Tempted By The Mafia Boss

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Mimi

I get that feeling again where the conflict of emotion warring inside me is so strong I don’t know what to feel.

Panic.

Terror.

Love…

How can I look at this man before me and not feel love?

I met him when I was four and I swear to God I felt it back then. I’d put my name to it that it’s true. I think it’s true. I look at him and I know it for truth.

As he stares back at me I see love sparkling deep in his eyes. I see that and the dark edge of goodbye. Goodbye, if this doesn’t work. If he can’t disarm the bomb.

I know him.

He was speaking to someone who could help. The only way he could look the way he does right now is if they told him it might not work.

Salvatore won’t tell me that part though. He won’t.

We have less than five minutes now.

So little time so I’m going to say all that matters. Just in case it doesn’t work.

He smiles and reaches out to touch my face.

“Thank you for staying with me,” I mutter and return the smile. My face still hurts from the way Marc beat me. I’m in pain but I’m smiling at my man.

“Babygirl where else am I going to be?” He gives me that sexy smirk and smooths his hand over my jaw to cup my face. “I can’t let you go Mimi. I can’t…What I said before the other day… I can’t do it. I can’t be without you.”

As he speaks the words love pushes through the swirl of emotion. It comes through and I feel it so strong it could be a tangible entity before me.

“Well… just like always I wasn’t going to listen.” I don’t know where I’ve summoned humor from but it’s here. “I wasn’t going anywhere. I figured I’d spend the rest of my life trying to find ways to keep you. Make up some excuse to see you. Then you’d just get tired of me and give in.”

He laughs. “I think that would have worked. But I’m getting to be an old man now Maria Cipriani, and I can’t keep chasing after you.”

“You are not old.” I chuckle.

“Baby, fucking hell, by the time that plan of yours comes to fruition I’ll be using a walking stick. I like… I like my version of that plan better. Or rather my plan. In my plan we get to the part where I give in to you a lot faster. I sell the apartment and we buy a nice big house in the suburbs.”

“You’d sell your apartment?” I raise my brows.

“Yeah. We get married next spring and have four kids. It’ll be way too small babygirl.”

My God… I want that. That sounds like a dream my whole being would kill for.

“We have four kids?” I ask, touching his face. I don’t need to ask about anything else. If he says we’ll be married next spring, that’s what we’ll be doing.

“Two girls who look just like you and two boys.”

“I love it. Yes, let’s go with your plan.”

He nods his agreement and we smile at each other but when his smile recedes mine does too and we look down at the timer together.

Three minutes. That’s all we have left.

Three minutes.

He presses his forehead to mine then kisses me.

“I love you Mimi,” he tells me. “I’ve always loved you baby.”

“I love you, too,” I tell him. “Always.”

Blowing out a sharp breath, he lifts the edge of the blue wire and holds the knife to it. But his eyes are on me.

One quick snap of the wire and we both look down to the timer…

It’s… it’s turned off.

Oh God…It’s off!

We look back to each other and he reaches for me again, grabbing me and hugging me hard against his chest as I break down.

A gasp falls from my lips and on that release of air, I break.

I’m grateful. I’m definitely grateful for the second chance at life we both have, but I break down and cry for everything.

Everything.

All the loss, the grief, the pain.

But he holds me.

Salvatore holds me, steadying me like an anchor. His touch reminds me that I may be broken inside, but I have him and as long as I do he will always fix me and make me whole.

No matter what happens.

My boy will always be there to save me.

The next three weeks are undoubtedly the hardest I’ve ever faced in my life.

Two funerals happen.

One for Sorcha and the other for Dad.

Dad’s was today.

Sorcha’s was last week and it was …awful, just awful.

From the gathering of over two hundred people to the way they all grieved.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that the way Vincent grieved was something beyond anything anyone could describe.

It made me feel guilty.

It made me feel completely out of place although her death wasn’t my fault.

Guilt just for being Joey Cipriani’s daughter was enough.

It’s the same guilt I feel now as I stand here by Dad’s gravesite at the Cipriani family plot.

I’m here again, fifteen years later. Another parent this time, yet the day feels the same.

Guilt consumes me because I feel like I’m a traitor too. My father is responsible for the deaths of people I loved.

It feels like I shouldn’t be here and all through the planning of the funeral it felt like I should have no part of it.

Yet…

I had to bring principle back to the forefront of my mind and remember he was my father.

Greed made him do what he did and he got in too deep. As to whether he tried to get out, I don’t know. I don’t think he wanted to. I don’t think he wanted trouble but I don’t think he cared about anyone besides himself, and me.

That is my assessment of him and I won’t kid myself into thinking that the last time I saw him where he tried to save me somewhat was anything in the way of redemption.

It wasn’t.

Not for the man who killed my mother and did so much wrong.

When I told everyone that Dad killed Mom they couldn’t believe it. The knowledge however completed the picture for them and I was just grateful they didn’t hate me.

I didn’t expect anyone to be here for me the way they were when Mom died and I didn’t ask.

Besides they had enough to worry about with Gabe.

Gabe is in a coma.

Gabe has been in a coma for the last three weeks.

He took a bullet in his chest. If he dies I won’t know what to do or how to feel. I just pray the next funeral I attend won’t be his.

That is my prayer as I stand here.

I pray Gabe won’t be next.

The funeral has been over for close to an hour but I’m still here just looking.

Gina was the last to leave with my relatives.

I sent her home because I didn’t want to talk.

Gina’s a talker. She believes in talking it out, even small talk.

I can’t do it when I feel like this.

A trickle of water drips onto my knuckles.

Rain…

Of course that’s what’s missing from the day.

It rained when Mom was buried. The sky cracked open and poured from the heavens. I look up at the gray angry clouds above me as it starts to drizzle.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

I should go.

I should leave but I can’t quite make myself do it.

Returning my gaze to the freshly laid earth on the grave and the cascade of red roses, I shake my head like I’m shaking my head at him.

Maybe it would hurt less if he was horrible to me.

Maybe it would make me feel better if I hated him. What I hate now is that I still have the love I’ve always felt because he was my father and I’m grieving. I hate that I’m grieving for a man who truthfully was a monster.

“I wish you didn’t do it. I wish you didn’t do it Papa. Any of it. I loved you so much. Look at us now,” I say.

I hate crying. It makes me feel weak and I’m anything other than that, but no strength on earth can will the tears away.

But… just like that day so long ago as the tears come warm fingers cover mine.

I never even heard him approach.

Salvatore.

He’s here and he’s not alone.

They came too.

Nick, Julian and Angela and … Vincent.

Vincent…

When I look to him he tips his head in reverence as do the others. I look to Nick and remember him calling me a Giordano.

No way did I expect this.

Not any of it.

But I know why they’re here.

They’re here for me.

It’s a comfort that’s more than I could ever ask for.

“Thank you…” I whisper looking at each of them.

Salvatore takes me into his arms and holds me as the tears come harder. My soul weeping.