Page 42 of Married to the Mafia Devil

The next day…

The sunshine is warm on my skin, a gentle reminder of simpler times as Amelia and I sit on a park bench, enveloped by the cheerful chirps of nearby birds and the distant laughter of children playing. It feels peaceful here, almost like a different world from the one I've been living in.

It’s like we’ve gone back to our childhood, to when Mom was alive, before Dad started drinking. “Remember falling off that slide in Hannigan’s Park?” I ask.

“Still got the scar,” she replies, lifting her hair to reveal the faint line on her forehead. “You pushed me down too fast.”

“You told me to. I just did what I was told.”

“Mom was so angry with us.” Her face lights me up with a smile, “You won't believe what I did yesterday—I walked around the block all by myself. No panic, no turning back.”

“Believe you?” I respond. “I knew you could do it. Look at you, just sitting here in a park without a care in the world.”

She nods, her expression softening. “I couldn’t have done this without your help. This therapy... it's really working, you know?”

“I can tell.” I smile, but there's a heaviness in my chest as I think about the source of the financial help.

“Where is he? I should thank your new husband and I haven’t even met him yet.”

“He’s actually away for a few days. When he comes back, he wants a decision…” My voice trails off, the weight of that impending choice pressing down on me, heavy and suffocating like a blanket that's both comfort and confinement.

“About what?” Her voice is soft, threading through the tense silence that stretches between us.

“He gave me an out,” I finally say. “Told me I could leave and he’d still pay for your therapy, pay for a new apartment for us in a better neighborhood, even pay for me to go to college.” I pause, swallowing the lump forming in my throat. “I could become a counsellor like I promised Mom.”

Her eyes remain on me, steady and unblinking, as if trying to read the layers of fear, uncertainty, and hope that surely lay bare before her.

“But why would he do that? Why give you such an easy way out?” she probes further, her voice a mix of curiosity and concern.

“Because he’s not that bothered whether or not I stay with him?”

“Or because he loves you. He wants you to choose freely, without any strings. He believes that’s what love is—letting the other person choose their own path without fear or obligation.”

“What makes you think that?”

“What do you think love is?” she asks, her question slicing through the fog of doubts that cloud my thoughts.

I ponder her question, the answer swirling within me like a leaf caught in a whirlwind. “I used to think love was about holding on as tight as you could, never letting go.”

“Do you love him?” she asks then, her voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might break the delicate balance of my decision. “Do you want to hold on tight to him?”

“Yes, but–“ The word hangs between us, fraught with all the buts I’ve ever thought, every hesitation that’s held me back.

“If you love him, nothing else matters,” she cuts in, her statement simple yet profound, like a key turning smoothly in a long-locked door.

“He’s killed people, Amelia. He punched this guy right in front of me a couple of days ago. Do I really want someone like that to be the father of my children?”

“A protective billionaire who you openly describe as hot as all the fires of hell? You’re really considering leaving him when you clearly love him?”

“Would you stay with a killer?”

“The people he killed, were they bad people?”

“The worst.”

“And you love him?”

“It’s like there are two sides of him. And I’m constantly wondering which is more real.”

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