If I do, I’ll wind up with a raging hard-on in front of my parents and mytíosandtías. Just the thought of Vita does that to me. When I see or hear her, or catch a whiff of her perfume, I’m practically baying at the moon. I’ll never get enough of her.
It doesn’t take long for my cousins and I to say our goodbyes and take off.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vita
I’m struggling with Alejandro leaving me behind when he and his cousins depart for Italy. My fears stem from being left behind as a mercenaryandas a Mafia daughter. As though one isn’t enough, I have both. He’s headed to see my family and adding incalculable danger to his already tenuous hold on life. I know his cousins are the best people to be with him as a team, but I can’t help feeling I’ve left him vulnerable.
The Diaz family may work with and against Italian Mafias, but they aren’t Mafia.
I am.
They may know plenty, but I know more.
I’ve trusted Alejandro to protect me from our previously unknown assailants, and I’ve trusted him to take care of me emotionally and physically when we’re having kinky sex. I’ve gotten the better end of the deal in this relationship. All I’ve done is endanger him, while he’s done all he can to make me happy.
It’s not that I owe him or am obligated. I want to be there with him to help, to make the mission easier, to be an extra set of eyes, ears, and hands. But I also know I could just as easily makeit worse. I’m not a Made Woman. I’m not supposed to know a sliver of what I do about the inner workings of theMala del Brentaor any other Mafia, but I was a far too inquisitive kid and teen. It’s why becoming a spy, then a mercenary, wasn’t a stretch for my moral boundaries. I had none by the time I graduated university.
“Vittoria?”
I turn toward Catalina as she approaches me in her living room. I sense her sadness from saying goodbye to Alejandro. He travels so much that she must feel this weight far too often. I wonder if he fully understands what it means for her to always be left behind.
Matáis doesn’t go on many missions because he’s the forward face of most of the Diaz family’s legit businesses. They need him out of danger and with the least questionable trail of dubious activities.
But I know there were several years during Alejandro’s training when Catalina’s son and husband left together for the unknown. Now her husband might be by her side, but her only child is gone. Her instinct to protect him practically radiated from her as she hugged him one last time before he gave me a sizzling kiss, then left.
“Please call me Toria.”
“Thank you. Would you like some tea or coffee? A snack?”
“I’m all right, thank you.”
Everyone convened here, and we shared a meal as a family. I discovered it’s tradition. If a mission’s planned far enough in advance, then the family gathers before the men leave. It was the most normal family meal I’ve ever had—like non-syndicate level normal. It was just a bunch of parents teasing their children, and husbands and wives joking about household chores and grocery shopping. It was playful competitiveness among cousins and childhood friends.
Truthfully, it was utterly extraordinary by any standard but unbelievable when you remember who these people are. Some of the wealthiest and deadliest men and women in the world.
“It’s different, isn’t it?” Catalina offers a maternal smile that makes my shoulders slump.
Back home, nuclear families gather when they can, but it’s never the extended family too. I remember when it wasMamà,Papà, my brothers, and me. When I was little, it was justPapàleaving, but eventually my brothers joined him. It was always at leastMamàand me left behind. I thought I was prepared for Alejandro to leave because I’ve waved goodbye before. However, it’s an entirely different sensation when it’s your partner, the person you love most in this world who’s walking into the unknown.
“It is. This is worse than anything before. I don’t know how you do it when it’s your son.”
If this is excruciating, then how will I survive if Alejandro and I have sons?
“Is there a choice?”
Her question’s so simple yet so complex.
“No.”
“Then you learn to live with it. When you look at any of this as a choice, you fool yourself into thinking it can be something different. For us, it never will be. This is who we are. Leaving and surviving isn’t an option. Ignoring a threat to this family leaves us vulnerable. Vulnerability isn’t an option when so many people depend upon us for their safety and livelihood. Grief is an inevitable lifelong companion, but who wants to willingly add to it by not protecting our own, our family?”
She’s right.
“Sit with me.” She gestures toward a loveseat.
“I know it doesn’t get easier, so I won’t ask if it does. But what do you do?”
