Take Me A Dark Billionaire Mafia Romance - Faith Summers Page 0,23
gone ten. Pa wanted to see me at ten fifteen but I’m early. I wanted to see my mother first. I always check in with her first when I’m summoned to meetings like this. As a family, we meet up twice a month on a Sunday for dinner. It’s the only thing we do that resembles something close to a family unit, but believe me we’re dysfunctional.
I push the wooden gates to the garden open and I see her. The solemn look on her face is evidence enough of that dysfunction.
She’s tending to the miniature yellow roses she planted last year. I don’t know much about flowers in terms of when they bloom and when they’re supposed to look their best, but Ma knows how to keep a garden looking like it’s fit for the good Lord himself.
That’s what she says her aim is. Nobody would believe that I was raised Catholic. Me with my sex club. Then again, nobody would imagine a Giordano in a church either, not with the connotations linked to our name.
Ma hasn’t seen me yet and I take my strides evenly so as not to startle her. Her hair’s grown longer, and she looks good. She looks similar to how she did before the cancer took her. She fought long and hard. What I would call a battle. She fought for three years and she won. Her fight for survival impressed me. That’s what she’s like though. She’s a fighter and she’s always impressed me. I look a lot like her while Georgiou is the spitting image of our father. I think I’m more like her too in a lot of ways. She has this free-spirited side to her that I know rubbed off on me. What I don’t like is that she puts up with the same shit most of the women in the family have to deal with from their men. The taste for cheating runs strong with my father and uncles.
Ma looks strong right now, but I sense her heart is weeping.
Fuck, I can already guess from the sight of her that some shit has happened, and she hasn’t even looked at me yet. It’s the way she’s pruning the roses. With care, but with an edge of anger.
The garden is her place of Zen. The place she comes to on the regular and most often stays out in for the whole day just to get away from my father’s shit.
“Buonasera, Ma,” I greet her when she lifts her head.
She smiles at me and her whole face comes alive with that heart warmth that coming home should feel like.
“My son,” she says and comes over to give me a hug. “I was hoping to see you before you went into see your father.”
“I always come and see you,” I remind her.
“Yeah you do but, when you’re in one of your moods I can’t tell what you’ll do,” she says with a chuckle. “I have to say Christian that ignoring your father’s calls is not the best thing to do if you want to keep on his good side. I know why you did it though.”
“Thanks. It’s nice to have your understanding,” I answer.
She looks across to the terrace and I follow her gaze. A maid I haven’t seen before has just walked out with a dust cloth and she’s started cleaning the tables.
She lifts her head and sees Ma watching and looks away quickly with the fear of God in her eyes. She’s not that far away that I can’t tell she’s scared.
When Ma looks back to me her eyes look glassy.
“Do you think she’s pretty?” she asks. “Your father does. Every year they get younger. She’s eighteen. Wants to go to college but can’t afford it. Working here helps. I’m sure your father will pay her handsomely for her services.”
She’s not talking about cleaning. The tear that slides down her cheek pulls on my heart and I don’t know why she stays. She doesn’t need to put up with shit like this.
She wipes away the tear quickly with the heel of her hand and rights herself with a smile she plasters on her face like a mask. It’s a habit I grew up with.
“Ma, what happened?”
“Nothing, dear,” she says shaking her head. “Don’t be late. Don’t make your father mad.”
“Ma tell me what happened. He’s going to be mad at me whatever I do,” I insist, and she knows I’m right.
“It’s just been awhile since I caught your father doing something