“Yeah, we’re going to need to get a house,” Alessandro said instantly, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
It was over a year later, and Ricky and Sasha were still together. He was killing it as a defense attorney in L.A., and the media loved seeing him on Sasha’s arm during red carpet events and on social media.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Ricky asked.
“Nothing. Everything,” I replied.
We made our way to the top of the Varraso estate’s marvelous, curved staircases and looked down. People were sitting on either side of the foyer, in all manner of formal dress, looking up at us. We’d gone atypical, lining the foyer with chairs and placing our wedding arch right in front of the front yard fountain. The back fountain was prettier, but to be avoided due to bad memories. A quiet chorus of strings filled the air, and everyone stood up from their seats. Ricky led me carefully down the stairs, something we’d practiced about twelve dozen times to ensure that I wouldn’t fall. There were sniffles coming up from random spots across the crowd, and it took everything in me not to ruin my own makeup with emotions as well.
We walked between the two groups of people, not divided in any particular way, just interspersed with our family and friends. Toward the back of the seating were a majority of the Varasso’s lower men, and most of them had tears in their eyes. We continued on into closer family and friends. I spied my cousin Hannah and her husband sitting among the fray. We crossed through the door frame and down the front steps, where I could finally see Alessandro standing, waiting for me in front of the white-rose-covered arch. Gabriel stood behind him as his best man, followed by Luca and Marco. To the right, Sasha and Bella were already standing, in rose-colored dresses, smiling at me as I walked.
I grinned at the rest of our family. My parents and grandmother, all drenched in tears. Molly and Kelly, each with their children next to them. In Molly’s lap, waving at me with Molly’s aid, swiping her tiny hand up and down, was my baby girl, Alexis. We’d stuck with the theme of A-names in the family; Anna, Antonio, Amanda, and now Alexis. She had her dad’s curly brown hair all over her head, and our pristine blue eyes, with my freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. She squealed when she saw me, and I stopped briefly to walk over and give her a kiss on the forehead.
A second later, Alessandro was next to me, with his hand on my back, waving at Alexis. We started to walk away to continue with the ceremony, but the second we moved away, she started to scream. Everyone laughed as Molly tried to calm her, but she was reaching out for us and filling the entire, massive yard with her bellowing.
“Okay.” Alessandro stepped up and lifted her out of Molly’s hands. “I guess we’re getting married with a baby now.”
It seemed only fitting. Nothing with the Varassos was normal.
There was a time when that thought was daunting to me. I thought life was supposed to be normal, that the more par for the course things were, the greater chance life had of being easy. I wanted a life with Alessandro that didn’t have pressure. I guess I was afraid too much pressure would break us, as it had done so many times before. I’d seen the Varassos crack under pressure, all of them, Alessandro included. I’d seen the effect the life had on them, which was why I was so desperate to keep Alessandro out of it. He had responsibilities now, our little girl, and our ne
w lives. I demanded he take it seriously, and he did.
He enrolled in school not long after arriving in California. He’d always been a whiz with computers and techy stuff. It was something he found very interesting. Even though we did eventually move away from the apartment that sat next to the tech farm I’d told him about, it wasn’t long before he went over to inquire about a job. The people there were shocked to see him, never having had a guy of his stature walk in looking to work on computers before. They let him take up a low-level position while he worked on his degree, and once he graduated, he’d move up the ranks, probably at an alarming rate from how much they adored him.
Alessandro balanced Alexis in one arm, took my hand with the other, and walked us both to the arch. I giggled the entire time, as all throughout the priest’s speech and even through our vows, Alexis pulled at Alessandro’s hair and smacked at his face.
It was so unorthodox, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“Do you, Alessandro Vara—”
“I do,” Alessandro barely let the priest get the words out.
“Okay,” the priest said, turning toward me. He opened his mouth, but I held up my hand to stop him.
“I do.”
“Then, by the powers vested in me by the state of Philadelphia, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” He smiled at Alessandro. “You may kiss—”
Alessandro’s lips were on mine before he was even done with the order. When Alessandro pulled away, he grinned, swiping his thumb along my cheek. “Can’t really avoid the Varassos now. you are one.”
I smiled back at him. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.”
Alessandro Varasso was probably the only man I would have let convince me to be with him three different times, and now that I was his wife, I was going to have to get used to the craziness that came with that. My daughter would not be involved in the life, of that I was certain, but I had to accept what Alessandro had tried to convince me of all along. Family was more important than anything else, and as a Varasso, the mob was in your blood. We were looking at freedom for now, but it didn’t stop me from having a tiny bundle of nerves sparking at the back of my brain.
They took the form of Angelo Varasso saying, “Once you’re in, you never get out.”
Merciless Queen
1
Gabriel
I winced at the loud cracking as I twisted my head to the left and then the right. It was a new normal my body had developed. I was constantly sore all over as though I’d had the world’s longest workout the day before—cardio and strength. My back always felt tight, my bones were constantly cracking, and standing always caused a painful strain in my knees. I didn’t consider myself the same sprightly boy I’d once been in my teen years, but I was still in my early twenties. It didn’t make sense for my body to be abandoning me the way it was.
It was stress.
I was the youngest of four brothers in a crime syndicate family in Philadelphia. My three older brothers, Luca, Marco, and Alessandro, were what I called pure blood. Their mother, Valentina, and their father, Angelo, had brought them into this world knowingly and intentionally. They were lorded over by everyone in our world and raised as princes in this demented royal family, but somewhere along the way, they came to see it as normal. All families had a thing, and this was theirs.