Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 959 : Nuggets of Knowledge

*Leo*

I had a promise to keep, and I intended to do just that. I did not break my promises to anyone for any reason. Even if it damn near killed me and made me look like a fool. It was something I’d learned as a boy.

I remembered feeling let down all too often by adults who said they’d do something and ended up not doing whatever they’d agreed to do. for a child, even when the word promise wasn’t uttered.

I learned all too soon that any words that came out like a benediction were to placate and prevent begging and hopeful expressions. I learned all too soon that promises could and usually were broken. It was a horrible feeling to be let down in what felt like an astronomical way.

As a child, everything was huge. Nothing seemed small or minute. It all appeared larger than life, especially as a kid on the streets scrounging for every meal and trying to hustle when nobody took me seriously.

It was the reason why if I promised or even simply put my lips together to say I’d do something, I made damned sure to either complete the task or follow through. Even if I was late or didn’t quite get it right, I struggled with all my might to make it happen. I did not break promises. I did not disappoint my people, family, and I would never disappoint or fail to keep a vow or promise I made to Bianca.

I was not going to start now either. So, I threw myself into trying to please and do a little placating of my own. One of the uncles complained that he didn’t get a leather wallet for Christmas. One of the aunts talked about a lovely name brand purse she’d admired at one of the shops in town. I listened and decided to take a trip into town to see what gifts I could bring back.

I remember being a kid and wanting things. I dreamed of owning a house, having the best cars, wearing the best clothes, and having the best of everything when I got older. I didn’t grow up in the mafia like most of the guys I knew and began to work with when I came into the family.

From the start, I’d been a hard worker. I’d worked my way through the ranks. I had been loyal, helpful, and would have run from Brooklyn to Alaska and back if the boss had asked it. I’d been a runner, enforcer, and bodyguard. I had worked my way all the way up to being a third, then a second for Elio, and been made the Don in Elio’s stead.

Over the years, I’d had plenty of chances to spend money, and I had. I hadn’t had to buy a house or anything like that. As a member of the biggest organized franchise in the world, I automatically had quarters. Well, they’d been houses and shit, but for me, they’d been somewhere to lay my head that was far better than the fucking streets.

But none of them had been home. Not even the big ass mansion that was the compound Bianca and I stayed in. It hadn’t been a home until Bianca got there. And it immediately stopped being one when she left.

Now, no matter where I went, as long as Bianca was there with me, I’d have a home. Without her, nothing mattered. Without her, I was afraid I’d never have a home again. living on the streets, being homeless and begging was nothing compared to living without her. I’d be a different kind of beggar without her. The money wouldn’t matter. The fancy cars wouldn’t be enjoyable.

I’d rather ride in that slay for the rest of my life instead of driving my sports car if it meant having Bianca beside me in it. So, the dreams of the boy, though realized as a man, were nothing compared to having Bianca’s love. A few trinkets for her family were a drop in the bucket.

But when I came back and gave the uncle his wallet, the aunt her purse, and gave other family members the things I thought they’d like, I was met with frowns and insults.

“We don’t need your money,” one of the uncles said to me, as I settled in a chair near him.

“It isn’t going to make me like you,” one of the cousins I thought kind of liked me agreed.

“Yeah, you’re just flaunting your money at us,” yet another of the uncles grumbled, sucking on his pipe.

“Donato, didn’t Zia Lucia tell you to smoke that smelly thing outside,” Rosa said, pushing at the uncle’s shoulder and glaring at me as she passed by me without a word.

I shook my head and tried to move away from the mutters and grumbles. I was just glad no one had thrown my gifts back at me. They seemed mad about me giving them things I thought they’d like, but no one gave the gifts back. Besides, what in the hell was I going to do with a nice purse or a mink stole?

I sat beside a teenager that seemed to be interested in hearing about my time in the mafia. He kept asking me all kinds of questions about the business. I tried to keep my answers to his questions PG, but evidently I made a mistake along the way. I messed around and told him about Manny’s betrayal and how I’d had to order his death.

“Don’t tell him stuff like that,” one of the aunts said to me.

“Huh?” I asked, staring at her. I hadn’t described Manny’s death. Hell, I couldn’t have. I didn’t know what Franky had done to him. It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to know so much that I trusted Franky to do his job and do it well. I figured Manny was in a hole somewhere nobody’d ever find him.

“He doesn’t need to know about what you do in that job of yours. He’ll never be like you, and I don’t want you teaching my boy stuff like that.”

“Yes, ma’am, I apologize. I didn’t know I took it too far,” I said, thinking she was going overboard, but maybe she was right. I shouldn’t be telling a boy of fifteen about ordering someone to be killed.

When I was the boy’s age, I’d been running bets and already dodging bullets for the mafia. I’d had a gun of my own. I’d had pocket change, and I’d been turning over millions of dollars in numbers and books to the head of the part of the business I worked for then.

In essence, I’d already been working my way through the ranks. By the time I was eighteen, I’d been a driver for the Don. I had already known that at any minute I could be next.

I had already known the truth about life: it wasn’t fair, I might not live to see thirty, and no one got out of it alive. We all had to die, and more than likely my death would be by the sword I lived by.

I hadn’t expected to make it to thirty. A lot of the men I’d known then hadn’t. I’d known boys of fifteen who’d played the wrong game and ended up at the edge of a blade: bloody, tortured, and disemboweled. Or they’d ended up on the wrong side of the barrel, one gunshot to the back of the brain, execution style.

I’d participated in a few of those deaths. So, I thought telling a fifteen-year-old that I’d ordered a death was harmless in comparison to what I’d seen and done as a boy of his age. Perhaps I’d been wrong.

At dinner I sat between the twins, which surprised me. They usually sat together and near their parents. At first I wasn’t suspicious when one of the twins pulled out my seat between them. However, when I sat down and the biggest and longest fart sound I’d ever heard came from beneath me and they began to giggle, I was clued into their game.

Everyone glanced over at me, as I pulled the whoopee cushion from beneath me. everyone got a laugh out of it but me.

“Don’t worry,” Cedro said, “he won’t order you to be killed, will you, Leo,”

The comment was so ugly and full of sarcasm, I could have slapped Cedro, but I was trying to impress and get Bianca’s family to agree to let me have Bianca’s hand in marriage not get them to hate me for nearly knocking this ass’s head damn near off his shoulders. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

“Of course not,” I said with a smile that made Cedro’s face grow pale, and he quickly turned away from me.

Oh, great Leo, that’s the way you do it. Scare people into agreeing to let Bianca marry you. You promised to get their blessing, I mentally chastised myself.

Dinner went downhill from there. By the time dinner ended and we were just visiting in the parlor, the only person that would talk to me and that wasn’t ready to pin my balls to the wall was a five-year-old child who had strangely been clinging to me ever since I got here. Well, I was sure Lucia wasn’t mad at me. I thought she probably felt sorry for me more than anything.

Feeling like shit and like I had already lost and broken my promise to Bianca, I decided to go outside for a breath of fresh air and a break from the tension I’d caused inside. I sat out there for a few minutes, just taking in the pristine setting.

The trees were still speckled with snow, and the breeze though not half as cold as it had been the night I’d taken Michael on a merry chase through the woods, I probably should have put on a coat.

“You know, Leo, I think you’re just as hard headed as my Otello,” Lucia’s familiar voice said, from behind the jacket I felt cover my face as she threw it at me.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, putting on my lighter jacket.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you come out here without your jacket on and brood over the mistakes you make.”

I smiled at her description of me. She handed me a drink and sat in the chair beside me with her own steaming cup.

“Is this coffee?” I asked, knowing it wouldn’t be, but wanting to get her reaction.

“No, you heathen. You drink too much of the stuff.”

“I like an after-dinner espresso,” I teased as I sipped the hot chocolate she made for me. Though I wasn’t much into sweet drinks, it was delicious and had a bit of a bite to it.

“You know, you really don’t need to try so hard?”

I took another sip of the chocolate with what I realized was Moretto giving the drink a slight kick and listened like I used to listen to the old men in the mafia. They were smart, had accents, and taught me a lot about staying alive.

“As long as they know you care about Bianca, and that should be evident enough by now. And they see that you’re willing to do anything for her, they’ll gradually come around and warm up to you. But you do not have to keep going out of your way to please them.”

I didn’t say anything or make any moves to respond to her. I glanced over to her profile and realized that she hadn’t finished. I waited again, remembering those older men who taught me to be patient and to listen for the right nuggets of knowledge. I had a feeling Lucia was about to deliver some to me now.

I remember when Bianca’s Grandfather used to lavishly take the family to Naples for New Years every year where we attended the Grand Promenade. We would walk through the city, listen to the music, feast, and watch the massive fireworks display over the bay.”

Her voice took on a dreamy quality, as if she were seeing the dancing, walking and hearing the music right there where we sat.

“It was a tradition Otello took over, but we have not gone since my husband’s passing.”

I stared at Lucia’s profile and wanted to jump up and down and grab her up and kiss both her cheeks, but I knew it is not the time for such exuberance. Her voice had been sad when she talked of her husband this time. It was as if she were peering into the past as she’d talked of it, but I couldn’t help thinking of how this might be the one thing to get their blessing.

“Do you think it would be okay if I brought back the tradition?” I ask, trying not to feel as if I was about to burst with hope.

“Oh, Leo, that is too much for you to take on,” she said, patting my cheek, and walked back into the house, her empty cup dangling from her fingers.

I stared out at the deepening darkness and realized this was like all those conversations with the men I’d known as a boy. I wasn’t giving up on this idea that easily. This was my nugget, and I was going to run with it.