Page 133 of Obsessed by My Ex's Mafia Uncle

He ignores me completely, only lifting them when he’s had his fill.

Then, like he’s got a hearing problem, he closes the distance and steals a kiss.

“Robert!” I squeak, stepping away.

He laughs then, and it’s a sound I didn’t know I wanted to hear. It's loud, full, spilling into the space like color where there was none.

He walks past me to the side.

There’s a pair of old rocking chairs by the entrance, ones that have seen too many evenings with our little family of three.

He lowers himself into one of them, dropping the takeout bag beside him.

“I was married,” he starts without a soft landing.

No buildup.

No warning.

Typical of him.

“It was to my college dream girl,” he continues, his gaze fixed somewhere ahead, not on me, not on anything specific. “Her name was Lily.”

My insides start to brim with curiosity.

“She wasn’t… what my family had planned for me,” he adds, a faint, humorless curve touching his mouth. “They had other ideas based on the family business. Arrangements. Alliances.”

Yeah, I don't need to be reminded that he's a Mafia don.

“But I fought for her,” he goes on. “I fought for us and did what I needed to do so no one could tell me no.”

There’s something in the way he says it. It's more fact than pride.

“I made space for her in a world that doesn’t make space for anything tender.”

My arms squeeze across my chest

“And it worked,” he exhales quietly. “For a while it did.”

He leans forward, resting his forearms against his thighs, his hands loosely clasped together like he’s holding something that’s already gone.

“She gave me a son,” he continues. “My beautiful boy, Ariel.”

He swallows once before continuing.

“He was five.”

Five.

Was.

Something twists in my chest.

“I was away when it happened.” His voice catches. “I went for business in Japan and I came back to a house on fire.”

“What?” I ask quietly, hoping it's figurative.

“They didn’t make it out.” He nods like that answers my question.