Page 111 of Beauty and the Mafia Boss

“And what do you want to do with them,Bella mia? Forget? Share?” Gabriella blinks, as surprised by the question as I am, and her answer seems like a tailor-made choice for tonight's chorus of unexpected.

“I don't know.”

“Then let me give you a third option,” I say, before placing my mouth on hers.

***

“Come in and close the door, Dario.” My main trusted man obeys and stops in front of my desk, in the training center office.

I motion for him to sit down, even though I am standing, looking out the windows in a rare moment, feeling uncertainabout what I'm about to do. The conversation with my father a few days ago has been a constant memory, prompting thoughts and decisions I know I need to make, as has Gabriella's unusual stance.

My girl has been distracted in a way I've never seen before; I would say almost consumed. The only moments I feel like her mind is completely with me is when we lose ourselves in each other's bodies, whatever the time of day.

“What's the news from the mansion, Dario?”

“Nothing relevant, Don. Your mother hasn't organized any events since the suspension you imposed.”

“The other women in thefamiglia?”

“No either, they are following orders to a tee, although they are being very insistent on theconsigliereto intercede for them.” The corners of my lips lift up, because it's not going to happen. They're lucky that all I did was suspend their events after the ambush set for Gabriella.

“Tizziano?”

“Still chasing the housekeeper, Don.” I narrow my eyes.

“Are you sure?” I ask, looking at Dario over my shoulder.

“One hundred per cent.” I agree, although I don't understand what exactly made my brother change his modus operandi.

He's been chasing Rafaella for months, and that's more time than he's ever devoted to any interest in life, except for torture techniques.

“I have a job for you, Dario,” I say, and the man's dark eyes immediately take on a gleam of determination.

“How can I be of service, Don?” I give myself five seconds to change my mind, but I don't.

“I want you to find Gabriella's family.”

CHAPTER 53

________

Gabriella Matos

My eyes burn as I stare at the image of the Pea Princess, but I don't allow myself to blink. The open book is the sole occupant of the seat next to me on the soft sofa in the library, the place that has become my favorite in the entire mansion.

I don't know if this is what people call exposure therapy, but after days where looking for the book out of the corner of my eye was the first thing I did every time I entered this room, I decided to administer some doses of my own version of it.

Instead of hiding the copy at the bottom of the highest and furthest shelf in the library, I pick it up, open it to the page, already crumpled from being handled so much, and stare at it while the contradictory feelings inside me do what they do best: generate conflicts. It's not like avoiding the book did any work to alleviate that, anyway.

The last week has not been easy, since I found this drawing, ignoring everything that I had buried deep in my chest became impossible, exactly as I knew it would.

Most of the things I had forced myself to forget lost their meaning over the more than three months I spent in Italy. Fears, grudges, misgivings, each one of them took a step back with each step I walked towards the man whose scent is now ingrained in my skin as part of my own.

I belong to Vittorio and I'm okay with that, regardless of how wrong or immoral it sounds, I don't care. Any modesty I might still have had about the comfort that this certainty brought me was expelled from my body along with the insecurity the day Vittorio fucked me until I admitted to him and to myself the reasons that had led me to submit silently to the humiliations imposed by the women of the Sagrada.

I don't care if belonging to someone, in the literal sense of the matter, is unethical, old-fashioned or inhumane. What Vittorio gave me, what he has given me every day, is more than enough to pay the price of judgment against anyone who dares to blame me. If I have any concern in this sense, it is solely and exclusively what will be left of me when I am no longer useful to the Don.

And then, there's Raquel. Every free space in my thoughts these past few days has been filled by her. I have so many questions, so many desires and so much guilt, not because I abandoned her, but because, at some point, all the time I kept this feeling in a dark, sealed box, it dried up and died.

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