“Talk to you later,” I tell him and move away.
I hear footsteps behind me and brace myself. They’re light, but at the same time on the heavier side, which means it’s one of my brothers.
“Ales,” Dante calls once I reach my car. “How long is this shit going to last?”
I turn and face the man I respect. “If the tables were reversed, Dante, what would you say?”
He runs his hand over his jaw. “Things with me and Makenna are different—”
I laugh. God, this shit. It’s always different with them. “Yeah, I knew Gabby years ago, Dante. It wasn’t some quick fuck like you’d like to think. That woman means something to me.” Dante is the only one I’d be this open with. He has my respect, he is the boss, he deserves the truth. “Growing up, I had no one. You were being groomed into becoming the boss, and Rome did whatever the fuck he wanted. I was left alone to be that cunt’s punching bag,” I begin.
Dante’s eyes darken with anger. This is something we don’t talk about. Our father was a son of a bitch. He was a ruthless fucker, but he was also a coward. He targeted those who were weaker than he was.
“Mom was so caught up in her own pain and shit that she never gave a fuck about any of us,” I continue. The woman was never motherly to us. She did her own thing and that was that. “Gabriella…” I say. That one word holds so much respect and reverence. “She cared for me when she didn’t have to. She stayed with me and cared for me. Do you know what that’s like?”
He stares blankly at me.
“She’s so fucking pure that she makes me want to be a better man.” I laugh at the notion. There’s no way I could be anyone but who I am, and yet Gabby makes me believe I could be. “She’s so pure that she took a man she knew killed three people and nursed him back to health. She’s amazing, Dante, and she’s mine. You have no idea what that is, to hold something so fucking pure in your arms, and then watch as it shrinks into itself. That’s what you, Makenna, Holly, and Romero did to her. You made her feel so uncomfortable in her own home, she retreated into herself.”
“You really care for her?” he asks, somewhat bewildered by the concept.
“Yes. She’s mine, Dante. I’d do anything to keep her. I’d kill any man, woman, or child who would try to take her from me. She’s mine.”
He nods. “Then I owe her an apology.”
It’s as simple as that.
“You do. You all fucking do. But right now, I’m not feeling too comfortable with the rest of them talking to her. Until that time, they stay the fuck away.”
His eyes narrow, and the corners of his mouth tighten. “It can’t go on forever like this.”
“My woman was called a whore, my child was ignored, and you think I should go on as normal?”
He sighs, his hands going into his pocket. “Who’d have thought you’d be the most protective out of the three of us?”
“Someone has to be,” I say as I turn on my heel and open my car door. “I mean it, Dante, they don’t come anywhere near my apartment.”
He nods. “I’ll ensure they don’t. Maybe answer their calls and they can apologize?”
I don’t answer him. Instead, I climb into my vehicle and start the engine. It’s time to go and get my woman and son.
The wind wraps around me as I wait for her to exit the airport. Two weeks has been too fucking long. Never again. I need her ass to move here. I know it’ll mean uprooting her life and leaving behind her thriving gallery. I’ll buy her a new property here in New York if it means keeping her with me.
“Daddy,” I hear Anthony’s shrill shriek.
I smile at the sound. Fuck. It feels so good to hear him call me that. I never thought I’d want kids, but the moment I sawGabriella with Anthony, it made me a changed man. Now I’m going to spend all my spare time fucking Gabby raw, and I’m going to knock her up. I want to see her round with my child.
Anthony pulls away from his mother and rushes toward me, a bright smile on his face. I’m unable to keep myself from smiling back at him. Gabriella thinks Anthony is my double, but she has no clue that our son is just as sweet and caring as she is. Over time, he’ll learn to hide that side to him because people use it against you. But as a child, his innocence will remain until he’s inducted into the Famiglia.
I scoop him up into my arms, and he wraps his arms around my neck, his face buried into mine and he presses a kiss against my cheek. My gaze goes to my woman, who’s looking sexy as fuck, wearing a white blouse that has the top three buttons undone, giving me a peek of her cleavage. Her pants are molded perfectly to her body. She looks phenomenal. She’s smiling happily as she snaps pictures of Anthony and me.
“Mama, get your ass over here,” I growl, wanting her in my arms.
“Oh-oh, Daddy, you said a bad word. Momma’s going to be mad,” my little boy says with wide eyes.
“Alessio Bianchi, do not curse in front of your son,” she snaps. “He’s already picking it up from Dad.”
I can only grin at her. There’s no way I’m curtailing my language. Not at fucking all.