Page 15
Story: Mafia Maiden
When we collapse at last in the early afternoon, our limbs tangled and sweat cooling between us, I look at him and know.
I was never meant to be protected from this man.
I was meant to survive him.
And now?
I belong to him.
Completely.
Not because he took me.
Because I gave myself willingly.
And in the quiet that follows, with his hand resting over my heart and his voice rough in my ear, I whisper the only truth that matters:
“You’re not the life I dreamed of, Luca Bellandi. But you’re the one I choose.”
6
LUCA
Seven years earlier.
She doesn’t belong here.
Not among men who speak in contracts and kill in promises. Not under chandeliers paid for in silence or beside women who wear diamonds like armor and smile like threats. She moves through this place like it hasn’t touched her, like the dirt of our world hasn’t even grazed the hem of her sundress.
And God help me, I don’t want it to.
I first see her just past the rose hedge, laughing at something a little girl says. Not a practiced, empty laugh—the kind women here perfect by seventeen—but real, unfiltered amusement. It spills from her lips like she hasn’t learned yet to be careful with her joy. She kneels to adjust the girl’s sandal, her head bowed, a loose braid slipping down her back, and in that moment, I stop pretending I’m only here for the politics.
She stands again and spins beneath the olive trees, arms wide like she’s trying to hold the sky. The hem of her yellow dress flutters around her knees, bare feet brushing over the stone path as if nothing in this place could ever hurt her. She’s radiant in a way this world doesn’t know what to do with.
I light a cigarette and stay hidden beneath the arbor’s shade, watching her move through dusk like a dream no one has earned.
She’s young. Maybe seventeen. Maybe barely eighteen. But she doesn’t carry herself like a girl. She isn’t performing. She isn’t calculating who’s watching. She’s just present—completely, startlingly alive in a place designed to kill that kind of thing young.
And I know, with a certainty that slides cold and final through my spine, that I’ve seen her before I was supposed to. Before I could have her. Before I even knew I’d want to.
I shouldn’t be looking at her. I know that. But I can’t look away.
Later, I ask. Quietly. Discreetly. One name at a time.
Emilia Renzi.
Niece to a minor associate. Raised far from the city. Kept away from the business. Sheltered by a mother who knew too well what this world can take from a woman. She’s soft. Good. Unclaimed. A reminder of what life looks like untouched by blood and power.
She’s not mine.
But I want her like she already is.
I want to know what her voice sounds like when she isn’t laughing for a child but whispering something just for me. I want to know if her breath hitches when I touch her. If she trembles when I say her name.
But I don’t speak to her. I don’t make a move. I don’t even let her see me watching.
Because this isn’t the moment.
I was never meant to be protected from this man.
I was meant to survive him.
And now?
I belong to him.
Completely.
Not because he took me.
Because I gave myself willingly.
And in the quiet that follows, with his hand resting over my heart and his voice rough in my ear, I whisper the only truth that matters:
“You’re not the life I dreamed of, Luca Bellandi. But you’re the one I choose.”
6
LUCA
Seven years earlier.
She doesn’t belong here.
Not among men who speak in contracts and kill in promises. Not under chandeliers paid for in silence or beside women who wear diamonds like armor and smile like threats. She moves through this place like it hasn’t touched her, like the dirt of our world hasn’t even grazed the hem of her sundress.
And God help me, I don’t want it to.
I first see her just past the rose hedge, laughing at something a little girl says. Not a practiced, empty laugh—the kind women here perfect by seventeen—but real, unfiltered amusement. It spills from her lips like she hasn’t learned yet to be careful with her joy. She kneels to adjust the girl’s sandal, her head bowed, a loose braid slipping down her back, and in that moment, I stop pretending I’m only here for the politics.
She stands again and spins beneath the olive trees, arms wide like she’s trying to hold the sky. The hem of her yellow dress flutters around her knees, bare feet brushing over the stone path as if nothing in this place could ever hurt her. She’s radiant in a way this world doesn’t know what to do with.
I light a cigarette and stay hidden beneath the arbor’s shade, watching her move through dusk like a dream no one has earned.
She’s young. Maybe seventeen. Maybe barely eighteen. But she doesn’t carry herself like a girl. She isn’t performing. She isn’t calculating who’s watching. She’s just present—completely, startlingly alive in a place designed to kill that kind of thing young.
And I know, with a certainty that slides cold and final through my spine, that I’ve seen her before I was supposed to. Before I could have her. Before I even knew I’d want to.
I shouldn’t be looking at her. I know that. But I can’t look away.
Later, I ask. Quietly. Discreetly. One name at a time.
Emilia Renzi.
Niece to a minor associate. Raised far from the city. Kept away from the business. Sheltered by a mother who knew too well what this world can take from a woman. She’s soft. Good. Unclaimed. A reminder of what life looks like untouched by blood and power.
She’s not mine.
But I want her like she already is.
I want to know what her voice sounds like when she isn’t laughing for a child but whispering something just for me. I want to know if her breath hitches when I touch her. If she trembles when I say her name.
But I don’t speak to her. I don’t make a move. I don’t even let her see me watching.
Because this isn’t the moment.