“Huh?”
She just smiled.
It rang seconds later, when my mom was gone.
I answered it on the third ring. “Hello?”
“This is your mission if you choose to accept it.” Tank’s voice came on the line. “Look out the window and tell me yes or no.”
“What?” I laughed. “Are you drunk?”
“Just do it...” His voice was rough, dark. Mine.
“Fine…” I crawled off my bed and went over to the window, and gasped as I saw all of my friends and cousins standing outside.
They’d recreated Mexico in my backyard.
And in the very front was Tank, in a tux.
I would truly never recover from seeing that large man fit into a tux, his eyes bright.
He held the phone against his ear. “So, yes or no?”
“What are you asking?”
I nearly dropped the cell when he went down on one knee. “I was going to do this so many different ways, but I realized if I did it right in front of you, I’d sob like a baby, you’d call me out on it, and then I wouldn’t get through it.”
My eyes filled with tears. “Kartini Abandonato, I love you with my entire heart and soul. With my life. Will you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
I threw the phone onto my bed and sprinted.
I sprinted down the stairs and out the door, and in typical me fashion, I tackled that wonderful man onto the grass and kissed him.
When he came up for air, he asked, “Was that a yes?”
“Shut up!” I shoved him a bit then kissed him again. “And, yes, that’s a hell yes.”
“Ah, little girl always has to make a scene.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” His eyes filled with tears then.
He was on the Abandonato payroll and had been working a lot lately. I didn’t ask him about the blood on his hands or how he seemed to mature even more as the bosses asked him to move into the captain position under Nixon’s leadership.
I assumed he’d been stressed.
Not that he was planning this and nervous.
“Our lives won’t be normal,” I said once I stood and took his hand.
“Good.” He towered over me and pulled me into his arms. “I don’t want normal. I want this crazy girl with blue in her hair, who likes to defy authority.”
I lifted my chin. “A princess bows to no one.”
“True.”
“Except her king.” She winked and then did a little curtsy. “Your Majesty.”
With a growl, he pulled me into his arms again. “I’m so glad you’re mine.”
“Yours. Forever.”
Everyone cheered around us.
And when the music started, and I danced on Tank’s feet like I used to with my dad, I knew. I’d been forced to grow up, but I’d needed it.
From one true love to another.
From one mafia king to the next.
And when Dad looked away and swiped at his cheek just briefly…
I smiled.
Because I would always be his, too.
And he knew it.
* * * *