Page 61 of DeLucas After Dark

“I was looking forward to baking and shopping with my mama. We get most of our shopping out of the way early on, but we enjoy running to the mall for last-minute items and being squeezed in with the crowds. Baking the weekend before Christmas is a big thing, and it won’t happen this year.”

“Yes, hell, it will, girl. Maybe your parents won’t be involved, but we’re going to bake our asses off this week. On Christmas morning, we’re gonna be fat, drunk, full, and happy. I can promise you that,” she says just as the door bangs open, and her seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Bianca, comes rushing in.

“Mommy! Mommy! Uncle Marco says we can start baking Christmas cookies.”

Right on Bianca’s heels is her baby brother, eighteen-month-old Aris, who looks just like his father except for his mother’s caramel coloring.

Mila looks at me, winks, and says, “Girl, I guess that’s our queue to get moving. Girl talk is over.”

Laughing, I follow her to the kitchen.

MARCO

Ipull a hand down my beard and nervously glance around.

“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?” Alessandro, my younger brother, asks.

Tossing my hands in the air, I pace back and forth on the patio. We’re both dressed warmly to ward off the cold. Me in my cobalt blue Stefano Ricci cashmere coat with its mink fur collar and Alessandro with his double-breasted wool coat, neither of us is feeling anything.

I toss my cigar into the snow and stub it with the toe of my alligator Paolo Scafora shoes.

“Think she’s gonna be pissed when she sees how you’re ruining this perfect snow?” Ales asks, stubbing out his cigar and then placing it in the outdoor ashtray.

Bending, I pick up my cigar and toss it into the same receptacle. Shrugging, I reply, “Piper likes to think that all things are beautiful and that we can be protected from the ugliness of this world if we choose to.”

My brother smooths the hairs of his right eyebrow with his index finger. “Of course, you know better.”

Shrugging again, I reply, “Not only do I know better, but I’m also a part of that horror. As much as I want to protect her from it, I can’t protect her from all aspects. The sooner she learns that and that it’s not a reflection of my love if I fail to, the better off we’ll be.”

“The parents.”

Nodding, I say, “Assholes are so goddamned full of themselves. If I didn’t think it would hurt her more, I’d have a bullet placed between the eyes of her bitch of a mother and the spineless coward she calls Dad.”

“Sounds like you weren’t very convincing at brunch earlier.”

“Not really. I chose not to scare the shit out of them. But I’m second-guessing if that was the right move.”

“How do you think she’ll feel about Saturday if her parents aren’t here?”

“Piper’s about to be my wife soon, and some harsh realities I can’t protect her from.”

“Like the one where you might not walk back through those doors one night?”

“Exactly.”

“It’s why I didn’t take the underboss position. Mila, Bianca, and Aris were worth it to me.”

“She’s worth it to me. It’s just who I am, Ales. The mafia is in my blood. I live and breathe for the family, and without it, I might go fucking insane.”

My younger brother laughs and says, “The fact that you can say that shit with a straight face lets me know just how crazy you are.”

“I want her to be happy, but she has to choose to be. Some shit’s out of my hands. Whether or not her parents show up for her, for us, for our future, that’s not shit I can control. Whether she allows that to ruin us or make her stronger is in her hands. It’s up to her to be happy no matter how fucked up her parents are.”

My brother grips my shoulder and says, “As long as you know that, then you’ll be fine.”

“I was wondering where the two of you disappeared to in this big-as-fuck-for-nothing cozy cabin. Cozy cabin, my ass,” Niccolò says, narrowing his eyes through a plume of smoke as he steps up onto the patio.

He appeared from somewhere on the side of the house.

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