Umberto: Mafia Romance (Andolini Crime Family Book 3)

by Coco Miller

  “Awe, baby, are you scared of your grandma?”

  “Damn right, I’m scared of my grandma. Do you see those huge wooden spoons on the wall? They are not for decoration. If you look closely at my ass, you can still see the impressions from where she hit me as a child.”

  “I’m sure you deserved it.”

  “Oh, I definitely fucking deserved it,” he grins again. “But that’s not the point.”

  “Well, why don’t you leave the kitchen to us then, and you go back to whatever it is you do around here that won’t get your ass kicked by an old lady.” I tip up on my toes and kiss him.

  “Whatever you say,” he whispers, kissing me back tenderly, “Mrs. Bova.”

  He smacks my ass like it’s a stamp of his face on my backside as he walks away. I just chuckle at him and then get back to trying to perfect Grandma Bova’s insanely good homemade sausage recipe.

  Umberto and I have been married for three years now. I love him so much it’s insane. This ruthless gangster to everyone else has found a soft spot in his soul for me, and I have made a home for him inside of the girl who has never trusted a single person in her life. Until now.

  Together we are trying to change who we used to be and find out who we are together. There is no secret too big or a burden that we have to carry on our own. We take it one day at a time, and we find our pace as we go.

  He’s trying to slowly become more legit in his business endeavors, especially in the food businesses. With me at his side helping out and actually living out some of my biggest dreams too.

  It turns out medical school and becoming a doctor wasn’t something that I really had my heart set on. It was something I thought I wanted because of a moment in my childhood that made me feel empowered. A rarity in my old world.

  The girl who could not even stand up for herself to have a place to study in her dorm room is not the woman I am today. The woman who worked hide to hide from the notoriety and shame of her parents sins is not the woman I am today.

  No.

  The woman who exists now is Victoria Michelle Bova. I made my own history and name for myself in this city. In the last three years, I have become a woman who is to be treated with respect, and it is because I have earned it as a chef and smart businesswoman.

  I am a woman who gives back to my community and takes pride in my work. I associate with people that I actually enjoy being around and not just people that can get me the kind of connections and association a soulless person would attack like a vulture going for an easy meal.

  The kind of life that I want to live is one filled with meaningful, loving moments that last forever and aren’t just there to look good in front of speculating eyes. I want to be better than my parents and give more back to my life and my marriage than what I witnessed as a kid.

  That is not what I want for a child of my own. I want to give them a life where they know they are loved without question. Where they know that they are the most important things. More than this place. More than money. More than fame. More than my own life. And in order to do that, I had to learn the power of forgiving and letting go of the past. I cannot allow myself to be controlled by it anymore.

  When I sparkle and shine looking at my husband, it’s because no one makes me feel as loved or special as he does. There is not another soul on the planet that has ever cherished me the way he does or goes out of his way to treat me daily like I am a queen standing beside him. And likewise, there is nothing phony about my love for him.

  I don’t love him for his money or power. I love him for being the kind of man that once had the chance to get back what was his and decided to gain something more valuable in its place. He traded money for love, his life for mine, and I don’t know if there is anything more selfless or loving in the entire universe than that.

  Umberto showed me that no matter how you start out your life, there is always more than one route to take and when the road you are on is heading in a bad direction you have the right as the person in the driver's seat to take it a different course and change your destination.

  You don't need some weird boss lady telling you that your name is Destiny in order to believe it. You just have to make up your mind to allow love to lead your path and follow it where it may go. Because you just never know how love can change things in your life until you decide to be brave enough and give it a try.

  I’m so fucking glad I did.

  Bonus Epilogue

  Umberto

  There are so many times during the day when I glance at my wife Victoria and wonder how the fuck I got so damn lucky. How could a girl like her ever love someone like me? She is the light in my world of darkness. A ray of blinding sunshine.

  I walk with men that don’t even have souls, yet somehow, this angel belongs to me. How? I don’t fucking know, but I spend every second of my time with her making sure she fucking knows how much I love and adore her. I make sure she is fully fucking aware of the effect she has on me, and even though it kills me to share with her the kind of shit I’ve done and have that on the table, I know she is the one person I can trust not to betray me. And that feeling is fucking everything when you’re a dead man that people still want to kill over and over again, for just existing.

  I watch her as she cooks in one of our newest business ventures. She’s so damn hot. And everything just seems to come so easily to her. There was no way that I could live, not knowing her life wasn’t good, that she wasn’t completely fucking happy, completely safe. She looks pretty damn happy. In fact her happiness is pretty damn blinding.

  I didn’t grow up a happy kid. I grew up running deals for my father even though I didn’t know anything about it at the time. I was groomed from a young age just by being around the fucking guy.

  Like when he’d pick me up from my mom’s house on the weekend and then take me to one of his many mistresses' houses. That’s where he hid his shit before he blew up big on the streets. So I’d have to hide in the closet and wait for him to, uh, finish, his little ventures before we got to go for a slice in the city.

  Even that was deal-making though. Every spot seemed to know my father’s name. They never ask him for money, but they always fucking had some to hand over. Everything was free. Everything was offered to him at the best quality and with a smile, even if it was forced. They feared him. I wanted that feeling. I thought that was the measure of true success in life.

  I caught a glimpse of what my father really did when I was about fifteen years old. It was the first time I had ever been tasked to handle some shit for the clique he ran. I was scared shitless, even though I tried to act brave with balls of brass. I wanted him to be proud of me and not think I was some pussy little punk that could not handle my shit, even though that’s exactly what I felt like then. I had to beat the snot out of a guy who owed the clique money. I was naturally a lot bigger than most men, even guys that were twice my age, standing at six foot one.

  After I beat the shit out of the guy who owed us money, my father finally looked at me as if he saw me for the first time in my life. I clung to that feeling, and every job after that was a thoughtless venture that required only my fists and no brains. But before all of that, I didn’t understand that I had to back a motherfucker up off me with deadly force if I wanted to be respected fully by the clique, or by anyone.

  My mother was not a good person either. A lot of it wasn’t her fault though. She was ruined by my father in ways that I guess only she could tell you about, but I saw a lot of the shit go down. I saw the fights and heard the screaming. I heard her yell at him, and that’s how I learned all the bad words in Italian. I learned what a whore was in Italian because that’s what she was mainly always screaming about.

  When my father finally left, it was like a hole was left wide open in my house, and my mother had to figure out how to fill it up with something new. So I had a lot of stepfathers and new “uncles” I had never met before.

  My ‘Uncle Joe’ was a man that I would, later on, grow up
to kill. He was my first hit, and I didn’t need orders because when I was eight years old, Uncle Joe liked to get drunk and beat the fuck out of my mom before turning on me. He had a thick leather belt and used it liberally. I learned how to be brutal from him. I learned how to make killing the same as breathing. So easy you don’t even think about it.

  There are so many times when I’m holding on to Victoria, and I place my hands against her ribs, feeling her life flow in and out of her lungs, and I think to myself; she has no idea how easily I could end a person. She has no idea about the kind of monster she has quieted. I don’t think about it anymore. I don’t let that side of me have a place inside of my bones. But damn, when he did, he was fucking ruthless.

  I try to float on the surface of shit now. I let what people already know do the talking for me before I ever have to lay a finger on them. It’s usually enough. I am glad for that. I don’t want to be my father anymore, which is a relief greater than I could describe because, for my entire life, that was my whole purpose in life.

  Closing the curtain on the past and trying to build something new and brighter is what I live for these days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing and able to fuck a person up on sight if they step the fuck out of line, but I’m trying to live in a way where I won’t ever have to do it out of need. There are times I feel that monster trying to rattle my cage and be set free. Like when Victoria walks through the dining room and makes sure everyone is satisfied with their food and a dense table of pricks wants to eye her like she’s on the menu. That kind of shit makes the monster inside of me fucking livid. And if they ever tried anything beyond roaming their eyes over her, I’d light the fucking room on fire. Even though I fully understand and agree with it.

  She is always the hottest woman in the room. Even when she isn’t trying. Her moonlit hued skin and distractible eyes. The confident way she handles herself. Fuck, that is the sexiest thing about her. Her strength and kindness.

  I used to think showing kindness was a sign of weakness, but now I get it. I understand how powerful it can be. But those men aren’t exactly looking at her from that point of view, and that’s what lights me up so fucking bad. They only see great tits and an ass. They are too dumb to believe a woman like her would not be taken by a crazy motherfucker like me who would brutally commit a million crimes, nothing short of murder, before he would ever allow another man to come anywhere near her. She’s mine, goddamnit.

  The beast in me wants to roar the words like a fierce lion protecting his pride. I have to take a deep breath just to keep my ass in my seat, but I swear my hand is always ready on my Glock that I keep tucked beneath my jacket, just in fucking case a motherfucker thinks about acting stupid.

  Tonight she’s dressed in a simple black dress under her matching black apron with her hair piled up into a pretty bun on her head with a few stray curls that fall against the back of her neck.

  I love that look on her, with her neck exposed. I feel like fucking Satan in that classic fucking movie with Keanu Reeves, Devil’s Advocate, when Lucifer decides to pull up Charlize’s hair and show her how fucking sexy she is with nothing surrounding her face. In the movie, it was to deceive the girl about her looks and make her into something only he desires, but in my world with Victoria, it is the truth.

  She is fucking brutally hot with her hair off her shoulders like that because her skin is flawless and as soft as crushed velvet. I get hard just thinking about touching her. The smell of her. The scent of her spicy skin mixed with her vanilla lotion, and how it feels nude underneath me as she cries out my name. Fuck.

  I have to get myself together. Taxes. I look back at the paper on the table. Yes. If anything is going to make me lose a raging hard on for my wife it is definitely going to be motherfucking taxes.

  She comes over to me as I sit in the corner booth and go over numbers. Yeah, I do that kind of shit now too. Pay taxes. For fuck’s sake. I should just grow a pair of tits while I’m at it.

  “Hey pretty girl.” I reach up and kiss her, grabbing her ass a little just to let those motherfuckers know what’s up. She flushes as she kisses me back.

  “I brought you some dinner.” She sets a steaming bowl of seafood pasta down and kisses me again before she sidles up beside me. “How’s it looking, babe?”

  “You know who the real mob is, love? The fucking IRS. The shakedown I’m suffering right now, Victoria, is so fucking real it kills me not be able to retaliate. If anyone has ever deserved a... fuck, I won’t even finish that sentence in your presence. Forgive me. But it would not be pretty if I ever had to sit down with one of these fucking guys. Just know that. Not at fucking all.”

  She laughs, and that is what quiets the beast the most.

  “Babe, you’re crazy, but I love you.” She palms my cheek and kisses me again. I kiss her back, and she giggles as I try to go a hell of a lot further than kosher in a setting like this. She leans her head on my chest. “Yes, I definitely love you, Umberto.”

  I lied. Her confession is what quiets the beast inside of me the most. It practically kills him.

  “I love you, doll. More than anything in the whole fucking world do I love you.”

  Her eyes sparkle as she stares up at me. I put my hand under her chin and press the pad of my thumb to the apple of her cheek, soothing her skin as I wonder quietly.

  “How the fuck did I get you, college girl? How did I get so damn lucky when I have so much to repent for? A sinner like me?”

  Ignoring where we are, my girl cups the back up my head and pulls me into her for a heated kiss.

  I whisper against her lips. “I’m about to shut this whole place down if you don’t stop that, love.”

  “Oh, Umberto,” she sighs. Victoria reaches up and takes my hand from her cheek, sliding it down her body. I think for a moment she’s actually going to play along with me and let me get away with some shit like this in the restaurant, but she takes my hand and rests it on her stomach, pressing my palm firmly against her body.

  “I’m feeling just a little extra emotional today.”

  “Why, babe?” I worry for a second. Did something happen? “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she smiles. “I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.”

  Her eyes seem unsure at first, and then she smiles this brilliant smile that’s more blinding than anything I have ever witnessed in my life. It does fucked-up shit to my heart that makes my damn chest hurt. I feel like a mack truck is bulldozing its way inside of my chest, and I can’t stop it from happening. What’s more confusing is that I don’t even want to. That feeling fills me up to a point of completion. Paying taxes and living legit seems like child’s play in comparison to that feeling.

  “Umberto, say something,” she says with lines of worry spreading across her forehead. “Please.”

  I blink, and it’s then I realize there’s something wet in my eyes. I have to clear my throat just to form a damn sentence and the only thing that comes to mind is the truth. The absolute truth about everything and the only thing that carries any weight in my world anymore.

  “I love you so fucking much, Victoria. You changed my life. You gave me a life worth living and worth fighting for. That’s one thing I was always wrong about. I thought I had to fight everything and everybody in the world in order to win in life, but the only thing I have to really put my life on the line for now, is you, Victoria. You have no idea how much you mean to me, love. But I’m going to live every day of my life trying to become worthy of you.” I kiss her. “Of both of you, pretty girl.”

  “I love you too, so much. You make me so happy. You’ll be such a good father. I know you will.”

  She smiles so beautifully, and tears roll down her face. I hate the fucking sight even though I know she’s only crying because she’s happy. Still, I wipe her cheeks clean with the pads of my thumbs and kiss her until the feeling in my chest is lighter, like a balloon set on soaring to the clouds. Exactly where I want to be.

  I will never
allow my child to grow up like we did, completely forgotten and used by our parents for their own selfish gain.

  If there is one thing my eyes have been opened to it is the fact that no matter who you were born to become, or what name you were given, you can still choose a different path for yourself and be free to choose something else, something better. You can change it if you decide that your destiny is in another direction, and it is as simple as walking away and walking toward what you really want more than anything else.

  I was born Umberto Bova. Son of the Andolini Crime Family. Don to the Bova familia of that syndicate. Ruthless killer. Soulless judge and jury.

  I was born into a clique of gangsters. I was groomed to become the most ruthless bastard in New York, and for the better portion of my life, I was that man.

  People still fear me, but these days I don’t have a craving for blood. I once joked that I had no friends to call me by my nickname. At the time, that was true. But that was before I met an angel who saved my soul from the pits of hell.

  I am now the new and improved Umberto Bova. I am now free. And as long as I am breathing, the woman I love, who is now carrying my child, will be free too.

  Ω Ω Ω

  Thank you for reading UMBERTO’s journey. It is the third novel in the Andolini Crime Family Series, and I hope you enjoyed it. Grab the entire series at its lowest price or for free on Kindle Unlimited today.

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  Also By Coco Miller

  Big City Billionaires

  Faking For Mr. Pope