looking at me as if I was a child who hadn't figured out the answer to a simple question.

"I will say only this bambina. The both of you are are at war with the Irish mafia yet I have never seen him this happy in my life and something tells me you haven't been this happy in a while either. I will not interfere in your personal lives but sometimes, we have to take a leap of faith as scary as it is. It won't be an easy road but it will be worth it for we are most alive when we are in love."

He sends me a fatherly smile, patting my shoulder affectionately before heading back inside. I stare at his retreating figure for a few seconds before downing my drink in one gulp, his words playing over and over in my head.