Page 47 of The New Godfather

She looks up, those green eyes searching mine like she’s trying to read what’s behind my words. There’s a flicker of hesitation in her face.

“They won’t be with you constantly,” I continue, keeping my tone even. “They’ll stay in the shadows, just backup if you need it. Everything is still so new… it won’t hurt to be careful.”

She considers the prospect quietly. I watch her fingers trace the rim of her wine glass, and the small furrow between her brows. Then she nods.

“Thank you,” she says softly.

That simple gratitude from her settles deep inside me. And deep inside me, I feel it bloom. It is only one flower, but it is the most beautiful flower in the world.

We stand up together and clear the table. We load the dishwasher side by side. The domestic rhythm of the clink of dishes, the warm water running, and the faint scent of lemon soap feels so normal it almost makes me smile. When the last dish is in, we both turn at the same time and lean against the counter, staring out at the apartment together. The silence is comfortable. The city hums far below us, a distant, living pulse.

“So,” she says, tilting her head and looking sideways at me. “What do you do for fun around here?”

I laugh. “I’m seldom here, and when I am, I come only to sleep,” I admit, shrugging my shoulders. “So this is a first for me as well.”

She smiles at that. And I decide I want to know her, the real her, the one who existed before the world of made-men and dirty money swallowed her whole. I want to know the dreams she had before everything was taken from her, before she learned to hide behind her wall of ice.

I grab a new bottle of wine and two fresh glasses in one hand, and hold out the other to her. She takes it without hesitation, her fingers sliding into mine like they belong there. I pull her with me over to the couch.

We settle in next to each other on the deep leather. She watches me as I open the bottle with a soft pop and pour the deep red wine into the glasses. I hand her one. Then I tug her legs gently over my thighs so she’s half-draped across my lap, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her body through our clothes. I take a slow sip of my drink, and ask the question that’s been sitting in the back of my mind since the day I first saw her.

“Before you married Salvatore,” I say quietly, “what were your plans? What did you want to do?”

Chapter Forty-Four

VIOLA

When he said he would assign extra men to guard me, for a second my old instincts had flared, the automatic wariness that comes from years of living under constant watch. But then I’d looked at his face, and realized he’s not trying to cage me. He’s just concerned. He’s trying to keep me safe.

While the old Viola would have stiffened and seen it as another way to control her, this version of me, the one who ugly-cried in his arms and let him hold me while I fell apart, felt something different. Gratitude. Warmth. A strange, fluttering relief that someone actually cares enough to want to protect me instead of own me.

And now he’s asking me about my interests before I married Salvatore. No one has ever asked me this, wanted to know what I wanted to do. Certainly not my own father. No, for him I was leverage and a thing to be bartered with.

I take a sip of wine and feel the warmth spread through my chest, then I tell him the truth I’ve kept buried for years.

“I was interested in pottery at some time,” I say quietly. “I loved it. The feel of the clay under my hands, the way it took shape when I worked it. It felt… real. Like I was creating something that was only mine.”

He looks at me thoughtfully. “I remember. I noticed a few pieces drying in the sun during the first year of your marriage.”

I blink, surprised. He remembers.

“Why did you stop?” he asks, his thumb brushing slow circles on my knee.

“Salvatore hated the way my hands and nails looked because of the pottery. I had to keep my nails short, and my hands didn’t look as dainty and well-oiled as he preferred, so he told me to drop it.” The words feel bitter on my tongue, but saying them out loud feels like releasing something I’ve carried for too long.

Ricci is quiet for a moment. Then he takes my hand in his, turning it gently so he can look at it properly. His thumb traces the pretty manicure on my nails, the soft skin, the short, neat shape I’ve kept out of habit.

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you,” he says, voice low and warm, a small smile tugging at his mouth, “but I detest dainty and well-oiled hands. I like them stubby and stained with clay. That is the only way this arrangement between us can work.”

A burst of laughter bubbles up before I can stop it, and I nearly choke on my wine. I have to set the glass down fast, coughing and laughing at the same time until my eyes are watering. I can’t believe him. I can’t believe myself.

“Are you okay?” he asks, one big hand sliding up to pat my back gently, soothing the last of the cough.

I nod and straighten. “Yes… I’m okay.”

He smiles again, the kind that reaches his eyes. “You should take pottery up again. Practice as much as you want. If you want to go to a studio, let me know, or if you prefer to do it at home, I’ll make a studio here for you.”

I can’t take it anymore.