Page 41 of The Temptation

“Don’t you dare go all high and mighty on me. You’re a career criminal.” He tilts his head back and groans, butdoesn’t dispute her claim. “Thosepezzi di merda(Pieces of shit) that you call your friends are the ones responsible for my brother’s death. Does that not mean anything to you?”

“They’re myFamiglia, not my friends, and Uncle Frank knew exactly what the consequences were when he joined the mob.”

“Your family?” she screams. “You ungrateful cunt.”

I sit here dumbfounded when she reaches over and smacks him in the side of the face. It’s so hard, the sharp crack of her slap slices through the air, unnaturally loud in the tight confines of the car, and I instantly see red.

Poor Romeo doesn’t even flinch, which tells me this isn’t the first time. Nobody in this world is flawless, including me, but this woman is beyond nasty. It’s like there’s poison running through her veins, seeping out with every word, every look, and every cruel touch.

White light flashes violently behind my eyes, obscuring my vision for a split second. My hands tremble beneath my legs as my pulse roars in my ears, drowning out everything else.

That darkness I’ve carried for most of my life—the one I once directed solely at my father—surges to the surface. All those old daydreams I used to conjure up, specifically centred around his demise, come rushing back with a vengeance.

“I am your family!” she spits. “I’m the one who gave you life. Is this the thanks I get for everything I went through to bring you into this world?”

“I never asked to be born,” he replies, quiet and terrifyingly steady, with a calm that doesn’t fit the moment, which somehow makes it all the more unsettling.

I feel like I’m seeing the man he was back in Italy. The unshakable underboss. Controlled and unreadable. The one who took out Elio without a second thought.

The fury on his mother’s face is palpable as she stares at him, unblinking. When she raises her hand to strike again, I can’t help but react.

The moment she swings, my hand shoots out from where I sit, catching her wrist midair.

“What the fuck,” she screeches, twisting towards me like she’s about to lunge, but the darkness still obscures me. Her arm thrashes in my grip, wild and unhinged, so I lock my fingers tighter around her skinny wrist.

“Who the hell is that?” she snaps, her bloodshot eyes darting to Romeo.

“Your worst fucking nightmare if you lay one more finger on him,” I spit, my voice shaking with an undercurrent of barely contained rage.

From a distance, the toll of this woman’s addiction was easy to miss, but up close, every hard line on her face and the hollowness in her eyes tell a different story. It’s clear she’d once been beautiful, but it has been dulled by years of bad decisions.

“You brought one of your whores with you?” she snarls. “How dare you. I’m not a fucking freak show. Do you think I want my private life broadcast?—”

She’s cut off as those words spark an instant reaction from her son.

“She’s not a fucking whore,” Romeo roars, banging his hand down on the steering wheel. “Don’t you dare call her that again. Got it? I won’t stand for you disrespecting her. Not now … not ever.”

The ferocity in his voice makes me recoil because he sat there and took it all while his mother attacked him, but the moment she turned on me, he didn’t hesitate to step in and defend me.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

I see the subtle flicker of realisation in her eyes when his jaw ticks instead of answering.

“Holy shit, she is,” she says, reaching up to turn on the overhead lights, but Romeo grasps her wrist to stop her before she can.

“Don’t touch that.”

“I want to see her,” she snaps.

“Who she is to me, and what she looks like, is none of your fucking business, so just leave it.”

“Why are you being so secretive?” she accuses, narrowing her eyes that are the same silvery colour as her son’s.

“Oh, please. You haven’t given a fuck about me for my entire life, so don’t start now.”

Her attention moves back to me, but I’m still obscured by the dark. “Who are you?” she asks.

“Like your son said, none of your fucking business.”