Page 57 of Wicked Mafia Beast
It’s the life my mother lived and I expected to see it mirrored here.
And it’s not.
I should have known too because if I am being honest with myself, Kon has never lifted a hand to me and I've given him enough reason to want to beat me into submission.
If anything, my stubbornness has made him…hotter for me?
I run that over in my head and realize the truth of it.
Before I can fall down that rabbit hole, everyone asks me about journalism. They don’t touch my current investigation nor talk about my family. I don’t know how much Kon has filled them in on my situation and I don’t feel like darkening anyone’s mood.
They ask about my actual career. What stories I'm proud of. What drew me to investigative work. And they listen like it matters.
I keep waiting for the collective mask to slip. For the careful performance to crack and reveal the fear underneath, the bruises, the hollow eyes of women who've learned to smile because the alternative is worse. I've seen that face. I've worn that face.
But it never comes.
Because it's not a performance.
The realization settles into my bones slowly, a cold weight that contradicts everything I've built my worldview on. These women are not prisoners wearing designer chains. They're not broken. They're not performing. They chose this. They chose these men, these lives, this messy, loud, crumb-covered domesticity.
And they're happy. Genuinely, infuriatingly happy.
Rafael appears in the doorway and Sofia shrieks with delight, arms outstretched, fingers grabbing at the air. The mostpowerful man in Chicago's underworld scoops up his daughter, settles her against his chest with practiced ease, and makes airplane noises to coax a spoonful of pureed carrots into her mouth. His dark eyes crinkle at the corners, the gray at his temples catching the light, and for a moment the man who I discovered decides what's legal and what isn't in his territory is just a father covered in orange baby food.
If his enemies could see him right now, they'd surrender out of sheer confusion.
My father was never like that.
Drake arrives to collect Katriana and Charlotte, filling the doorway with his broad shoulders, silver-gray hair immaculate, steel-gray eyes scanning the room before landing on his wife. He crosses to her in three strides, cups her face in both hands, and kisses her with an unhurried thoroughness that I bet makes the room disappear for both of them. When he pulls back, Katriana's cheeks are flushed and her glasses are crooked, and the smile on her face could power the building.
Luca hasn't left. He's been hovering near Ilona the entire time, gravitating back to her side every time he drifts, as if she generates a field he can't escape. When baby Lucia fusses, he takes her without being asked, settling the baby against his chest with one hand while his other arm curves around Ilona's waist, pulling her into his side. He presses his lips to her temple and murmurs Italian until she smiles.
These are the monsters I planned to expose right after I ruined my father and uncle. Dangerous Crime Lord Makes Airplane Noises: A Pulitzer-Worthy Investigation.
These are fathers and husbands and men who would burn cities for the women they love and then come home and warm bottles and read bedtime stories and fall asleep with tiny fists wrapped around their fingers.
The careful structure of enemies and villains and righteous exposure that I've built my entire identity around is crumbling under the weight of pureed carrots and crooked glasses and a family made up of people who care.
If these men aren't the monsters I told myself they were, then what the hell am I doing here?
And if Kon is like them, soft underneath the violence, capable of love in ways I never imagined, then what does that make me for keeping a secret file on him? He thinks I’m rebuilding my case on my family–and I am–but on the side these people are my next target.
Knots tighten in the pit of my stomach.
Persia walks me to the elevator when it's time to go, Sofia on her hip, one small hand tangled in her mother's violet hair. She waits until we're out of earshot, then stops and turns to face me with an expression that strips away the sunny warmth and reveals a fierceness underneath. A protectiveness, maternal and sure, that extends beyond her own child.
"I know this is a lot." Her voice is quiet, pitched for just the two of us. "I know you're still figuring out what's real and what's the story you told yourself to survive. I was there. We all were."
"Persia..."
"Let me finish." She shifts Sofia higher on her hip and meets my eyes with those bright aqua blues. "Kon is the best of them.I know that's hard to believe when you look at him and see the scars and the tattoos and the hands that have done terrible things. I don’t know if he’s told you what he does for the family or his past. That’s for him to decide. But I've watched that man tend roses in a rooftop garden at five in the morning because they remind him of his grandmother. I've watched him hold Sofia so gently you'd think she was made of glass, and I've seen the way his face changes when someone mentions your name."
My throat closes. My eyes burn. I blink fast and hard.
"He won't tell you how he feels. Or maybe he will. Ask him. He’s brutally honest most times." She reaches out and squeezes my hand, her grip warm and firm. "But the fact that you're standing in this elevator, the fact that he brought you here, that he let you see this?" Her eyes glisten. "He's never done that before. Not with anyone. You’re special to him. Please don’t hurt him or the family we’ve all built."
I open my mouth. Close it. Nod once because that's all I can manage without shattering.
