Page 27 of Brando

Later, when the corridors are empty and the lights dim, I slip out to the balcony overlooking the city. The air is crisp, the distant sound of traffic filtering through the night. I pull out my phone, hesitating before I dial Mia’s number.

She answers on the third ring, her voice sleepy but warm. “Brando? Is Allegra okay? Did she have the baby?”

“Baby Scarlett,” I respond, still in awe over the miniature Gatti.

There’s a pause, and then softly, “She must be beautiful.”

I lean against the railing, letting out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. “She is. You’ll meet her soon.”

Ending the call, I stare out at the sprawling darkness of the city—my city. My family's legacy and burden weigh heavily on me tonight, mingled with an unexpected glimmer of hope that maybe things are starting to fall into place for all of us.

Scar and Allegra are finally happy and they’ve welcomed their first child into the world.

Mia and I—our re-connection is something unexpected, powerful yet fraught with complications. Like two worlds colliding that were never meant to meet.

Rafi and Lucky…well, they’re just Rafi and Lucky, but they’re young, and eventually, they’ll also find their way.

The path that got us all here started with a blood oath thirty years ago, a blood oath that continues to bind us to this day, weaving its way into our daily lives. Allegra, one half of that blood oath, is the glue that binds us together, and Scar, our long-suffering older brother and the other half of the blood oath, is the glue that will keep us together.

After leaving the hospital,I drive around for hours trying to ditch the conflicting feelings I have for Mia. I haven’t seen her since I left the bed in the early morning hours when I got the call about Allegra going into labor, yet thoughts of her consumed me in the hours I was away. She was all I could think about; even when I held baby Scarlett in my arms for the first time, no matter how brief, all I could think about was how I wanted to be sharing the moment with her. All I felt was the acute loss of her absence during what was essentially one of the happiest moments of my life, welcoming my first niece into the world.

The only thing I could think while I waited with my brothers to welcome Scarlett is that one day, I hoped that would be me. I hoped that I’d be welcoming my own child into the world. And I hoped that I’d be doing that with Mia. Because anytime I imagined my future, she was always in it. In the collective images swimming in my head, she was the woman in my life, and she was the mother of my children. Despite the many years of absence, and all the random girls in-between over the years, she was still the woman my mind imagined into every scene of my future.

When I get home, I change into sweats and a t-shirt and walk to her room. I suddenly can’t stand the cold suffocation of my own empty room without her. I stand beside the bed, watching her as she sleeps, her soft exhalations wrapping around me like a warm blanket designed to keep out the cold. It’s taken me years to build the resilient walls that protect me from any sort of emotional injury, and now in just a few days, Mia has startedto chip away at my icy façade, daring me to be someone I’m not. She wants the boy I once was, but that boy is long gone. She wants the innocence of our youth, but that trust was demolished the minute she let Frank Falcone put his hand in hers. She wants the old Brando, the one that no longer exists, the version of me I’m not sure I can ever recover.

Without thinking, I slide into the bed, easing myself under the covers, spooning her body gently. She stirs, her breath tickling my neck. Tenderly, I brush stray strands of hair away from her face and plant a gentle kiss on her temple. My hand glides down her semi-naked body, coming to rest possessively on her hip bone. She moans softly in response.

“Brando…” She mumbles my name as her eyes flutter open softly and she gropes for me in the dark. There’s a certain sort of desperation in the way her hands clench at my t-shirt and she lifts the fabric so we’re skin to skin.

Our bodies slide against each other, moving together with an almost magnetic attraction. Mia arches her back and meets my gaze with a smoldering intensity that arouses a primal instinct within me. I move my hand between her thighs, my fingers tracing invisible patterns on her skin before venturing closer to the center of her heat, teasing and exploring between her folds. Even in the deepest throes of her sleep, she is ready for me, wet and waiting, her body expanding to meet my ministrations. I bring my hand away and raise it to my lips, licking one, then two, then the third finger, inhaling her juices like it’s the only source of air available to me.

Her lidded eyes seduce me as she lets out a moan, before she pushes me back onto the bed and climbs onto me until she’s straddling my body. She presses her lips to mine, devouring me with unrestrained urgency. Her body grinds against mine as she breaks away, and suddenly she’s fumbling with her tank, pulling it over her head until her tits are in my face and I’m buried inthem, sucking on one and then the other until their peaks are sharp points.

Her nails slide down my chest and she pauses, looking at the ink that decorates my skin. She’ll need hours, days even, to decipher every intricate little swirl that leads into the next, and I think she understands this, because she bites her lip and lifts her eyes to meet mine, drunk on the feeling of what’s to come.

My own body is reacting to her emboldened touch, and I lift my knees enough to have my rock-hard dick press into her back, letting her know how hungry I am for her.

“I missed you today,” she tells me. Her hair is a beautiful messy halo around her face as her eyes seduce me.

“Show me how much you missed me.” My voice is hoarse, strangled, my dick twitching painfully, begging for release.

Mia doesn’t hesitate. She slides down my body until she’s sitting between my legs, then pushes my sweats down, licking her lips when she realizes I’ve ditched my boxers. She wastes no time; three seconds of looking at the tip as it throbs angrily, and she dives onto my shaft, taking me into her mouth. Her fingers massage the base of my dick as she moves up and down, her tongue lapping at my skin. My hand goes to the back of her head, holding her steady, even as she insists on pushing me in deeper, until I am hitting the back of her throat and she’s moaning in satisfaction.

Her movements become more demanding and urgent, while my breaths transform into ragged pants as I feel her urging my climax out of me. I’m so close to coming. I pull out of her mouth and hold the base, choking my orgasm back. When I come tonight, it’s going to be inside her.

She scrambles onto her knees, removes her panties quickly, and climbs onto me. She’s so wet, I glide into her effortlessly. When I’m sheathed inside her, she holds still, my dick buried all the way inside her. Then she starts to move. Small little gallops,her hands on my chest, her eyes glued to mine. She moans. She says my name. She rides me like her life depends on it, grinding onto me until I’m hitting the back of her walls. Her pace picks up and I buck with her, feeling our united impending climax. And then she throws her head back, her long hair trailing past her shoulders, and she screams my name with such abandon, I can almost hear the walls weep.

Afterwards, we lay in bed, her head on my chest, her hair fanned out as I play with it. She has a strong thigh curled around mine, and her fingers trace the lines of ink across my chest. There are no words we could speak after what’s happened between us. There is no emotion I could assign to describe the completeness I feel being inside her, sleeping beside her, just being in the room with her. It was her when we were children, and it’s her now, but in two very different ways. We’re not the same people now as we were back then, and I know that could be the reason we fit so perfectly right now. Our time has come.

Mia breaks into my reverie as she continues to slide her fingers across my chest.

“When did you get your first tattoo?” she asks.

“When I was eighteen. I tried when I was seventeen, but Scar swore he’d give me a hiding.” I scoff at the memory. “Still gave me a hiding when I got my first at eighteen.”

“Which one was it?”

“It was the phoenix at my neck.”

---