My cold Mafia husband

~ Eleanora's POV ~ I have a theory about Milan. Milan rewards a certain kind of person - polished people, strategic people, people who always know exactly what they want and move toward it without getting distracted by everything beautiful along the way. I have never been that type. I am the type who stops to listen to the busker outside the Duomo even when I am late. The type who orders something different every time at the same café because the menu keeps offering new possibilities. The type who arrived in this city at eighteen with two suitcases and a head full of plans and discovered that the plans were far less interesting than everything that happened outside them. Depending on your perspective, that is either my greatest flaw or my best quality. My name is Eleanora Caruso. I am twenty-two years old. I have dark hair that refuses to behave in humidity, dark eyes inherited from my grandmother, and a mouth my father claims has always moved faster than my brain. He says this unfairly. My brain is extremely fast. I am, by most standards, lucky. I know that. The apartment my father pays for in Brera is beautiful, full of light, with a terrace where I grow herbs I routinely forget to water. I have clothes people envy, friends I love, and parents who have always made me feel wanted exactly as I am. On paper, I have everything. What I have not told anyone is that lately, everything has started to feel strangely small. Not because I am ungrateful. Not because I do not see what I have. More because I have begun to suspect there is something larger waiting for me beyond the life already planned. I want to build something of my own. Something attached to my name because I earned it. I just do not know what it is yet. For now, I am finishing my degree in Economics and Business at Bocconi University and spending my evenings doing what twenty-two-year-olds in Milan do when summer arrives and the city starts glowing after dark. ~ * ~ The evening everything changed began slowly, and then all at once. It was late June. Warm enough for restaurant tables to spill onto pavements, for the canals of Navigli to glow under strings of light, for the whole city to feel restless and alive. The air smelled like jasmine, grilled fish, expensive perfume, and summer. Taylor and I were at our favourite rooftop bar on Via Tortona, halfway through our second Aperol Spritz. We had met during our first week at Bocconi after accidentally attending an Agricultural Economics lecture neither of us belonged in. Four years later she was still the person I called when I needed advice, courage, or occasionally restraint. She was Yoruba-Italian - father from Lagos, mother from Turin - and the most self-possessed person I knew. My phone rang while she was telling me a story about one of her coworkers. Dad. I almost ignored it. It was nine-thirty on a Thursday night and I was exactly where I wanted to be. But something about the call made me answer. "Nora. Come home." No hello. No explanation. Just those two words, flat and heavy. "I'm out with Taylor-" "Now, Eleanora." My father only used my full name when he meant it. Taylor saw my face change immediately. "Go," she said, reaching for the bill. "Text me later." I took the Metro home. ~ * ~ Our apartment building in Brera is older than both my parents, all pale stone, wrought-iron balconies, and deep quiet hallways that seem untouched by modern life. I unlocked the door and heard voices from the living room. My parents. And someone else. The conversation stopped when I entered. The living room should have felt comforting. My mother had spent years filling it with things she loved - silk cushions, shelves of worn books, fresh flowers, paintings of Naples. Tonight it felt wrong. My parents sat side by side on the sofa. Across from them sat a man I had never seen before. He looked about sixty, silver-haired, dressed in a dark suit that suggested serious money without trying to impress anyone. His expression revealed almost nothing. When I walked in, he studied me briefly, like someone confirming information he already possessed. "Eleanora," my father said. "Sit down, please." I sat slowly. "This is Signor Agostino Ricci. He represents the Esposito family." The name landed heavily. Even growing up in Naples, the Esposito family had existed at the edge of conversation - powerful enough that people lowered their voices slightly when mentioning them. "There is a proposal," my father said carefully. "From the Esposito family. Regarding you." "Regarding me," I repeated. My mother's hands tightened together. "A marriage," Signor Ricci said calmly. "Between you and Vincenzo Esposito. It has been agreed between the families." The room went still. Marriage. Vincenzo Esposito. Agreed between the families. I looked at my father. "It has been agreed," I said slowly, "between the families." "Nora-" "Without me." My father looked exhausted suddenly, older than he had an hour ago. "The business," he said quietly. "There are debts. This arrangement resolves them. It protects us." "It protects you," I said. "By selling me." "Eleanora," my mother whispered. "No." I stood before anyone could stop me. "I'm twenty-two years old. I have a degree to finish. A life to build. I have never even met this man." I looked directly at Signor Ricci. "And this arrangement is not happening." He did not react. "The arrangement has already been made, Signorina Caruso," he said evenly. "The Esposito family does not unmake arrangements." Silence filled the room. I looked at my father one last time. He could not meet my eyes. That was when I understood this had started long before tonight. I turned and walked out of the room. Down the hallway. Into my bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark for several minutes before reaching for my phone. I need you. Now. Outside my window, Milan carried on with its Thursday night - bright, beautiful, indifferent. The city did not know my world had just ended. But cities never do.