"Here she is, calling again!" I mumble dropping the phone on the table and rolling my eyes in disparate vibes with her calls.

"Who?" Ben asked, shoving pizza in his mouth as if he hadn't eaten for days and paid zero concern or attention.

Or that's what I thought.

We are on break at the canteen of the Uni, still having two more classes before the school ends for the spring vacation. My last spring vacation.

I'm planning a week of surfing in LA, and I literally can't wait for it, but Dad is adamant about making me visit them and spend the vacation at home. He knows I can't resist Eve who's been calling me since yesterday.

I chose not to reply to Ben. He is a good friend but sometimes he pisses me off with his lack of empathy which he always says is not lack of empathy but trust that my mob family can always fix for me whatever I want.

You see, Papa is Don Enzo Benito, or rather ex-Don Enzo Benito.

We moved to NY many years ago, but Papa kept controlling very incognito the businesses in Napoli. Uncle Alex is there and... I miss him.

He has always understood me. I could ask him for anything and if he couldn't give, he had the best way to tell me it was not possible.

And if that involved a lollipop... trust me, he is the best.

"You're not eating?" Ben asks staring at me with his mouth still full, unlike the plate under his nose.

I look at him and instead of answering, I'm wondering what kind of a woman will ever have the courage to exist in Ben's life.

A damn heroine, that's who!

He's two years older than Julian but I swear, my little brother is ten times smarter than Ben, and better dressed and more interested in his appearance.

He's seventeen but if we go out together, you can bet no man will approach me. Firstly, because anybody would naturally think he is my boyfriend, secondly...

Have you met my younger brother? No? Ha, you don't know what you are missing!

So, let me tell you. Julian is an exact copy of my father with extremely specific and strong features from my grandfather.

In case you don't remember, my grandfather is Lucas Tate. The Lucas Tate, the unbeatable, never intimidated, fearless, and always adamant to kill or to get, father-in-law of an Italian Don and the husband of the most wonderful woman I've ever known in my life, Grandma Becca.

She is royal in all her aspects, outfits, speech, and smile, even her crying has something queeny in it. She has an aura that few women have, making Grandpa Lucas still a man madly in love since I know them.

Well, she deserves it.

But unlike my grandpa and Papa, Julian never put on the table any discussion of inheriting Papa's ways of life and his businesses, the legit businesses in NY and the less legit ones from Italy, that is.

Traditionally, he should be the next Don but instead, he wants to be a doctor and that's what he's been studying for and dreaming about for years now.

But other than that, he can perfectly fit as a Don already, with his sharp mind, dominating nature, and leadership that Papa is always praising, added to a 6'4 height of handsomeness walking on those long, bulky legs, a light brown curly hair, just like Papa's, embellishing a perfect face with big blue eyes copied from Grandpa Lucas and a spotless smile stolen from my grandma Becca.

Or Mamma Eve, I can't really tell which one because the resemblance between the two is spectacular.

"No, Ben. I'll not eat that. Why do you ask?" I say, completely ignoring the very obvious reply.

He frowns at me and leans against the sofa's backrest, scrutinizing me with a sharp stare.

Well, I didn't say Ben was stupid.

"What's going on, Mia?" he asks, and the meaningful stare directed straight at my thoughts makes me spill the beans on the spot.

"It's Papa," I reply with a long sigh.

"Hey, Don Enzo has never had anything for you but love. And care," Ben replies making me frown and throw him a murderous look.

"Yeah, before he decided to be a jerk and forbid me to go to my mother's funeral," I sharply protest.

"Stop being a brat! You know very well Napoli in times of war is no place for a young girl," he scolds me.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. Ben finds Papa to be the Holy Scripture of what means to be a man. Don't you ever say anything about Papa or all his wrath and one of his lengthy lines of Italian ancestors will come over you in the strangest ways possible. Ben's favorite for me, tickling. God, I hate it! But if you wish for your death, take my lollipop.

"She was my mother! I'm carrying her name!" I shout shifting my lollipop from the right corner of my lips to the left one.

"Everybody there knows Don Enzo has a daughter with a stripper. If they know you are the one...," he bluntly says, trying to emphasize once more the death danger of being the daughter of an Italian mob head and justifying for the nth time that having the luck to carry another name is lifesaving.

"Asshole!" I curse him for calling my mother a stripper and ignoring his good intentions.

I knew she was a stripper, he didn't have to rub it in my nose. And I know she has died of an overdose, not the dream model of a mother for a child, but I never could understand Papa's ban on traveling to see her which has been in place since we moved here.

She never came to visit. She hated Mamma Eve to her bones.

And Mamma Eve... well, I love her, she has been the best mother, she has always been on my side, and I can't imagine what would I have done without her being only under Papa's watch like I'm some kind of a damn Middle East oil pipe, but I've never felt her on my side in this matter. It was like she never wanted me to see my mother again or my mother to come and visit.

Every time I talked about her there was a hard look in Mamma's Eve eyes, that one could easily say was hate, and I would have believed it was hate if I didn't know her better but there is a humongous load of love in Mamma's Eve heart, it's impossible that she hates someone.

"Well, I suddenly feel like not going to Italy now," Ben threatens with a fake sigh.

"Ben, you promised!" I jumped, shouting in anger.

"True! I promised I would go if I had nothing to do," he reminds me of our deal.

"And what exactly do you have to do here so important?" I ask crossing my arms on the chest and leaning against the backrest of the sofa, trying to make it look obvious that I know he's just playing with me.

Ben promised to take me to Italy as a graduation gift. He was going to visit his family and most probably the visit is more of a family meeting since he's one year away from graduating himself, but he promised to make time for me.

His father has had business with Papa for so many years that I've always felt they are some distant relatives and Ben is a brother from another mother.

He has been sent under Papa's watch during college, but he always says that Italy is his home and that after graduation he'll move back.

"Like, for example, eating this pizza," he finds a stupid reason and that's about all I'm willing to take.

"You're a jerk! A jerk, Ben!" I snap and stand up, grabbing my things and leaving the table, not before turning around one more time and showing Ben the grace of my middle finger.

"Fuck you, too!" he smirks and mouths back at me.

You might not know but Ben never curses so if he has said that to me, it means I've really pissed him off and that makes me happy.

I turn around to leave with a deep growl of anger and before realizing my way is obstructed, I bump directly into a rock-hard chest so strongly that it almost lands me on my if it wasn't for some large palms grabbing me.

"Wow, easy, easy," I hear Julian saying, bursting into a fit of laughter while helping me to rebalance my feet.

"Julian... what the hell are you doing here?" I asked him straightening my dress and combing my hair with my fingers.

"Papa vuole che torni a casa," he simply says, fixing some rebel strands of my hair. (Dad wants you to come home).

"Tornare a casa?! Ma di cosa stai parlando... tornare a casa?!" (Come back home?! What are you talking about... come back home?!).

"Girl, this attitude of yours has been taking too long and you know Papa. He can be very patient until he isn't. You didn't come to visit for an entire year. You missed Christmas home, and I can't even start telling you how sad the house has been because of him," he details, and I believe him.

Sometimes I can't understand myself either. I love my parents, they have never been anything but caring and understanding but... I'm the only one not carrying his name and that makes me feel different... distant, like I don't belong to the family.

"No. I can't," I reply, stubborn like a mule, avoiding my brother's eyes because I know what he'll say.

But it seems I don't know my brother well enough.

"Then I'll stay with you. Or come with you, whatever..." he decides, throwing his arms in the way as if surrendering to something that he can't change. Or someone...

"No, you're not. I want to be alone. That's the purpose of my traveling," I reject.

"Emillia..." Julian scolds me in the baritone voice that reminds me so much of Papa. "He'll come to your door and then it won't be pretty. And mom keeps asking about you, they are both sick and worried..."

"Julian, I'm not up to them being sick worried right now, and not even up to do something about it. I want to travel, I want to be alone, I want to go to Italy, I need time..."

"Then let me come with you. I promise you won't even know I'm there," he says wrapping an arm around my shoulders and ruffling the hair on the top of my head.

He's two heads taller than I am and he has always been so protective with me as if being older. And I do believe him when he says he'll stay away and bother me with nothing.

But this time I travel by myself, with myself.

"We will see," I reply and match the pace of his steps while he shows me out towards my classrooms.

He hums, of course, unhappy with my reply but he doesn't object. I know him. He'll tackle the subject at a later time, and he won't stop till I give him the answer he wants.

And maybe his way is better because it's either him or Papa. And for Papa, I'm not ready yet.

"Hey, what happened to that interior design contest you enrolled for?" he suddenly asks.

Not that he's too interested in it but because he can feel my anxiety better than anyone. And right now, I'm literally shivering.

"You know... I don't have to go to these classes today," I abruptly changed my mind and turned around, pulling myself out of his hold and making my way to the parking lot.

"Mia..." I hear him mumbling dumbfounded and surely too convinced that I need space, my space, my personal space, my own fucking time with my fucking self because he doesn't follow me this time.

"Bye, see you later," I cheerfully say turning around to see him and wave him.

"Seriously, Mia?!" he shouts opening his arms wide for the grace of God.

"Love you, little brother," I mocked him.

"Don't call me that, brat!" the reply came almost instantly.

I laugh and turn around towards him one more time to send him a flying kiss but in truth, I want to see if he follows.

I smile, loving my brother even more for standing in the same spot I've left him, with Ben next to him and looking at me with the same confusion as my brother does.

I vanish as fast as my legs can take me because I'm not planning to go home. I know that home is the first place they'll look for me and besides, I need to be alone right now.

You see, today is my mother's anniversary. She would have been fifty-five and I don't know why but the past year has been nothing but a long nostalgia for her.

I just can't take my mind off of her even though she passed away two years ago, and we haven't seen each other for so long.

She used to call quite often in the beginning, then calls decreased to the level of one phone call per year, for my birthday.

As a teenager, I didn't care much, but when the news of her death came from Papa, something radically changed in me. I felt more drawn to Italy, to my roots and I longed for more things to know about her.

Each time I asked Papa to let me travel to Napoli, he said it was not the right moment.

I know there are troubles in Italy, but troubles never finish in Italy.

And what upsets me most is that Mamma Eve has never been on my side in this, although she's the closest person I know.

She took Papa's side each time, she saddened me deeply.

I chose Stanford not because it was one of the best universities where I could study architecture but because it was the furthest point from my hometown.

It's not like Papa doesn't own a jet that can bring him to me in a couple of hours, but I meant it to be a statement, one my family has accepted, not without drama, though.

Having these trains of thoughts traveling through my mind, it is only now that I realize I'm on the beach already. I breathe in deeply the chilly breeze of the ocean, glaring left and right, trying to find a good spot to sit.

It's Friday today and I'm a bit behind with the new chapter. I always upload a new chapter of my romance stories on Fridays.

I write. Yes, I write whatever feeds my soul and in this period of my life, my soul needs sickly sweet love stories, my creative self-sketching romance in books that I publish on an app I've recently discovered.

Secretly, I write about that perfect love that I dream of stumblingupon one day.

~~~~~
Dear Reader, thank you for being here. 🤗