Chapter 18

Mafia Kings: Valentino: Chapter 18 When Alessandra first got involved with Dario, I told her to have fun.

But when she started talking about marriage, I warned her:

There aren’t any glass slippers at the end of the story.

I told her to enjoy being with a hot, powerful man who was amazing in bed –

But I also told her not to get attached.

To guard her heart.

To not expect too much.

What I didn’t tell her was that I was actually preaching to myself.

Valentino was the best thing that had ever happened to me...

But I knew it was never going to go anywhere.

Even though he was a shameless flirt with other women (which made my blood boil – although it also made me want him all the more), I was 99% sure he didn’t sleep with anyone else after we started hooking up.

But he was a mafia prince.

And I was the girl who worked in the kitchen.

When Valentino smiled at me, it was like the sun coming out of the clouds.

When he held me, it was like I was completely safe.

And every time he fucked me, it was like going to heaven without having to die.

But I had to keep reminding myself:

You’re not Cinderella.

This isn’t a fairy tale.

There’s not going to be a happily ever after.

I just enjoyed it for what it was:

Banging a really hot guy who was the best I’d ever had.

What I wouldn’t admit, not even to myself...

Was that I fell in love with him.

And then...

Alessandra married Dario.

I was ecstatic for her! She was my best friend, after all –

And, I’m not gonna lie, the idea that she’d bagged a Rosolini gave me hope.

But some crazy things came out in the weeks before her marriage.

Like she was actually the long-lost granddaughter of another ‘family’ up north.

A mafia princess. She just never knew it.

She kind of proved it, though, when she shot Filomena.

The old bitch was trying to kill Dario –

And she’d poisoned Signor Leonardo! He hadn’t had a heart attack, after all – it was Filomena who’d killed him!

I always hated the old woman because she was a holier-than-thou busybody. I had no idea she was a murderer, too.

Anyway, Alessandra was a badass and shot the bitch dead.

Which shocked me to no end, and made me respect her as well as love her.

Alessandra’s mafia background didn’t change anything between us, though. Neither did her getting married to Don Rosolini.

She was still the same Alessandra – good-hearted and sweet.

I was her maid of honor at her wedding.

I was the first person she told when she got pregnant.

And when she married the man of her dreams?

Like I said, it gave me hope.

But then something happened with Valentino.

Something that shattered my heart into a thousand little pieces and reminded me I was just a girl who worked in the kitchen...

And not a princess anyone wanted to marry.

It reminded me that fairytale endings only happen to women like Alessandra...

And not to girls like me.