Page 70 of Inherting the Mafia

There was no happiness in the smile on my uncle's face when he turned to look at me, just sadness. "His name was Leonardo Borelli. I met him the summer I turned sixteen. He was everything a red blooded teenager dreamed about. Handsome, charming, smart. He was perfect in every way."

I blinked in surprise. "You fell in love with a man?"

Granted, I'd never really seen my uncle with women, but I'd never seen him with men either. I always thought he was too dedicated to his job to be involved with someone.

Carmine's hands were shaking as he pulled his billfold out of his suit pocket, opened it, and then pulled out a faded photograph, handing it to me. "This was taken that summer."

It was an old faded photograph of two dark haired teenagers standing next to each other, arms around each other's shoulders. Any stranger looking at it could have easily thought they were just friends. I could see the glimmer in their eyes as they looked at one another.

"Knowing how things were in the mafia and that we were from different families, we decided we were going to run away together, but the night we planned to escape we got caught."

Uncle Carmine took the photo when I handed it back to him and stared down at it as if it was his most precious treasure. "They killed Leonardo right in front of me, but not beforetorturing us both first. They wanted to make sure we learned our lesson to not mess around with other men."

Carmine put the photograph away and then stared at me with tears in his eyes. "I didn't want that for you."

"Who did this?"

"Does it matter?" Uncle Carmine asked. "It was a long time ago, over fifty years. The people that killed Leonardo are long gone and buried and I've never repeated that mistake."

"So, what? You've been alone all these years?"

I'd at least fooled around a bit when I was out of town.

Carmine stared down a simple silver ring on his finger and smiled, again, not with happiness, but with sadness. "My heart will always belong to Leonardo. It doesn't matter if he is here or not."

Sadly, this was the kind of love I wanted. I just wanted it without the whole dead part.

I got up and walked around the coffee table before sitting down on it right in front of my uncle. I grabbed both of his hands with mine. "Uncle, you've always been someone I've admired and looked up to. You became a father figure to me when my parents died, but I can't live my life like you do. I want love in my life, even if it gets me killed."

I was praying it wouldn't.

"And you think you'll get that with a mafia boss?" Uncle Carmine asked.

"I think I'll get that with Tony. Him being a mafia boss has nothing to do with it."

"It has everything to do with it," Carmine insisted. "If the other families find out that the head of our family is gay, what do you think they will do?"

"Depends on the family. I'm pretty sure we're in the clear when it comes to the Borelli and Sabatino families. In fact, I think that it improves our chances of peace with them. That justleaves the Romano family and I am pretty sure they are the ones trying to wipe our family out, but that has nothing to do with me or Tony being gay."

"How do you know that?" Carmine asked. "It could have everything to do with you being gay."

"Because if it did, then why take out the entire D'Angelo family?" I was getting really tired of Uncle Carmine's denial. "If they wanted me dead, they could have just killed me, but instead, they took out the entire family. Why? Because I'm gay? Because Tony is gay? I don't buy that. They didn't know we are gay when they attacked us."

"How do you know?"

"Because I just came out of the closet yesterday."

And I had no plans on climbing back in.

Chapter Nineteen

~ Tony ~

I had been warned about Uncle Carmine, but seeing him in person and listening to the shit coming out of his mouth made me fume. This man was one of the reasons Vito hadn't been able to live his life to the fullest and felt ashamed of the things he desired.

I wanted to punch the man so badly I could practically feel the impact of my fist in his face. How dare he make Vito feel ashamed of something that he was born with, something that couldn't be changed.

Vito had been forced to hide a large part of himself his entire life and it was all due to sanctimonious assholes like Carmine.

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