Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

“Will you?” Ricky asked, his eyebrows peaked and all-knowing.

“Well, what the hell am I supposed to do, Ricky? I can’t do this whole life that they do. I can’t be a part of the world that took our dad away. I can’t be part of the world that made Alessandro turn his back on me and turned our mother into a realistic, materialistic robot. This world consumes everyone in it, eventually. It’s going to take you, and if I let myself get too close to it, it’ll swallow me up, too!”

“You’re wrong,” Ricky said. “It’s not like that.”

I crossed my arms. “Oh, yeah? Where’s Marco?”

Ricky went silent. Marco was one of the four Varasso brothers, the second oldest under Luca. He and Ricky were almost as close as Ricky and Alessandro. For a long time, whenever I checked in with Ricky, he would tell me about what he, Marco, and Alessandro were up to. What part of the country they were in on any given day, or the silly things that Marco and Alessandro did in a vapid attempt to convince me of their humanity. It was rare to hear a story about Ricky’s day that didn’t involve Marco, and then, one day, he was gone. He was missing from all the stories. He wasn’t hanging around anymore, and Ricky wouldn’t even mention him in passing. If he’d died like the Varasso patriarch, I assume I would have heard, but the total absence of him meant he was likely in jail or on the run.

I coaxed Ricky. “I’m waiting.”

“He’s…” He turned his back to me and started for the stairs.

I followed him. “Exactly. Something happened to him, Ricky. I’m not dumb. You may not want to tell me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know.”

Ricky took a few strides up the stairs and then stopped and turned around. “There’s nothing wrong with loyalty, Willow. What our dad did, he did because he was loyal. Alessandro turning you down even though he’s so in love with you that he never got over you, that’s loyalty. You just packed up and moved to California and never looked back. You could pull a page from their book.”

I wasn’t sure where it had come from, but it probably had some tie to what had happened to Marco. I shook my head. “You’re blaming me?”

Ricky walke

d back down the stairs. “I’m…” He made a little noise and stomped his foot like a child throwing a temper tantrum. “Why does there have to be any blame at all? Why can’t we just be people who operate a little differently from the average folk? If someone like Alessandro loves you and wants to take care of you, what’s so wrong with that?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I replied, “but some wives have to deal with their husbands working too late or wanting to have a few too many beers with the guys. I would always have to be looking over my shoulder. I would never be at peace. I’d be with Alessandro, and sure that would make me happy, but the risk is not worth the reward.”

“Being with me would make you happy?”

Ricky and I looked over toward the front door, and Alessandro was standing there leaning against the doorframe. I didn’t even need to ask how he got in. Obviously, all of the Varassos had keys to the place. They owned it, after all.

“That’s what you took away from that?” I asked.

Like a rollercoaster headed downhill, my blood coursed faster and faster through my veins. Suited like he always was, Alessandro’s appearance was simply comforting to me. Some people liked the smell of their mom’s home cooking, but I had Alessandro’s ever-errant curls and cogitating gaze. I was trying to push my feelings back into their hiding place, but they were snaking across the ground toward his feet, pulling me toward him.

“Yeah,” he responded, “that’s what I took away from that.” He had a dumb smile on his face like the concept made him truly happy.

Ricky walked up to Alessandro and bumped forearms with him before walking through the door and closing it behind him, leaving Alessandro and me alone.

“Tell me more,” Alessandro said softly, “about how happy you would be.”

8

Alessandro

It might have been dumb for me to be on cloud nine from an isolated piece of the argument Willow was making to Ricky when I walked through the door, but I was. If nothing else, it meant I wasn’t alone. Willow still had feelings for me, too, and even if she felt like she couldn’t be with me for whatever reason, that was a hill I was willing to die on.

That or the hill that had her standing in front of me in a lime green two-piece bathing suit, with her hair framing her face in messy, uncombed after swimming curls. Even with her eyes narrowed in irritation and her hands on her hips, she was better looking than any of the models on any magazine or television show I’ve ever enjoyed. If I didn’t think she’d hit me, I’d tackle her to the ground on the spot.

“I know that you have a tendency not to hear everything that someone is saying to you, but I also said the risk would not be worth the reward,” Willow repeated.

“Yes, but would I be a reward?” I asked, and Willow rolled her eyes.

“You are insufferable,” she replied and started to make her way up the stairs. “Now, if you can go, I’m about to change and buy a ticket back home.”

Home.

What was the best way to tell her that I wanted to be her home, that I wanted her to be mine? Willow gave me feelings that I didn’t know I knew how to feel. I’d been reaching out for her longer than I realized, and all I wanted to do was get to her. To have her look at me honestly and tell me she wanted what I wanted, too. Was it such an impossibility?

I started up the stairs after her, taking the opportunity to admire her shapely form pushing the limits of the fabric. In the trend of people rating their lovers on a scale from one to ten, I would rate Willow at a solid ten thousand. I loved Willow for who she was as a person, but her sexiness was a big bonus.