Code name: Athena [18+]

Code name: Storie d'amore

•Arabella DiStefano•

"Baby, I'm gonna go get some water, do you want something from the kitchen?" I asked getting up on my feet.

"No, princess," Apollo shook his head placing Napoleon on his shoulders "thank you."

"Sure thing," a deep sigh left my mouth as I entered the house.

Stefano was sitting at the dining table reading a book in Italian so I didn't bother him with a hello or anything. Once in the kitchen, my eyes found Minerva behind the stove, stirring a tall pot as she wore a beautiful white and red polka dot apron.

"What are you cooking?" I grabbed a glass from one of the upper cabinets.

"Apollo's favorite from when he was a baby," she told putting down the wooden spoon.

"Lasagna," I smiled pouring water into the glass.

"Yes. At first, we got it from this great place near our home from back then," Minerva smiled picking up her glass of wine; she's so beautiful. "It was all he ate for a whole year, Artemisa quickly got tired of it."

I chuckled "I don't doubt it."

"Has he ever told you about our first three years in New York?"

I shook my head "He doesn't really like talking about it because of Artemis."

"My baby girl," her smile softened. "Every day I miss her more."

"I didn't mean to—"

"It's okay, Arabella," the woman took a sip of her wine and leaned on the island taking a deep breath. "What about Stefano's and my love story? We got in so much trouble."

"He has never told me that either," I took a sip of my water and took a deep breath; fuck her sauce smells so good I want to dip my face into it. "How did you two meet?"

"At a beach. I was there with my friends having a wonderful day and out of nowhere this handsome man walks out of the ocean with water dripping down from his abs," her cheeks turned red making me smile because that's the same effect Apollo has on me. "He walked directly to me and said: è una bella giornata, non credi? And I told him: Sì, signore. I knew from the beginning that he was much older than me but we didn't care...we fell in love that same afternoon. My friends thought I was crazy for going back to his house with him but it was magical," her eyes filled with tears. "The next day he took me back home to Rome, I introduced him to my parents and they wouldn't accept him at first because of the big age gap but those were other times...people often judged us for being so in love, they were disgusted by Stefano and once we found out two months later that I was pregnant with Apollo and Artemis, things got worse," she sniffled as tears slipped down her cheeks "people thought Stefano had abused me but that's the last thing he would ever do; that's why we only stayed in Rome until a week after I had the babies." Minerva wiped her tears away "Just a month away from turning 17 I skipped town with my sweetheart and don't regret a single bit of it. I would never ask anyone to understand my situation but they don't know how I felt the moment our eyes locked; from the first glance, my heart knew Stefano was the love of my life. Maybe I was too young, maybe I could've waited many more years so it wouldn't look as bad—"

"I understand Minerva," my arms laced around her body. "I understand and won't ever judge you."

"Thank you, sweetheart," she hugged me back softly. "I love you."

"I love you too," my arms embraced her tightly.

She told me even more; my mother encouraged her to be with Stefano because when Minerva was younger, her uncles molested her constantly. That's one of the reasons why she fell so quickly and was desperate to seal the deal; Stefano treated her right from the beginning.