Enzo “We’re taking bets!” my cousin Marcello announces as I load my weapon, trying to get a glimpse of my wife. “Fifty bucks say she takes you out first, Enzo,” Sergio says, loyal to a fault but he saw the shot Alessandra fired in the training yard and he's seen me with her, there's no god-damned way that I'm going to fire at my wife so one of them better fire when I'm not looking because I don't care if they're on my team, I will be taken out. “Hundred says she takes you out,” I grin, loading my paintballs. “Better hope your wife still likes you after this,” my sister Isabella grins, pulling her hair back into a bun. “I saw how she adjusted her scope. That was personal.” I'm about to tell her I'd rather it be personal but then the horn blares across the field, loud and sharp and we all scatter. We are in teams of six and somehow Alessio ended up on my wife's team, claiming that it was a random draft. I take cover behind a rusted barrel, heart hammering in my chest, not b
Picolina talks to her dolls as she lays out several of them on top of a huge dollhouse rooftop, where there's a pool and beach umbrellas. I watch in awe, I don't remember ever playing with them, but I reckon kids name inanimate objects. “Do they have names?” I ask her.“Yes but this one doesn't,” she grabs a doll, handing it to me. It feels strange to hold a doll, not even when Reina was little did I touch one. “I just got her yesterday so you can name her.”“Umm,” my heart starts pounding. I've never had to name anything before, even my favourite blade is called Freedom, I am terrible at this but Picolina stares at me expectantly. “Elsa,” I blurt out.“Like frozen!” she beams.“Yes.” I nod, proud I know one cartoon. I related with Elsa for a little while but then she was free and got her happy ever after, something I never get because girls who hurt people go to hell.Picolina grabs a doll, a pretty doll dressed like Sofia, all pink.“Hello Miss Elsa,” Picolina says, the pitch of her
Alessandra Everything is going great, Father told me he's fully assembled nearly everyone he needs for his plan of cancelling out Enzo as the next Capo dei Capi, some refused to join the 'movement' as he's calling it, those are wise men. Enzo has yet to catch wind of what is happening right under his nose, and I must say, I find it thrilling to hold such power over him. He's a man that will never get up control, not in the bedroom, not out here and so taking it from him is the only way out. Speaking of out, I want out of this union before I fall deeply in love with him. If I hadn't heard what he thinks of me that morning when he thought it was just him and his right hand? I would believe he loved me. He says it with such ease and is devastatingly affectionate with me, the whole I've between us has changed since he rescued me from myself four days ago. Tomorrow is Saturday and we get to play paintball with Alessio and almost the whole family, he's made it into a competition, and
“It's an example, Dolcezza. There are no women.” “I would hope not,” she calmly says. “I thought it went without saying you can't have other women along with me.” “There are no other women, Dolcezza.” I try to assure her. Maybe I should've voiced that differently because the look in her eyes makes my chest tighten. “I love you, you're my wife and if I wasn't clear enough before? You're the only woman I want, Alessandra Valenti.” “What about those other women you're talking about?” “It was an expression,” I tell her, trying not to smile at her adorable glaring. “The wrong expression, I'm sorry but I was trying to say is that you're not reacting like I thought you would.” “How was I to react?” her eyebrows crease.“Scared,” I tell her, hardly ashamed I tried to scare my wife into cuddling me. “A friend of mine saw this with his wife a while ago and she was calling him until he ran back home to her. I was expecting you to leap into my laugh not giggle at the screen.”Her lips twit
“You have no idea what I've been through thanks to you.” I do, and I hate that she didn't have anyone to protect her. “You should have told me, Usagi-chan.” “Told you what?” she asks, a hint of worry of worry in her tone. I hesitate before I speak the words that have been haunting me in the dark. My wife has chosen not to have children until she's forty, she's made all the necessary medical backup preparations In case it doesn't happen naturally and I respect that, it being her body and all. We're both thirty-three, and I'm willing to wait, but knowing Sofia had my baby inside her feels unreal, it feels like destiny, a destiny Enzo swooped from us. “You should have told me you were pregnant, that you were carrying my baby inside you.” Silence, that's what I hear for the next few seconds, accompanied by heavy breaths. “I wasn't carrying your baby,” she says, and for a second I'm wondering if her father lied to me. “I was carrying the grief, regret, betrayal and shame that y
Sang-Yeon Ever since Don Dante Romano left my home four days ago, I've felt an unfamiliar unease. I don't want to say his visit brought about my thoughts of his daughter Sofia, but it may have contributed. I often think of her, but never this much. Sofia was engaged to Enzo when I met her, I commented on her being pretty little did I know I was setting the trap for us both. Enzo is smart, there's nobody I hate more than him but I'll give credit where it's due. Baiting me into fucking his fiance was good, he got a whole new territory, broke my fucking jaw and took over my shares in a new real estate merger all in the name of being the heartbroken fiance. My wife is asleep in our bedroom, snoring soundly as I toss and turn, knowing what happened to Sofia makes for newfound guilt that I can't even stomach. I've done horrible things, things that would get me sent straight to hell but even then I've had no trouble sleeping, only thoughts of her keep me awake. I grab my phone and chec