Bloody City: Deviants

Chapter Thirty-Four

Alessio

I looked to her slowly as I drove through the city knowing of a restaurant that was owned by the mafia but not often attended by them, as most of my soldiers preferred clubs, varying from bars, burlesque to black tie performance restaurants. The one I'd reserved for Aria and I was beach front and made to be more casual but it was still fancy, and my wife deserved some semblance of normality, even if I was terrible at remembering it most mornings when I strapped weapons to my body and went off to my job, a job I knew seemed completely normal in my head, and I'd never considered for even a second. That was until the casino event, and having Massimo appear at the most recent gala. She could be taken from me, and the fact a war had to be nearly broken out for me to notice it wasn't my greatest fucking moment.

All my life no one had been able to escape me or pass up the offer of my order and approval. I didn't have that control anymore, Massimo Riggerio had all the chips, and I had to make the best I could with my meager hand with the circumstances I had. He would attack Aria at some point more directly and personally then I was ready to admit to myself or Matteo. If I told him Gabriella would inevitably find out and that would only cause me and the Familia more problems, which was in itself my problem. I though too long about the kinds of things I'd do if I was Massimo and though it was working as a repellant, it was taking from my marriage and the time I wished to spend with Aria.

Time I would never convince myself I was getting back.

I had a life of excess and I knew that people would always question my position as Don of Italy. What I'd underestimated is just how well organized the combatant would be. I had gotten complacent with the ability to deal with any threat with the fear of Matteo or I hunting them down. Massimo had no one and nothing to use against him. Which meant I had to play his game which was more of Matteo's specialty then mine, he would spring the trap and use it against his opponent. I didn't have the fucking patience.

No wonder Matteo was underboss and not me.

Peeling my mind from the complexities of mob bullshit I turned to look at Aria still dressed like the angel she was and reminding me all too easily that her and I were both polar and the same. She was the light to my darkness and no matter what I knew I'd protect her, which was likely a much easier accomplishment then taking Massimo down even if the two were one in the same.

"What?" she asks looking at me with those damn doe eyes that pierced through all my darkness to the parts of me I reserved only for her, and god damnit was she good at getting there quickly.

"You're fucking gorgeous," I mutter not knowing anything else to say. There was nothing like looking at the woman beside me, nothing to compare the feeling her simply being apart of the damaged and fucked up world I lived in provided to make me feel stable, when I'd spent the majority of my life convincing myself to not feel at all under any circumstances. People didn't recover from the things I had so easily done, not without being psychopaths, serial killers, or in my case a boy raised by a monster to become a worse monster, or at least a more refined one, I was the embodiment of the worst of human kind, and yet I had somehow been given the lone person that could see past it and accept me for me, a fact I had continually realized to greater intensity, that I would forever grappled with being true.

"You tell me that at least once a day," she replies though the smile on her lips didn't wain regardless of the fact that I did compliment her every chance I got.

"Trying to be the husband you deserve, I've been busy with work, but the second it all quiets I will make sure we get to go on our actual honeymoon," I say reaching over with my right hand and grasping her left one, while I continued to drive along the coast towards the restaurant.