Wild One

Ten

Niccolo

I look out the window as we drive away from Manon's house. Something like a smile tugs at my lips as I think of her. She is indeed a spirited little thing.

She blushed when I said her name. I bite my lip. The fact that she blushes every time her name leaves my lips makes me want to say it over and over and over...

But how silly am I?

I don't like the girl, I don't. I just...she's cute.

But I don't like cute, I don't like young-she's a child for God's sake!

I'm almost ten years older than her!

I'm not interested in little girls. I'm not interested in her.

I don't care about her. I don't.

Not even when she cries, and looks at the sky like the light of the moon cuts through her chest...

Not even when it seems her sorrow may dance with mine.

"Capo?"

"Sí?"

"Your phone has been ringing for almost twenty minutes. I just thought you should know."

"Grazie, Enrique."

How easily she consumes me. The mystery of her, I guess.

I answer my phone.

"I'm on my way," I state, forsaking a hello. I have no time for formalities.

Now that Luciano has officially stepped down, and I have been nominated, my phone doesn't stop ringing.

Being Capo is stressful, and it's a full-time job.

"Well hurry," Luciano snaps.

I cut the line, in no mood for Luciano's impatience.

"Capo," Enrique meets my eye in the rearview. "We are here."

"Grazie. Take the night off. I'll drive home myself."

***

I meet with Luciano in an old abandoned warehouse, which in and of itself makes me roll my eyes.

"Must you be so dramatic, Cugino?"

"I am concerned about you," He started.

"What is this an intervention?" I muse, unamused at the thing.

"As a matter of fact, yes. I am concerned with how much time you have been spending with this child. You have a Famiglia to run."

So much for trust, eh?

"Are you pazzo, man? I've only spent a small amount of time with her-!"

(Crazy)

"Yes," He interrupted me, "But in that time she has consumed your thoughts. You need to focus on the Famiglia!"

I scoff. "Like you did? Luciano, you met Savannah and practically abandoned the family."

He approached me. "That's not true!"

I take two challenging steps toward him. "Isn't it, though? That's what this is about, no? Not my loyalty, but your lack of it!"

"Maybe you're right!" He threw up his hands. "Meeting Savannah was the best thing to happen to me, and maybe it's selfish, but you are the only one I trust with this Family."

"Already, that girl is what you think of, all day. All night."

It's quiet. He's not right. But he's not completely wrong.

"I just want you to focus all your energy on the family. After the war, I left. They need someone to protect them. To guide them. To put them first. They need you. More than she does."

I clenched my jaw. "You don't know her. You don't know what I'm thinking. You're wrong Luciano. You're mirroring your mistakes onto me."

"Let's clarify something cousin: Savannah will never be a mistake. My family will never be a mistake."

"You hypocrite!" I scoff, stepping to him again. "I am your family. They are your family. And you dare insinuate that I'm disloyal? Because of a girl I met once or twice?"

"That's how it starts, Cugino. Once, twice. Then she becomes what you think of before you go to sleep. When you wake up, her face is the first is the first thing you want to see-"

I turn my back to him. "You were weak. I am not. Mistake or not, I will not make the same choices you did."

I leave him alone, in the abandoned warehouse he summoned me to. I would've never done that a mere month ago-turn my back to him.

But things have changed.

We have changed.