Page 133 of Merciless Monster

“Grazie, Mia. Come. Let’s talk for a moment.”

Oh, crap. I hope this isn’t going to be awkward. I don’t know this woman well enough to be able to tell if she’s on my side or not. I guess I’m about to find out.

“Sit,” she says and points to a sofa away from the noise.

I don’t know what’s keeping Dante.

“Mia, I want to talk to you about my son.”

“Okay.”

“He loves you very much.”

“I love him very much too.”

“I hope you love him enough, my dear. He’s about to give up his whole world for you.”

“And for his son.”

I’m a little irritated by her comment. It’s not as if I’m asking Dante to leave his family behind and never see or speak to them again! I’m asking him to stop stealing and killing, for fuck’s sake.

“I am not angry, Mia. I just want to know that you love my son enough to support him in this new way of life.”

“Mama, I adore Dante. I will do whatever he asks, but I cannot, no, will not, subject Angelo to any further danger. We almost lost our child.”

“I see that you have a fire inside of you. That’s good. Dante needs a woman with fire. He is a strong man.”

“I have plenty of fire. But more important than fire, I have love. We have love. More than enough for us and our son.”

“Bene. Come let us eat. You are too skinny.”

She gets up and holds out her hand to me. I imagine that’s the pep talk over and done with.

“Ah, there you are. My two favorite girls,” Dante smiles and hands me a glass of champagne. “Champagne, Mamma?”

“Grazie, darling.”

“It’s almost time for the speeches. Join me,” Dante says and takes my hand.

He kisses his mother on the cheek before we walk away.

“Was I interrupting something?” he asks.

“No. All good.”

“Great.”

Dante and I take our seats at the main table, next to Elio and Lisa. Angelo sits with his friends at the children’s table. It’s time for the speeches. Dante speaks first. A hush falls over the onlookers.

“Welcome everyone. It’s good to see so many friends here today. May I be the first to congratulate the happy couple. Lisa, you are a brave woman.”

A collective chuckle rises from the crowd.

“I struggled a bit to find stories about my baby brother that I could share with this group,” Dante says with a grin. “I was always the quiet, oldest child, you see. Not so when it came to little Elio, who was really a hurricane waiting for a place to happen.

Then came the dating years, at which point Elio discovered the various ways in which the fairer sex could enlighten a man’s world. Well, it’s fair to say we didn’t see much of Elio after that. Not for about a decade.

Then, he met Lisa. After that, we couldn’t get him out of the house with a crowbar. The two of them were basically bunked down in Elio’s room for weeks on end, doing God knows what, eating all Mamma’s food, and drinking my expensive alcohol.

---