Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Romeo
The scent of pasta, herbs, and tomatoes waft through my parents’ home as I enter for our weekly Sunday lunch. It's a standing engagement that my mother makes us keep. Either that, or you will feel her wrath, and believe me, that is not good.
One time I got so drunk I slept through Sunday, and my mother did not speak to me for a month.
Asher, my best friend since school and now my right-hand man, milked it and told my mother some of the scandalous things I did that night, just to add salt to the wound. Fucking prick.
He is like the second child they never got to have, as I am an only child.
My mother could not get pregnant after me for some reason.
It was just not meant to be, so when I brought Asher home from school one day with bruises and a rumbling stomach, my parents took him in and that was that. He belonged to the De Massy family.
“Romeo—is that you?” my mother calls out.
“Yeah, Ma.” I enter the kitchen to see my father sitting at the table, a newspaper in hand, while my mom is at the stove stirring something in the pot.
No doubt it’s her famous herb tomato sauce that she makes from scratch.
She even grows her own tomatoes. My mother has a green thumb and loves spending time out in the garden.
“Dad.”
“Son.” We greet each other as I walk to my mother. Kissing her cheek, she smiles at me warmly.
“How are things at the club?” she asks me.
I grin with a shrug.
“Good, as always.”
The first club I opened is my baby. Club Lux is known for its on-trend music and drinks. We have DJs come in from all around the world, and celebrities follow. Lux was my first, but now I have three other clubs around the US.
One in Miami, one in Chicago, and one in Minneapolis.
Just last year I bought two casinos that are doing well for themselves, including the one with a sex club on the top floor, for exclusive members. Portland will not know what hit them.
They all bring in the money, and it does help that my name is De Massy, linked to the De Massy Mafia family. My mother comes from a long line of Mafia dons.
When she became pregnant with me, she wanted me away from la famiglia. They do some bad shit, and she did not want that around her child. My father was a watchman at the time, but they let him go as my mother and her cousin, the current don at the time, were tight.
They were to keep linked to the family but were kept far away enough that la famiglia shit did not touch her.
We still attend parties and family celebrations and now that I am older at the ripe age of thirty-eight, I can handle myself. My mom knows that Uncle Teo helped me with the funding for Lux, but that debt has since been paid off, and everyone still visits my clubs.
The De Massy family is tight and will do anything for each other.
My father took my mother’s name when things got serious with them, as he was running from his own family shit. In all of my years alive, he has never been found by his blood family and thank fuck for that, especially after the stories I have heard about what they did.
“Did you find a date to Mia’s wedding yet?” My mother’s voice brings me back into the room and out of my thoughts.
Shaking my head, I look to my dad, who is smirking at me. He knows what she is about to ask, and to a degree I let her have her playtime with trying to set me up on a date. She thinks that I am wasting my life not finding a wife to give her grandchildren.
I know she means well, but I am capable of finding myself a date. Even if I have to pay for one for the wedding week. Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever stop worrying about my love life, but I guess that’s just what moms do.
Still, I’d rather choose my own path, even if it means showing up with someone unexpected, just to see the look on her face.
“I am seeing someone and before…” She spins around to face me, her smile wide and bright as she stares at me. “It is new,” I finish.
“What is her name?”
“I am not giving out any information so you can stalk her or get Asher to look her up. Not even he knows about her yet.”
This shocks her; her eyes widen and her mouth drops open.
“He doesn’t?” I shake my head.
“He will pissed at you if keep something like this from him.” My father laughs.
My mom waves me off, placing the spoon down on the counter.
“Asher is a good boy; he would not keep this from me.”
“Asher is a kiss-ass,” I reply, winking.
“And a whore.” My father coughs, making me chuckle.
My mom slaps him across the back of the head but not enough to hurt him, and it makes us laugh harder.
He is right; Asher fucks more women than I do and that is saying something. Dipping my dick into women who leave no lasting impression on me is old now. I feel nothing once I bust my nut.
They smile and move on. I feel nothing, yet I see my cousins all settling down, getting married, and having kids. Maybe one day I’ll want little Romeos running around the place. Hell, I know my parents would.
Seeing my mom happy that I am seeing someone, I now have to fucking find a woman who will step into the role as my girlfriend for a week at a Mafia family wedding.