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I wasn’t sure how much about this kind of life my wife really understood.

I mean, she was a doctor, and aside from her association with the Volkovs, Michelle was no mafia princess.

Not that there was such a thing.

There was something all the people who profited off romanticizing the mafia didn’t understand. And that was simple.

The mafia wasn’t fucking romantic.

Not in the least. The real mafia wasn’t run by handsome young men and women with hidden hearts of gold. It was run by nasty old pricks set in their ways.

These people didn’t have hearts. They were not kind or sweet. Not the family men directors depicted them as on TV.

They were ruthless.

And not in a sexy or attractive way.

There was nothing noble about the way they lived. Nothing poetic about the blood they spilled or the fear they wielded like a sledgehammer.

They weren’t tragic antiheroes with brooding stares and complex codes of honor.

They were men who smiled while making others disappear, who ruined families as easily as they lit their cigars.

The stories painted them as kings of vast underworld empires, but the truth was far uglier.

Beneath the veneer of loyalty and respect lay greed, violence, and betrayal—their true currency.

These men were evil.

Sin peddlers.

That was what my Nonna called them.

Even her own son.

Trafficking in drugs, guns, sex, and people. Even women and kids.

It was fucking revolting.

Organizations that did this were vile.

Violent.

Immoral.

And subfuckinghuman.

It wasn’t that I thought all laws were morally just.

Hell, some governments were worse than any mafia family I ever heard about.

Corruption draped in flags and anthems instead of leather jackets and blood oaths was still corruption.

I likened myself to the average businessman, but even I knew better.

I already said I wasn’t a good person. I broke laws and committed plenty of sins that no amount of confession could redeem.

But modern business? It demanded a little lawbreaking now and then, especially when you played in the financial leagues I did.

I wasn’t na?ve.

I understood that, respected it even. And no, I wasn’t standing on some moral soapbox, wagging a finger at anyone chasing their version of happiness, legal or not.

That wasn’t my issue.

I was not a politician, promising anything for votes, or a god, passing judgment from some high and holy place.

I was just a man.

And if being human meant embracing a few vices, well, that was the price of living in this world.

We all had our demons. Every single one of us.

That was the human condition.

My point was that the actual mafia was not romantic.

It didn’t have princesses and princes and happy ever afters.

It was cruel.

Heartless.

There was no honor among thieves, no velvet curtain hiding a secret nobility.

What the movies sold as brotherhood and loyalty was just a blood-soaked business where everyone was replaceable the second they stopped being useful.

It wasn’t destiny or tragedy. It was survival, plain and simple, dressed up for the cameras.

All I wanted was to keep my Michelle far fucking away from all that.

I needed her trust.

I demanded it.

But to get it, I had to tell her the truth.

I had to lay my soul bare and confess just how much I fucked up this woman’s life by making her mine.

I only hoped she could forgive me.