Page 40 of Arianna

The warm comfort of my mother’s smile and our mother-son time on top of a roof in the middle of a freezing night. Maybe that is why my daughter’s room is decorated with stars and moons. From the paintings on the wall to the bedding. Everything.

I hired a home designer to take care of it. When she asked me what I wanted to do with the room, I told her to surprise me and surprise me she did because the moment I stepped foot inside the room with my baby in my arms, I felt my mother’s presence all around us.

Although I am a nonbeliever in paranormal nonsense and the afterlife, I choose to believe that somehow my mother’s loving presence hugs my child while she sleeps at night.

Then to mess more with my head, the girl I didn’t quite see coming was born in December on the exact night a solar eclipse took place. The moon passed between Earth and the Sun the night she was born, of course.

Luna is her middle name.

An Italian given name that means moon. In Roman mythology, Luna is the divine personification of the moon.

Rare and beautiful, like her.

Fuck.

And it is even more absurd how I am aware of all this.

When I learned her birth date, I recalled what I was doing that night. I don’t remember half the shit I did in my youth, but somehow that moment was clear as day.

Now, whenever I think of my mother and our times together watching the sky, I think of Arianna Parisi.

A vibration coming from my suit jacket brings me back to the present. I reach for my phone and notice a text message from Sandoval.

Sandoval: There is no trace of that parasite. It is as if the earth parted and hell swallowed him up. The goddamn cunt.

Parasite.

That is a name fitting for the once Parisi boss.

I type a quick reply and pocket my phone inside my suit, not wanting to spoil this day with dirty business concerning the same girl that's about to be called on stage any moment now.

If only that rat bastard of a father could see her now.

She did what most women in the world she was born into could not.

She made something of herself and didn’t become what was expected of her.

No longer a mafia princess but a brilliant young woman with the world at her feet.

Because whether she sees it or not, the world is hers for the taking. All she must do is grab it by its balls and make it her own.

How far I have come from wanting to use the girl for my own selfish gains to hurt her father to now moving sea and land to witness her thrive.

Ring, ring, ring.

Taking the phone out again, I answer, already aware of the caller.

“She did it, man.” Banning’s voice sounds over the loud noise of the crowd gathered at Arianna’s graduation. I sit back in the back seat of the Bentley in the parking lot outside of the center where the ceremony is being hosted. I stayed back, not wanting to steal the attention from her. Besides, the girl is not fond of me. My presence will only sour her day.

“Did you ever doubt her?” I did not. The moment I first looked into her eyes, I saw something in them that I see every time I look at myself in the mirror. The hunger for knowledge and the thirst for success. It was all there, even when she tried so hard to keep her emotions in check.

“Fuck, no. Try and doubt that girl, and she’ll show you.” Banning laughs with a familiarity that does not sit well with me. When the unusual feeling of jealousy starts creeping in, I crush it with the reminder that I have no right to feel such things for her. “I’m sure she would appreciate seeing your ugly face in the crowd rooting for her.”

I almost scoff at that.

I am sure she would not.

I am not only the man that stole what she values most in her life, her freedom, but also the same man that has a score to settle with her family.

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