Belonging (Made Men #2)

One

You're fighting me off like a firefighter, then tell me how you still get burned?

Ginevra

When I woke up this morning, I had felt something in the air shift. I am not usually one for premonitions or horoscopes and other unscientific things like this, but the moment I had opened my eyes, I had felt like today was the day my life was going to change forever. I think it was just birthday jitters. I turned twenty-two today. I felt strange. Twenty-two was a weird age. I had felt strange and old at twenty-one, but still hopeful for what was to come, but now I felt like life was running past me in 3x speed. My brother, Gabriel had laughed when I'd told him this, telling me that I was too young to be feeling like this. And maybe he was right, but I couldn't shake off the feeling.

Nevertheless, I had gotten out of bed and made my way to work. I work at my father's tattoo shop every day. He had taught me how to do them when I was around sixteen, and I do enjoy the work. Its relaxing, in a way. Gabriel makes fun of me for it, because he says I'm the furthest person from what people imagine as a tattoo artist. Apparently, I'm too 'girly' and it doesn't help that I don't have any tattoos of my own. Except the small rose tattoo all people affiliated to the mafia get when they are eighteen.

I'm sitting down in the shop, filling out a design on paper, when I hear someone walk in. Not a lot of people come in at this time, so I'm pleasantly surprised. I wasn't expecting to be doing much work before noon, but it would be nice. I get up to invite the customer in, and see Capo Bastone walk in.

My breath catches in my throat. I've met him several times, now. He comes in a lot, because he has a lot of tattoos. I've done several of them. But I still feel the same way seeing him for the hundredth time as I did the first time I saw him – like I've got my whole heart in my mouth.

I am in love with Julian Dante Lionelli Montefiore Rivera.

I've been in love with him for ten years now. I think I loved him from the day I first looked at him. I was twelve. He was nineteen. Yes, it's stupid. He's older and powerful and so, so far away. I don't think he's ever even looked at me. And people don't fall in love at twelve. Especially not with nineteen-year-olds. But God, when he'd walked into Papa's tattoo shop as if he owned that fucking place, as if he owned every fucking person in that room, I had swooned. Any twelve-year old girl would have. He had been so young then, hadn't been made Capo Bastone yet, but still exuded the power and confidence of one. That is why he had been made so soon; I think. He was made for it. He was born for it.

There's something about Julian Rivera. He's got girls falling over at his feet. But then again, all the Riveras have that going for them.But Julian is... Julian. He's not Don, and he's not Consigliere, and he's not Nico, he's just... Julian. To me, at least. My attraction to him had never been about how he looked, or what his post in the family was. I loved him when I was younger because he had been nice to me, because he had owned the room and all the people in it, but he had still been so polite to me. I loved him still because I had never stopped. Over the years, we had become friends, in a way. We talked, sometimes. He told me about his life. I told him about mine.

He hadn't noticed my existence until I was 16 and he was twenty-three. He'd come in on my birthday to get tattooed, and then graciously let me do my first ever tattoo on him. It was a small, simple one. Just two words written on the nape of his neck.

Ancora imparo.

It meant 'yet, I'm learning.'

I'd been too shy then to ask why he wanted to get that, and my hands had been shaking the entire time. In the end it had turned out alright. Julian had treated me to chocolate milkshake on the occasion.