Page 68 of Dare To Free Us

Luca rubbed at the back of his neck. “What would you have done it if you were me? When your father asked me to stay on and become an enforcer? Would you have said yes too?”

I regarded him for a moment. “I don’t know. Never thought about it because what is the point? I was born a gangster, nothing is going to change that.”

“But what if you could? Would you do it?”

I thought for a moment about how I never imagined being anything else because my life was already planned out. But when I took a minute to consider it; the blood, the turf wars, arranged marriages, the knowledge that everyday someone might be out to gun me down in the streets. I couldn’t honestly say I enjoyed it or was looking forward to it.

Then again it didn’t scare me either, because I was born into it. Thats when I came to the conclusion I wasn’t capable of a normal life. If the thought of being murdered and committing murder didn’t effect me any more than making me wince, than I was already ensnared by it. I was born a gangster, I’d die a gangster. No choice to be made.

“That’s not the way it works for me, Luca. Why? Having second thoughts about not going pro?” Luca’s kickboxing skills were amazing. I hated fighting him. I wasn’t a slouch but Luca never lost to anyone. It was no wonder he had multiple offers from sponsors to go professional.

“No. None. But I also know there is no going back.”

He was right about that. Once you got in— born or joined— and especially when you became a made-man, there was no other path in life. The mafia became the one-way freeway with no exits you were trapped on.

“Right. In this world you are a lifer, whether you choose it or not. Sometimes whether we want it or not.”

I sucked in a breath as my chest constricted. Because the truth was trying to drown me in my own words. I remembered the feeling of hopelessness I’d felt when saying those words.

How many times had I wished Dante was alive so I didn’t have to carry the responsibility of Don? How often had I wished I could burn the whole thing down because constantly being surrounded by people I could never fully trust wasn’t any way to live? Being prisoner in the life you thrived in was the worse case of self-inflicted misery. Especially when you deluded yourself enough to say the rewards were worth it.

I got my first taste when my father shredded any hope of being with Arianna. The fact her father would have rather been dead than see his daughter with a criminal like me.

For weeks after that I brooded about the life I lived and the power I amassed meaning nothing, because it cost me the one thing I wanted. But instead of allowing myself to grasp the fact I felt regret for what I was, I held onto the lie that nothing would change. My life as a gangster was inevitable.

Then when Arianna came back into my life I lied to myself again, and to her. It didn’t take five weeks for Shura to come back into the country. For a week and a half after Shura returned I nearly drank myself to death trying to convince myself that I’d done the right thing.

Arianna was out. Free of this life because my father made it so— in a fucked up kind of way— and I would’ve paid to have a team of bodyguards secretly follow her the rest of her life if it kept her safe.

But it wasn’t enough. I wanted her with me. I promised her as much and meant to keep that promise. The only way I convinced myself that bringing her back into this life filled with death and ruin— wrapped in shiny belongings— was to conclude that this life would be endless misery without her. There was no other way for us to be together.

The fight in Arianna’s studio was the final straw in my intervention. She always accused me of losing control when I couldn’t face a truth, and she would know because Arianna was always the one to point them out. That night I’d lost every shred of control I possessed.

Looking back I remembered the initial feeling I had when she had thrown all the reasons for being afraid in my face; fear, because I knew she spoke the truth. I hadn’t taken the time to consider any of what she was saying on my own, but she’d spent days being crushed under the weight of them.

My fear had turned to anger, then fury, because I knew nothing could change those things. There was nothing I could do to eliminate her fear because, like she said, I had no real control over the world around me. Arianna was right about everything. Even the fact that Luca had been brave enough to risk everything for love. The man tried toescapewith Becka—the word escape only applies when someone is a prisoner.

Luca knew that. He felt like a prisoner in the end and realized he’dchosenit. I remembered the look of terror on his face when I confronted him, thinking he was going to die at the hands of his best friend. What kind of fucked up world nurtures that kind of fear?

Mine.

Arianna being right threw a monumental truth in my face. All my life I’d been a prisoner, because my heart never truly wanted it. I played the part incredibly well, because I still didn’t lack an ability to be ruthless, but it was always about the have to, and the need to, not the want to— unless it involved Arianna being in danger. A small slice of me hidden deep down held tight to my subconscious, whispering about a cursed future.

My mother was right too. I knew Arianna loved me, to accuse her earlier of not loving me was unforgivable. She’d been willing to give up everything for the love of our child. Just like she’d been willing to take on my world for the love she had for me. She willingly became a prisoner, for me.

I’d chosen to accept my prison because it gave me power, money and prowess. But now it was taking the one thing in my life I trulyneeded. Denial ripped at my flesh as self-awareness stripped its blinders from my eyes.

That this was not the life I wanted for her or my children. The truth was as freeing as it was damning.

There was no denying that getting out when my father was alive wasn’t possible. I could see my father killing me before letting me walk away and humiliate him.

But even now, people don’t walk away from this life. I knew too many things about too many people. It was either we are all in this together or we put a bullet in your head. No one would risk letting someone walk away only to have them turn and throw everyone under the bus.

I was born into the mafia, and make no mistake, everyone would be out to make sure I died in it. I was conceived a prisoner and worst of all, I sentenced the woman I loved and my children to the same fate.

Arianna tried to tell me, and I turned form her. She risked everything to prove her love for our child by doing what she thought was right. And I trashed her for it.

I proved my own love to be worthless when push came to shove.