He looks at me for a couple of seconds in silence, almost as if he's zoned out. I instantly feel stupid for thinking he'd feel comfortable to tell me. I mean, just because we've helped each other a few times, it doesn't mean that he'll automatically feel ready to open up to me. He lifts his head up and away from my body with a torturous look across his face. "It's okay Rome," I tell him, opening my arms out for him "c'mere, I tired myself out with all that embarrassing, ugly crying." I say with a nervous chuckle, worried he may reject my offer to cuddle each other to sleep.

He moves into my arms without another word and I feel his exhaled relief, puff against the crook of my neck as he snuggles up to me. "Crying isn't embarrassing especially considering the things you went through, it's okay to let it out, and don't even get me started on 'ugly cry'. What kind of bullshit is that? Don't call my beautiful wife ugly again. I won't allow that blasphemy anywhere near my wife and I." He says as he leaves 3 possessive kisses on the pulse-point of my neck.

This makes a genuine smile light up my face. His mannerisms towards me now are so gentle compared to when we first met. He first came across as broody and closed off, but he had his moments the night we met. He was nice, but he didn't give much away, however he's always been this possessive. I wonder why?

"Rome?" I whisper "you asleep yet baby?"

He shifts at my side and brings me closer to him, "no mia belleza, are you okay? Do you want to talk about it, I mean, I wanted to ask, but I didn't know if you'd be hurt or uncomfortable with my questions." He says softly in a tone which begs me to understand that he's concerned about my well-being.

"Well, I wasn't originally going to open up, but I think it may be good to talk to someone about it." He nods understandingly.

"What were you originally going to ask?" He says.

"Oh! Right. I was going to ask why you were so possessive of me from the start, I mean, yeah, you were all 'I'm a cold, ruthless mafia capo that everyone fears' yet you were sweet enough to protect me from my fathers ball games, hold my hand for the whole night after we signed the contract and helped me through my panic attack. Like, why?" I finish.

"Well," he begins "regardless of wether or not our marriage is a contractual one or not, what's mine, is mine. No one can touch you, no one can look at you and, I mean, no one can do so much as think about you without me beating the shit out of them. Mia belleza is mia belleza. Not anyone else's. It was a natural instinct when I saw you." He growls possessively.

"What if you get hurt when you beat them up baby?" I ask him, innocently worried.

"Mia belleza, are you forgetting I'm 6'4 and 220 lbs They'd come no where near even bruising me. And if I do end up getting hurt, you can just play nurse for me just like you did last time, right?" He says humorously "anyways, on a serious note, talk to me Mél, I wanna hear and share your pain baby. I'm here now, you won't be alone a day in your life again. You hear me, mia belleza?" He asks, rubbing one of his hands up and down my bare thigh as the other is wrapped tightly around my waist keeping me impossibly close to him.

I just nod in understanding and figure out where to start.

"My whole childhood, I grew up in a loving, thriving home. Obviously, my father was still the patron [boss] of the French mafia, but he tried to keep that as far away from us as possible, as per my mother's wishes. My maman. Dieu [God]. Where do I even begin. She had the sweetest soul, had what seemed to be the perfect relationship with my father and was like a mother to all of the boys in the mafia. Which is why, most of them are like my brothers now and happily abide by my rules." I start, looking over at him only once, when he moved his arm from around my waist to place it under his head for support, as I fight the tears that are begging me to come out.

"Anyways, as I grew older I noticed some of my fathers habits that were unusual and distant. The day of my 16th birthday, my father came home, angrier than usual, and told us to hurry and finish getting ready for my birthday ball. I had begged them to allow me to throw a ball for my birthday since they weren't too keen on the idea, but they eventually agreed. When we got into the car, my father was jittery and jumpy yet agitated and quiet. I still don't know why but his behaviour just stood out to me because I'd never seen my father like that before. Anyways, we get to my ball and we're obviously the last ones to get there as we must make a grand entrance. So we enter and everyone is buzzing the laughter and joy. We were all mingling in the main part of the building which connects all of the ballrooms and I was in the middle of a conversation with Liyana, when all of a sudden, I was interrupted by a distant sound which made the whole room burst into madness. Amongst the people running, trying to find safety, I see two huge, bulky men beeline towards me. At that moment, my heart dropped because I realised that the gunshot was probably just a trap. So, I'm trying to think and quickly come up with a solution to my predicament and I remember that there's an emergency exit not to far behind me. So, I slowly shuffle backwards, slyly making my way to the exit, keeping my eyes trained on the two men making their way towards me. However, I didn't realise that there were many other men also trying to capture me, so, when two other men grab a bruising hold on me and dragged me to one of the ballrooms nearby - the one that we officially met in - I wasn't prepared to fight back as I wasn't an assassin back then. So, then they threw me into the room and tied me to a chair and left me alone in the ballroom. That allowed me to begin freeing myself from the rope, but I didn't have enough time to complete the job because soon after, the four men that were after me, came back with both my parents and a whole army of men in tow. Then," my lip trembles as tears continue spilling out of my eyes and Romeo trying his hardest to wipe them all away and kiss the area that they were in.

"Then, Vincent walks in. He's got an unnecessarily large gun in his hand as he comes in to address my father. They exchange a couple of words but I'm not exactly paying attention so one of the men nearest to me harshly punches me across the face and says some shit to me which upset my maman a lot. Then Vincent turns his attention back to my father and tells him 'it's either your daughter or your wife. Your choice amico mio [my friend]' and my father just stared at him, not answering him at all. He was practically frozen in his spot. So, Vincent got impatient and chose for him. All of a sudden, I hear a loud gunshot and I don't realise that I'm not the one that got shot straight away. So when I peel my eyes open and see my maman's lifeless body lying on the floor as blood pours out of the gaping hole in her forehead, I didn't know what to do other than beg for my only lifeline and person of comfort. I begged and I begged for her to be alive and come back to me and I just remember repeating the phrase 'S'il-vous-plaît' over and over again until I realised it was futile. Moral of the story, I am fully to blame for my mothers death and I understand why I deserve the shit that my father has done to me for the last four years. He has physically, mentally and emotionally abused me to the point that I genuinely believe him now. I'm sure you've heard him call me some shit about being an 'ugly fat whore' or that I'm a 'worthless piece of shit' and I believe him, which is the sad thing." I tell him, now sobbing with my arms wrapped around his shoulders, hugging him towards me tightly as if he is the only thing keeping me sane. "I often get nightmares and panic attacks, so I hope you know what you're getting yourself into Rome." I say, trying to lift the depressing mood just a bit, but instead, it makes me cry harder and Rome hug me tighter.

I can feel his jaw tick because of how we're pressed against one another. He says his next words against my ear in a broken voice "baby, please don't cry, please, it hurts my heart to see you cry because of what that satanic asshole put you through." He's slowly running his hands through my hair now, in hopes of calming down my obnoxious crying "I promise you, that until the day I die, I plan on getting. Your. Revenge." He whispers powerfully, leaving a kiss in my hair after each punctuated word at the end.

I don't say anything as I focus on calming my crying and hiccups. "Growing up," Rome starts, I try to look up at him and tell him that he doesn't have to do this, but he just lightly pushes my head closer to him, keeping us connected "I had a shit childhood, Vincent was abusive and heartless. He'd abuse my mother many times, sometimes in front of me, sometimes in a locked room so I could only hear them. He done that because he caught onto the fact that, when he'd beat my mother in front of me, I hated seeing my mama in pain, so I'd tell Vincent that I'd take the beating for her. Vincent used this against me many times. For instance: when I was 8, he dragged my mama and I into the basement where there was a little boy - around my age - who was shaking in fear when he saw Vincent. He left the three of us in the basement for a couple of hours and in those couple of hours, I became friends with the little boy. I started asking him questions about what happened to him and how he got here and he told me that he doesn't know much English, so we spoke in Russian together. He told me doesn't know how he got here, he just woke up and was suddenly here. Then I asked if Vincent had done anything to him. I thought Vincent would only hit and beat him. But boy was I wrong. The little boy said that other than beating, Vincent apparently chained him down to the floor and touched-." He pauses for a second to gather himself "touched him in his 'no-no' places. When he said that, I looked at my mama, who was passed out from the beating she had received earlier that day and realised that Vincent done the same thing he does to my mama, to another person - a little boy. Then when he returned, Vincent had a gun in his hand, which he threw at me and he dragged my mama up by her hair and held a knife to her throat. 'You need to kill the boy or I kill your beloved mama' he shouted at me. I looked between my mama and the little boy who was shuddering involuntarily. I pick up the gun when I hear my mama scream because Vincent pushed the knife further into her neck. I point it at the boy and I remember I was crying so hard that I could hardly see what was in front of me, let alone the boy who was scared for his life. Vincent kept shouting at me to kill him but I was a scared little boy, I didn't know what to do Mél. I fucking see his lifeless body in my nightmares, it just won't stop." He whispers, his voice sounding wobbly.

I pull back slightly from our embrace and cradle his face in my hands, rubbing my thumbs over his chiselled cheekbones. I bring our faces close together so that our noses and foreheads are touching and tell him softly "Rome, nothing in this world could have stopped that cruel man being wired that way, I promise you, that it isn't your fault that you were tainted from such a young age." I softly peck his lips which seems to be the tipping point for him because precious, broken tears spill out of his beautiful hazel eyes and I now understand what he means when he says 'it hurts my heart to see you cry' because it feels like my heart is being ripped out of its place when I see those tears fall out of his hazel-green eyes. I wrap him up in a meaningful hug and pull him impossibly closer to me. He cried for a couple more minutes and I can tell he's trying to control his breathing, so I whisper some encouraging words into his ear, run one of my hands through his hair and the other hand is occupied by rubbing his back up and down softly.

"After that, I'd get many of those trauma-related anxiety attacks like the one from the other day, and my mama would help me when I wouldn't be able to move for a couple of days since I was in a frozen, numb state. I was around 13 years old when Vincent found out about this, and he was beyond pissed. He had a screaming match with my mama about her 'babying me' and told her that she needs to let me 'man up' and deal with my own problems. When my mama refused to agree to letting me get better by myself, I guess that was the last straw for him. He dragged both me and my mama to the basement and as he was doing that, I had seen Valentina standing by, shying away from us. So in hopes of not scaring her, I gave her a smile to reassure her and told her to go and play with the twins since Amara was asleep. When we got to the basement, we went to an unusual room that we don't normally go to. This room had a bed, with rope, handcuffs, chains, whips and many other things. When he threw me on the floor and threw my mama on the bed, I knew he'd do the thing that hurts mama the most. At the time, I didn't know what it was, but even when I was younger and Vincent would make me watch, those nights were the nights I'd cry the hardest, because I could see the pure pain in my mama's eyes. I remember thinking that I don't want a wife because they might do, what Vincent done to my mama, to me. I mean, Vincent was meant to love my mama and instead, he ra-." He cuts himself off to compose himself "he raped her and then killed her. Amélie what did I do to deserve this? I swear I was an innocent young boy. I didn't do anything wrong. Why did he make me watch it all, too? What did I do Mél, what? It's all my fault." He whispers while his voice cracks and wobbles and tears pool at his jaw, my own tears running down my face at the shit that my poor Rome went through.

I kiss all of his tears and respond reassuringly "Nothing baby, you were an innocent young boy, you didn't deserve to be forced into such a cruel world. Not you nor your mama deserved such awful things to happen to you. You're the bravest, strongest and most courageous man I know Rome. You didn't do anything wrong. And don't you dare say it's your fault again, because that poor excuse of a man deserves nothing but to be thrown in the fiery pits of hell." I whisper in his ear endearingly, leaving 3 soft kisses on his face. One on his forehead whilst I say "it's not your fault." And the other two on either of his cheeks where the tear tracks have been imprinted on his soft cheeks whilst I say to him "I promise you Rome."

We stay in each other's embrace, comfortably, for another hour just appreciating the support that we have within one another and bask in all its glory. I kiss his forehead 3 times and remember the mission I gave to my mafia a couple of days ago, now doesn't seem like a great time to tell him, so I'll tell him another time. "Let's go to sleep baby, you want to?" He hums and leaves 3 kisses in the crook of my neck.

"Thank you amore mio [my love], you're everything I've ever needed in the world mia belleza." He says as he holds on to me even tighter. My heart stutters at his admission.

I reply with "You're everything I've ever needed in the world too Angelo."

"Good night mia belleza" he whispers.

"Good night Rome." I whisper back.

With that being said, we both fall asleep in each other's arms, just as broken as one another. My heart yearns to take his pain away, and kill Vincent to ease my Rome's heart and pain.

Should I tell him about the mission I've set for my mafia? Maybe he'll want to join too. I just want to help him, it genuinely hurts me to see him in this much pain. It's decided. I'll tell him about the mission to kill Vincent, and if he wants to join then why not? But if he doesn't, then so be it. I'll kill the bastard on behalf of both of us.

Tomorrow. I'll tell him tomorrow.

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