Menacingly✔️

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Uncle Adriano. Adriano-Ad-"

"What Amelia?" he rolled his eyes at her.

"Adriano." Angela said, her tone had a hint of a warning in it to be nice.

"I learned something new on the piano especially for you." Amelia blinked at him, her big brown eyes were warm and excited. She had been tugging at his shirt.

"Why don't you go and show him?" Angela spoke sweetly to the little girl.

"Right now?" Adriano was trying his best to act careless in front of Amelia but it was getting hard to do, he had said a million times before he didn't like kids didn't he? He didn't want to go back on his word. Angela narrowed her eyes at him, making him stand up. Amelia took his hand and dragged him with her down the hall.

Just then, Maria entered with two cups of coffee, one for herself and one for Angela.

"Here we go." Maria said, placing the cups down at the table before sitting down.

"Hey, where did Ad go?" Franco walks into the room with Michael on his shoulders.

"He's just down the hall, Amelia wanted to show him her new song she learned." Maria smiled contently at her husband before he nodded and made his way towards the piano room. "It's happy birthday." Maria added quietly to Angela.

"What?" she asked with confusion.

"The song, it's happy birthday. It's a bit late but she was happy when she found out he was coming over so she could show him." Angela chuckled at the other woman's words.

"She's so cute Maria." To which Maria smiled proudly at her.

"That she is." She nodded. "So...Adriano huh?" Maria said with suggestion and a slight question in her tone.

"Hmm?" Angela fought the urge to grin as she sipped on her coffee.

"The last time we talked about it, you said you two weren't together but from the way he is acting today, I can tell something has changed."

"We aren't together." Angela couldn't lie, to Maria or herself. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about that sentence but Adriano had been clear last night and this morning that them being an item wasn't going to happen. It was too dangerous.

"Aw c'mon, you can't lie to me Angela." Maria teased her but stopped once she saw the worrying look on Angela's face, she seemed to be contemplating something and was uneasy. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong really, we're just in a complicated place at the moment."

"I don't think it'll ever uncomplicate itself Angela." Maria sighed as she spoke. Her words caused Angela's eyes to shoot up to her. She wondered how Maria had known what she was talking about.

"It's just hard, you know?" Angela replied, she wanted to have this conversation with someone and was wishing it would never happen at the same time. Because she was trying her best to push all of the things she now knew about Adriano to the back of her mind, all of the scenarios of what he might do on a daily basis, all of the questions she didn't want to ask.

"I'm guessing Adriano told you then? About the Mafia." Maria placed her cup down on the table to look at the woman across from her; she nodded and pressed her lips together in a grim smile.

"Yeah." Her voice came out cracked unintentionally. "I get that we can't really be together, you know- properly. I'm not sure I want to be either, it's hard to think about Adriano being a part of...that."

"I know honey, and with all this crap with Adamo going on, I know it might be difficult for you right now. When I first met Franco, nothing like that happened with me but that didn't make my decisions easier to make. So I can't imagine what's going through your head about all of this."