"Hey... Raffa... wake up, kid. Come one, wake up," I hear someone calling my name and it doesn't sound like a familiar voice, yet he's calling me kid.

"Stand up, kid. We need to get Mia back," he says and her name instantly sobers my brain and opens my eyes.

I see Lucas Tate hovering above me and grabbing my suit jacket from the shoulders, struggling to pull me up.

The struggle was easy, damn Lucas Tate, he'll never grow old.

I pin one hand to the ground to push up the weight of my body while with the other I move Lucas away so I can stand up alone.

"I don't know why the fuck you both insist to call me kid. I'm not your kid!" I roar back at Tate when I'm standing on my feet and I touch the throbbing spot to the back of my head to see if there's any serious damage.

"Well, you are a kid to me... just as Mia is my kid," Tate replies.

I turn my head toward him and stare with questions in my eyes while he keeps high the intense look we share.

He seems to be on my side. Why? The fuck if I know! And I don't care as long as he speaks about getting Mia back.

"What are you doing here? I guess everybody is out of here by now," I ask him before grabbing a glass of whiskey on rocks from the tray a waiter brings outside, throwing the booze down my throat in one move collecting the ice cubes in my hand and holding them pressed to the area at the back of my head, where I've been hit.

"And if we don't rush they'll be out of Italy soon," Tate replies.

"What the fuck..." I mumble and frown my eyebrows, trying to understand who are those to be out of Italy soon.

Tate keeps looking at me, scratching his beard with one hand and shoving the other one in the pocket of his suit pants, evidently having second thoughts on what he has just started.

"Okay, look, I've known your mother for a very long time," Tate starts with something that makes no sense to me.

"My mother?! What the fuck does my mother have to do with this..."

"Your mother... and of course, you know that... has information about you at all times. Don't ask me how she's doing it but don't forget she is a woman of the Mafia. I'm sure she has her ways."

I pull the phone out of my pocket, ignoring Tate and wanting to call Charles but before I press the green button, Charles shows up in the garden with his hand on the back of his neck. A thin stream of blood slides down his wrist and I immediately realize that we have been sacked so that Mia can be easily taken out of here, and most probably out of Italy.

"Raffaello!" Tate shouts making me give him my undivided attention with a deadly look, expecting the worst.

"Lucia offered Mia to move to her place, in the States! And we don't move now..." he says and I instantly jump inside, running throw the crowd of people in the festivity hall and getting out, jumping the stairs two by two and then into my car, closely followed by Tate.

Charles takes his own car and with screeching wheels, we leave the premises at the speed of the light.

My phone rings and I press the board button to pick up the call.

"Where are your man!" I roar, holding the steering wheel tight, speeding in the streets in madness, hoping I'll get to Mia's place before they take her.

"Already in the way, Don," he replies.

"They'll do everything to hold the convoy in the place, you fucking get it?! Do you fucking get it?!" I yell.

"Yes, Don."

"If I don't find Mia there, you're all dead! Fucking dead!" I warned them and hung up.

"How long ago they left?" I ask Tate.

"They have an advantage of ten minutes at most."

"Fuck! Fucking Benito! Ten minutes is too much, too fucking much!" I shout hitting the steering wheel with my right hand, feeling the anger in my throat and the thirst for revenge in my stomach.

"Listen, Lucia is a very reasonable woman. She'll not keep you away from Mia if you talk to her," Tate suggests as if he knows better the relation I have with my mother.

"I don't know what makes you feel you know my mother better than I do."

"Because I do, Raffa. I have known her for years. I know what she feels for you, even though you pretend she doesn't."

"I'm not pretending, Tate. I know. She left, that's what I know. I grew up without a mother because she left."

"She didn't have a choice. Your grandfather..."

"Don't you dare talk about my grandfather!"

"Your grandfather was a murder!"

"No fucking shit?! And we're not?!"

"Not in the way he was," he replies with a lowered tone this time. "You never listened to your mother. You never took the time to understand."

"I don't think there is much to understand. She left. She left me here to inherit an imperium built on crime and blood which I never wanted!"

"Your grandfather killed his own daughter and her child, Lucia's sister. It was Enzo's child. And he did that because she dared go against his words and ran away with Enzo. This is why your mother had to leave. To give her life and yours," I hear Tate say and for a moment I forget to watch the road, snapping my head toward him and staring in shock.

The enormity of the words he says rings like huge bells in my ears, making me doubt absolutely everything I've known in my life until today. Willingly murdering your own child seems like a bad movie plot but somehow, deep inside, remembering my grandfather, I don't doubt.

And yet, it sounds like something out of this world.

"You're lying!" I shout, staring at him as he grabs the seat handle with one hand and the seatbelt with the other as if preparing for impact.

"I wished I didn't. Slow down, kid. You're going to kill both of us," Tate orders as I'm insanely speeding on the hills road waving toward the house of Felicia Benito.

"Ha! No fucking way!" I reply with a beastly laughter and press the speed paddle all the way to the floor especially that now I can see the house, sunk in darkness and silence, with no light on.

"There's no fucking car here!" I mumble as I approach and access the yard through the open gates, completely diverted from the news Tate has just given me.

I don't give a fuck! It's the fucking past and it's not my past.

My past, my present, and my future is Mia, and that's what I'm going to fight for right now.

"There's no fucking car, Tate!" I yell getting out, grabbing my phone from the car holder in the process.

"Charles, where are you? Tell me you're following them!" I ask running a hand through my hair and pacing around like a lion in a cage.

"I am, but..."

"But what?! What, cazzo?!" (Fuck)

"There must be another convoy, Raffa. Mia has not been seen here."

"Where are you? I'm coming there right now," I say trying to get back in the car but Tate grabs the collar of my suit jacket and pulls me away from the door.

"Kid, you need to come down, for fuck's sake! We don't need anybody killed today," he tries to reason but I'm done listening to everybody except for what I want.

"Call her! I know you have the number. Call Lucia or get the fuck out of my way!"

Unlike my expectations, he quickly pulls the phone out and dials a number.

A woman's voice speaks at the other end of the call in a calm voice and a perfect Italian accent.

"Dimmi, Lucas." (Tell me, Lucas).

I grab the phone from his hand before he has the chance to speak and walk away, yelling my lungs out at the woman.

"Non ti conosco, non avrei mai voluto conoscerti! E ti ucciderò prima ancora di prendermi la briga di conoscerti! Verrò a cercarti! Riprenderò Mia anche se dovessi camminare sul tuo cadavere, cosa che farò comunque perché ti sei ficcato il naso negli affari miei!" I yell desperate threats in the phone as if each word is a bullet to my mother's skull. I've always kept her away from the life of Sicily and my anger amplifies knowing she willingly messed with the Mafia.  (I don't know you, I never wanted to know you! And I am going to kill you before even bothering to know you! I'm going to come after you! I'll get Mia back even if I have to walk over your dead body which I'm going to do it anyway because you picked your fucking nose in my business!)

"Raffaello, stupido! Non puoi vedere oltre la punta del tuo naso. Proprio come tuo padre," she calmly speaks back at me holding nothing but a carrying, warm voice expressing the exact opposite of her words. (Raffaello, you fool! You can't see further than the tip of your own nose. Just like your father).

"Che... Di che cazzo stai parlando?" I mumble into the phone, puzzled by the subject of my father and her calling me up straight stupid. (What... What the fuck are you talking about?)

"Sto parlando di quanto sei stupido, Raffaello, stupido a credere che nessun altro lo sappia meglio di te e che non sei degno di amore, quindi combatteresti davvero per questo. Ne vali la pena... e hai quell'amore. A presto, figlio mio. Stai zitto, smetti di urlare e sentirai parlare il tuo amore," she ends laughing, closing the conversation in the middle of the storm inside my head for talking all stupid fucking things and not about how I can get my Mia back. (I'm talking about how fool you are, Raffaello, fool for believing that nobody else knows better than you and that you're not worthy of love so you would really fight for it. You are worth it... and you have that love. See you soon, my son. Be quiet, stop yelling and you'll hear your love talking).

"Che cazzo..." I whisper taking the phone off my ear and staring stupidly at the screen. (What the fuck...).

"Raffa..." I hear almost instantly behind me the only tone of voice I care about right now. Among all the noises I've had lately around, this voice is the one I've kept myself alive for up to this moment, and for this moment.

I swiftly turn around and land my eyes on the main entrance of the house where Mia is standing and from where she stares at me with the sweetest smile and warmest amber eyes I've ever seen on her.

Even in our last night together she wasn't this beautiful, this graceful, this intoxicating alluring as she is now.

I throw Tate's phone somewhere, not carrying a fuck if he has caught it or not, and before my Mia makes any step, I'm already standing in front of her, after three huge leaps I have no idea when I've made.

"Sweetheart..." I mumble curling some strong arms around her waist and lifting her to the level of my face while she hangs her own arms around my neck and giggles between sobs mixed with whispers of my name.

I instantly swallow those sobs with a hungry kiss, capturing her fleshy lips and sucking the life out of her.

"I thought I lost you again..." I confess when I had to stop the kiss and allow her to breathe.

Intoxicated by our moment, I didn't realize that Mia was now completely curled around my torso, with her legs rightly circling my waist and her breasts crashed to my chest, warming up my skin.

She smiles back at me while I push the curls of her beautiful hair to the back of her head, exasperated that they stay in the way of my vision of her eyes and face and the angelic look she has in her stare as if she is looking at me and see the entire universe of happiness.

This is what I love about my Mia and I've never found it in any woman I've met before.

Her look, the infinite joy she feels when looking at me, the total and complete surrender to what she feels when I'm around.

She lays her head on my shoulder, still sobbing.

"I couldn't, Raffa. I couldn't leave," she keeps saying, letting me know that finally her runaway it's done, finished, completely fucking over.

"Tesoro..." I whisper trying to lift her head and look into her eyes as I'm planning to tell her that I'm okay if she needs more time, that I'll wait for her for how long she needs if I know about her at all times, if she stops running away.

"No, Raffa! I don't want anymore. I can't stay away from you anymore," she brings to a halt my intention of talking, making me frown in wonder at how suddenly my luck has changed.

Just a few minutes ago I was sure I lost Mia once again and it's only now that I realize the meaning of my mother's words: be quiet, stop yelling and you'll hear your love talking.

I am quiet and I'll keep quiet because what my love is talking about is pure happiness, pure love.

So I decided to stop my words and speak the language of kisses and touches, the one that I was able only to dream of just a few minutes ago.

My sweet tiny Mia tightens her hold around my neck when my kisses become rougher and deeper, closing my eyes and diving into the bliss of finally tasting her again and she whispers, speaking love words in my mouth between sharp inhales of breath every time she has the chance for.

I see the front door behind her still open and I decide that any second I don't waste her is a lost moment of my own life so I walk into the house in the process of our heated moment, sliding my kisses into the side of her neck and sucking the thin, fresh skin under her ear while her next words throw me into an abyss of gratitude I've never expected to be meant for me.

"You're going to be a father," she whispered, completely oblivious to the fact that she just made the flesh shake on my bones and my knees melt under the weight of infinity glory I've just been given.

~~~~~
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