Ciao Bella

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Let the dead stay that way and let the living—live.” —King Campisi

Ivan

“Come on.” I dragged her through the house as much as I could with both of us still recovering from our injuries. “Nobody will notice we’re gone.”

“You ran into two chairs just to walk me down the hall.” She laughed and pressed a kiss to my cheek. We stumbled against the wall in our suite on campus.

We were supposed to be having a party, but everyone was exhausted, even King was yawning like he needed a nap. It had been a week since everything went down.

I think at this point everyone needed therapy after seeing a ghost like that, and at least the whole white horse missing thing made sense.

Come to find out, one of my men stole it and handed it over to her. She’d been toying with us for a while, bit by bit, until it was time for her big reveal, whatever that was going to be.

I, for one, think she was plagued by guilt and jealousy.

Doctors said she actually suffered some brain damage from her accident-causing severe headaches and paranoia.

It kind of made sense that the part of your brain that feels empathy was more than likely damaged in the process as well.

All she felt was rage.

And now all she’d stare at would be prison walls with nobody to talk to but herself.

“Come on.” I pulled open our bedroom door. “They’re watching a movie and having wine, they won’t even hear us.”

“They’ll hear you.” Bella laughed. “I’m quiet.”

“You’re not!”

“Last night I—”

“Last night you probably woke up half of the campus.”

“They should invest in noise canceling headphones like the rest of our Family does.”

She was already pulling her shirt off, and I was already tugging up her skirt, “We’ll go super-fast.”

“Romantic.”

“Desperate.” I corrected.

“Ciao, Ivan.”

I captured her mouth and ran my hands down her body, cupping her ass, bringing her in against me while she shoved down my briefs. “Ciao, Bella.”

All I needed was her.

Maybe we’d establish more rules in our future, maybe we’d make it a thing, but I wasn’t so sure they’d be appropriate as I faced her toward the mirror and bent her forward. “I missed you.”

“I’m right here.”

I sunk into her. “Same, I mean me too, I mean, yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“To our Family, to this. I mean yes. I like being a boss, but I think I like being your husband more.”

I pressed my hands against hers as she clutched the sink with her hands. “And being a dad, are you open to that?”

“Just don’t name him Walt.”

“Agreed.” She laughed while I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close. I finally had a home.

And all I had to do was pretend to kill my mentor and best friend to do it.

The mafia was weird, even with our rules it sometimes didn’t make sense but in her arms, everything suddenly did.

Blood In. No Out.