EPILOGUE
Three Months Later
ISAIAH
I was overseeing the LGBTQ center project, and it was all coming together.
I’d built up some buzz for it, and we were rehabbing the Bianchi name from a family that shook businesses down for protection money.
I knew it wasn’t because of me, but I think I was helping them become less criminal and more legal business—even if they were still a little shady.
On the Boston Common, Daddy had prepared a picnic. He loved showing me off in the parks when the sun was out. Sometimes it felt like we were going out on these lunch dates and he was running for political office with the number of people who would come up to him or compliment him.
We were both in our formal clothes, which kinda sucked because I preferred my sweats and a crop top—and I needed to see Daddy Santo in his sweats too. Maybe that wasn’t for public viewing, but seeing that thick hog he was smuggling between his legs couldn’t be beat.
“I love you, Isaiah,” he said as we flattened out the patchwork blanket his nonna had made. He set the wicker basket in the middle of it, and I pulled my shoes off to pin the blanket down at two corners.
“I love you more,” I said, looking around and blushing. We’d come a long way from tea parties in the penthouse apartment. He’d come a long way.
“Not possible, especially since I’ve got you something very special in here,” he said, tapping the top of the basket.
“Fruit cups?” I asked. “The ones that are really sweet?”
“Yes, but that’s not it,” he said. “You’re not allowed to guess.”
I giggled, miming locking my mouth.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed.
I screwed them shut, and put my hands over them too, but then he told me to hold my hands out.
I was conscious of how sweaty my palms had become, and I really didn’t want him touching them and feeling all icky.
But I sucked back a deep breath, holding them both out. “Please don’t be a bug,” I squeed.
After a moment of teasing, I felt the cold touch of something that slinked into my palm. I didn’t know what it was, but if it moved, I was going to freak out. He swished it around for a moment, and then pressed it firmly into my palm, and I realized what it was. “Open your eyes.”
“It’s the—”
“Your part of the family,” he said.
“Is this your way of—”
He shook his head. “When I ask you to marry me, it’ll be with a ring, and you’ll be blown away.”
I stared at the small gold dagger in my hand, and the weight of it wasn’t too heavy. It was having a family that weighed strongly now, in the best possible way.
“Let me put it on you,” he said. “Turn around.”
As he put the chain around my neck, he told me it was blessed by his nonna.
She was probably my favorite person at the house, and his mom had now started adding extra food to my plate—Santo reminded me it was her way of showing love, but I suppose I wasn’t too used to someone putting food on my plate.
Growing up, it had been someone taking food, money, supplies, whatever it was I had.
Even though it had been three months, the pain of knowing my own mother chose money over me hurt. It was a little duller now, and not too sharp, the pain being replaced by the overpowering love of the Bianchi family. They were in the midst of change too, and it was magical.
Santo kissed me. “I’m so happy I found you,” he said.
“I think I was the one who found you,” I said with a giggle, eyeing the dagger dangling over my shirt.
“I pulled you from a file.”
“And I turned up, knowing nothing you could say or do would make me leave after two weeks.”
He laughed. “You’re right, I tested you and you passed.”
“I tested you as well.”
“Oh?”
I nodded, trying to come up with a lie on the fly. “The Daddy test,” I snort laughed. “And you passed.”
“Just a pass?”
“With honors.”
“You ready for the rest of the surprise?” he asked, opening the picnic basket.
“Yes, and I hope it’s tasty.”
Daddy let out a groan. “Sorry, baby, my dick isn’t in here.”
I giggled, swatting at him with a hand. “Naughty.”
It was a teddy—brand new, no false bottom, just a teddy. It was the best second surprise I’d had.
After three months, I was finally part of the family.
I suppose officially now. And in that time, we’d been crashing down walls about who the Bianchi family were.
They were accepting, tolerant, and they weren’t going to break your legs over a five-hundred-dollar loan .
. . but they would if it was more. I’m working on it with them.
And then there were two more Bianchi brothers.