Page 124 of Fortress of the Soul

“You could never be like that, E. You know that, right?”

“I know it now, but when I was younger, it was my biggest fear.”

“Thank you for sharing with me. I know it can’t be easy, even after all these years.”

“It isn’t,” he admits. “But my mom and I got out; we were lucky. The asshole just fell into the cracks, and we never saw him again after that. Best thing she ever did was leave him.”

“To have the strength to leave that situation… your mom is amazing.”

He strokes my cheek with his hand. “Enough about me. Your mom seemed good today.”

“Yes, I can see that spark coming back already.”

“The rehabilitation will be a good thing to make sure she can get back to her normal duties in time. She just needs to take it slow.”

“Totally agree.” Ma has an hour or two of rehabilitation therapy, which will be on going as they track her progress. From what we can gather from the doctors, she appears to have been lucky and not suffered major problems. She will need to slowly rebuild her strength again and make some lifestyle changes. “I feel so lucky to have her here; it could have been so much worse.” I don’t need to count my blessings because I already do that morning, noon, and night.

“She’s definitely a fighter.”

“It makes me wonder how she’s coped all these years without my Pa,” I confess, seeing as we’re in the mood for admissions. “She always speaks of him so highly. I know she misses him.”

“I’m sorry that you didn’t get to know him. From what I remember as a kid, and I was pretty young at the time, he was a great man. Everyone respected him. People parted to let him through on the street.”

I smile. “Things would have been so much different, though, if he wasn’t who he was, right?” I say sadly.

I’ve battled with this for years. Is it just how your cards are dealt?

There is no changing anything, not when you’re born into the Mafioso, but if he wasn’t who he was, it probably never would have happened.

There is always so much risk being born into a family like mine, and though I’ve grown up relatively normal, it does sometimes beg the question about your constant safety.

There is always someone, somewhere, waiting to do you harm. To hurt you to get to the ones that love you the most.

Angelo is very precise with how he does his dealings, and although I am not involved at all with the business, I know that he rules things in the correct manner. People respect him, just like they did Papa and Mario.

He doesn’t make waves with others just for the fun of it. There would be no point in that. There are things that are important to him to eradicate; like people trafficking, child abuse, things that that usual mafia wouldn’t care about.

I know that he is very highly respected because of the way he handles such things. He does have a moral code and that probably isn’t how it normally is in the mafia. I’m glad that he does. It makes me proud of him.

“It’s the age-old question,” Enzo says sleepily to my question about the cards being dealt that way. “No point going down that road, baby. We can’t change anything.”

“I can kind of see why Katiya almost despises coming from a mafia family. It can be difficult.” Katiya’s Uncle Aleksi is well known around Massachusetts for being head of the Russian Bratva and Katiya was sheltered for the most part.

How she ended up with my brother, second in line to the Boston mafia, is beyond me. But like how I’ve heard a zillion times; love works in mysterious ways. Sometimes things just work, and she seems more than happy to keep out of all thing’s mafia related.

“You can’t blame her in some respects, it can’t be easy sometimes for you girls.”

“It can be quite overwhelming.” Katiya has told me numerous times she’s had Aleksi’s top guys, Maxim and Dimitri, follow her around for basically her entire life like chaperones.

She was certainly used to the lack of privacy and having a lot of decisions made for her. Now it seems her uncle approves of the union, which is also a miracle in and of itself. It’s early days for her and Marco, but I hope they make it work. I like Katiya. She has a spirit that reminds me of myself sometimes.

“Come to think of it, Marco has been a lot nicer to me lately… did that have anything to do with you?”

Enzo chuckles in the dark and leans forward to kiss me. “Don’t know what you are talking about.”

I laugh too, loving how we can be like this, wrapped up in each other’s arms with easy conversation. I also learned some extreme new facts about Enzo tonight with his confessions about his father. While my heart aches for him and his mom and what they suffered, I feel honored that he was able to share it with me. It tells me a lot.

“You think Rocco saw us kissing in the car?” I quickly ask.

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