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Tito

I lived a pretty good life as a part of the Descalia family but my last name wasn’t Descalia.

It’s Bruno, Tito Angelo Bruno to be exact.

My mother was a Descalia until she married my father, Angelo Rofinni Bruno.

They were so in love that they married within a month of meeting.

They refused the arranged marriages their families had chosen and came to America from Italy, seeking their happily ever after together.

Their marriage lasted fifteen years until it came down to the death do us part…part.

That was what had stopped their happy life together…

death, my father’s death. He had taken the wrong turn one dark night and ended up rolling his car over a cliff.

There were no cliffs in Louisiana, no… It happened in Italy when he went to see his dying mother.

I was a teen at the time and I had a particularly bad reaction to losing him.

No one could have had a better dad. He was a fun loving man with a warm nature.

Easy to smile, happy to laugh and warm as the sun.

Those were my mother's words about him at his funeral and they were absolutely one hundred percent true.

My brother Rocky and I had family around us and we made it through better than most would have upon losing a father like Angelo.

After I turned eighteen and Rocky was twenty, we both went to work as bodyguards for the family.

This didn’t mean we weren’t full members of the family, but as cousins, we weren’t like first for anything.

Yes, we were invited to the meals and celebrations, but that was a given as our mother made all the meals here at the Descalia Estate.

Oh yes, the Descalia brothers treated us like cousins and not servants as we were a tight group.

But my brother Rocky and I had a strong sense of duty and we learned a while back that we needed to think and act the bodyguard part instead of the cousin part.

The reason for this tact was a professional choice we had been forced to make.

If we kicked back and joined the party at which a Descalia sibling was partying at, we would lose our security edge.

When we were younger, we learned this after a traumatic incident involving Luca Descalia.

He was dating some girl and was invited to a college party at the school she was attending.

We were all young at that time. We arrived and everyone there was already drunk.

Being like twenty and twenty two, we Bruno brothers grabbed a drink too.

That night a jealous ex-boyfriend took an extreme dislike to Luca.

He also had a large group of friends. After a couple of partying hours, they all jumped Luca.

Rocky and I were highly inebriated and therefore it took us a few minutes to even realize the said jumping of our cousin Luca had even started.

By the time sanity and awareness kicked in, Luca had been beaten pretty badly.

We kept him from actually being killed but we did not prevent a serious beatdown on his person.

Luca went to the hospital via an ambulance and us Bruno brothers had to face the fact that we failed miserably.

We went home directly. When Stephano Descalia came home from the hospital the next day after being there all night with his son, we were cussed out with the most colorful Italian spectrum of swear words.

We certainly deserved it and we would be the first to admit it.

We were summarily placed into training all over again.

Rocky and I were forced to be schooled in defense training for six more months.

We graduated and we swore an oath to each other that we would never allow each other to slide ever again.

We refused to sit down when on duty, even to this day.

As for the group who beat our cousin up, we got our payback after graduating from our classes.

We made sure that the ex-boyfriend and his group never attended that school again.

We beat them bloody one awesome night. Then sent them home to their mommies in their own states, telling them they’d better not ever return to Louisiana unless they wanted to be whacked.

We felt good after that but we never let our guards down again.

In essence, we were bodyguards first and cousins last. We, ourselves drew the line.

Our Descalia cousins took a long time to adjust to our professional attitude.

They would invite us to parties, events and celebrations.

They acted like family and we did have sense enough to appreciate that, but we were now hardened to anything but our duty.

If the party or event occurred in the estate we let our hair down so to speak and would enjoy the happenings.

Like I said, I live a pretty damn good existence being comfortable in my own skin and my own family.

I earned a very good salary from the Descalia Corp for the job I did.

And with nothing to spend it on, I used Dante’s stockbroker and he invested for me.

Now my portfolio was worth a couple million dollars.

Not bad for a bodyguard, I’d say. But in my nearly perfect life I did however have a new problem and her name was Valencia Regatta.

As each day went by, I knew I was falling for her just a little more.

I know she was a living puzzle, needing to be solved and I would volunteer, but it might cross lines I shouldn’t cross.

She was also Julianna’s twin. Romeo’s girl.

Not that it mattered to me, because it didn’t.

In reality, I could tell them apart at all times.

Valencia had a few cute freckles dusting her cheekbones and one of her eyes had a gold fleck just outside of her cornea.

Yes, I looked that close. I only got close a few times, but each time, I took a whiff of her sweet scent.

She wore jasmine musk or something like that.

All I knew was she smelled fucking delicious.

The poor girl arrived here as a prisoner at first. Accused of kidnapping and other crimes. She even had zipties around her wrists as two of the Rebel Saints MC members had brought her to us. After a brief incident involving Dante’s woman, the mystery was finally cleared up.

Or most of it.

Valencia had been raised by the notorious Crime Queen named Ophelia.

Even amongst the mafia her name would be spoken with a shiver down the spine.

The woman committed torture and murder that the old goombas would have been proud of.

Lethal and monstrous, O had been reported as killing more than fifty people herself.

Even some of her own family members. Her infamy was a big thing here in the South.

No one in our family knew how much this fact affected Valencia.

Or if it affected her at all. Had she been part of it?

No one knew except her. I didn’t feel she was even a smidgeon of evil.

Though in our conversations, she did mention how much it bothered her to have been lied to and fooled into thinking Deacon and O were her real family.

And that they conducted criminal acts and hurt people all over the South in general.

Valencia maintained the fact that she never saw any of this reported cruelty and crimes with her own eyes.

From bordellos to slave rings, illegal fight clubs and drug dealing.

All while she had no idea of the darker side of her supposed brother and mother.

I felt bad for her. I, for one, didn’t know anything about not having a family. My life had always been full of that ever since I was born. Two years younger than Rocky, I had always had that companionship, along with four cousins.

I felt like maybe Valencia liked me too. I hoped so. I hoped she would eventually think of me as more than a friend.

My mother always said, ‘ You do not choose love, it comes along and chooses you.’

Yes, I was beginning to believe that I was in love with Valencia Regatta.

So what if she came from a background full of lies, intrigue and betrayal?

These subjects were usually an Italian’s bread and butter.

At least my mama always said that because she loved the Italian based soap operas, sent to her via video tapes from Italy.

Old Italy, where her sister lived. And yes, over there, Italian soap operas were all the rage so to speak.

Italian boy meets Italian girl and boom!

The mozzarella stuck to the sauce. Or something like that.

I always felt confident and sure around most females as I had plenty of experience with women.

Well, I’d bedded several but due to my job I had barely any time to pursue a real relationship.

I just had a few women that were friends with benefits as it was called these days.

None of those ever came to mean anything.

But I would protect and help any of them if they ever needed it. Loyalty was Rocky and I’s creed.

Now I did have a worry in my full, happy life.

Deacon was looking for Valencia. We didn’t know why and neither did she.

The man was nefarious and we had seen evidence of this.

He had acted as though she didn’t matter to him the last time she saw him, right here at the estate.

He refused to speak to her about the huge lie she’d been told.

So this threat was a mystery as well.

I refused to lose her and I wanted to protect her.

Be her bodyguard. Only I did fear I was crossing that line.

Be a guard first and be family second. I might let everyone down if I chose love over either of those ideals.

The first thing I needed to do was tell her though.

Duh. If she didn’t feel the way I did, all of this wondering and yearning was moot.

So I decided that today was the day to tell Valencia how I felt. I was gonna roll that dice and see if my luck held out. I raised my fist and knocked on Valencia's door.

It swung open and looking panicked, she said, “Oh, thank God it’s you, Tito! Please help me? I need to leave the estate right now!”