Finding Beauty in the Darkness

This just reminds me how different Aria is from my family, from my life. She doesn’t belong here. She’s full of life and energy. These past couple weeks, watching Aria revert back to what I assume is her old self has been nothing short of amazing to watch, and I’m thinking this is only the beginning. She’s carefree and fun and doesn’t take much seriously.

She eats junk food at midnight and watches crap television. She steals my phone daily to snap pictures of everything that captures her attention. She wears what she wants and speaks her mind. Her being here in my parents’ home for only a short time has already begun to diminish the beauty and aura which surrounds her. I need to find Weston and figure out what he has up his sleeve so I can take care of him and then set Aria free. It was selfish to ever think I could in some way keep this girl for myself.

“Mom, is dinner ready?” I break the silence, ignoring the comments about the movie and junk food.

“Yes, let’s all go sit at the table.”

Aria excuses herself to use the bathroom and when she gets to the table, Cecilia is sitting on one side of me and my mother is on the other side. When my mother told everyone where to sit, I didn’t want to draw attention to Aria by suggesting she should sit next to me, but the look in her eyes—jealousy? Hurt? I don’t know—has me wishing I would have taken a stand.

My mom has her sit next to Nico and across from Cecilia on the other side of the table. The meal goes smoothly for the most part. Aria eats quietly, and Nico engages her in some conversation. My dad asks her a few questions, but she sticks to polite responses. knowing my family is simply fishing for answers. After dessert, I announce we need to get going.

“Would you mind giving me a ride home?” Cecilia asks too sweetly. “When the guys returned, I had Rome give me a ride over since he said he was coming back to pick you up anyway. My car is acting up.” Somehow, I doubt her new Mercedes is acting up, but I’m not up for arguing.

“Sure.” I stand and give my parents a hug, Stefan a handshake, and slap Nico on the back before we head out. Aria quietly says goodbye and Cecilia goes around the room giving hugs and kisses to everyone.

The ride home is filled with Cecilia talking to me about La Stella business. Aria remains quiet, looking out the window, and my fingers twitch, wanting to pull her into my side and tell her not to take any of this personal, but knowing this is probably for the best. My life, my family, my business, none of it could ever fit in with the person Aria is.

When we arrive back at home, Aria quickly excuses herself. I let her go and head to my office to get some work done. While I’m checking on the books for the loans I have out, Johnny knocks and comes in.

“Boss, I have some info on Antonio Torino.” I close out what I’m working on to give him my full attention.

“What did you find out?”

“Unless it’s a coincidence, Antonio Torino is the son of Anthony Torino.”

Shit, that’s where I recognized the last name from. The Torino organization. “He has an organization in New York. And if I’m thinking of the same guy, he owns a real estate company over there, which is worth millions.”

“Yep, that’s the guy,” Johnny says. “He doesn’t seem to have any ties to the Lorenzo organization, but I’m going to keep digging.” What the fuck was Aria doing dating the son of a mob boss?

“All right, we need to confirm this is the same guy. Why the hell would he give Aria his real last name?”

“It might have been an oversight on his part or maybe he didn’t have anything hide.” I glare at Johnny because he knows better than that bullshit. “Yeah, I know. That sounded stupid as fuck. If he’s the son of a mob boss, he’s in deep.”

“I’m going to talk to Aria. See if I can find out anything else. We need to get into that house and get inside those safes.”

“You got it.”

I walk Johnny out of my office and head upstairs to find Aria. When she isn’t in our room—Jesus, I just referred to my room as ours—I start my search for her. I text Rome and Caesar and they both tell me they didn’t know they were supposed to be watching her. When we got home, I didn’t give them any instructions. I text them back to find her—fuck! It goes without saying they should always be watching her!