La Cosa Nostra- pt 13
(co-written with @schemmentis): Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10. Part 11. Part 12.
Summary: You and your wife spend some much needed time together, only for it to go up in flames.
WC: ~2.5k
When Melissa comes in, she finds you with both arms wrapped around your girls, them curled into your sides. She sees the tracks of the tears that had been pouring down your face earlier in the night, the pout of your bottom lip, the way that even in sleep and holding your girls you seem to be in distress.
Melissa quietly gets ready for bed before slipping in between the sheets. Rosie gladly curls up to her when she gently shifts her to her chest so she can shuffle closer to you. The hand not resting on a small back reaches, the backs of her fingers lightly caressing your cheek, imagining she can wipe the now dried tears away from you. “Ti amo, vita mia.” She whispers in the dark of the bedroom.
You blink awake in the dark a few hours later. Your girls are still softly sleeping. You roll over and nearly start crying again when you see your wife asleep and holding Rosie. You knew she would be home, eventually. Still, seeing her is a relief. You curl in closer to her as you close your eyes again. Maybe you can get an hour or two of actual good sleep now that Melissa is here. Before your girls try to pry your eyes open again.
You somehow manage to wake before either of your girls, or your wife. You convince half awake twins to settle for kissing Melissa's cheek and whispering good morning before you get up and get them breakfast. You don't even have to remind them to be quiet when they go back to do the same to say goodbye before taking them to school. You know they miss her, even after only one late night. You do too. But you'd hate to take any more rest from her.
You hug the girls goodbye at school and are walking across the lot back to your car when your phone rings. Your brow furrows. Your phone hasn't rung since you were taken off the salon. You tug it from your pocket, your confusion growing at Tony's name on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Y/N. Could you come down to the salon? It's kind of important.”
“Isn't all that your job now, Tony?” You all but sneer.
“Look, we gotta talk about some of the financials. So I need you to help me sort it out, alright?”
You roll your eyes. “I'll be there in a minute.” You reluctantly agree, hanging up before Tony can say anything else.
Despite you not being a part of the operation anymore, you still step through the back entrance of the salon. Tony wants to call you in? Then you're going to come in at the business end of it.
You stop halfway down the hall at the door of the back office being open. When it was you; you never left it open and unlocked. Too many important things were kept there. You glance inside, raising an eyebrow at the near emptiness of the office. The file cabinets are gone, and so is everything from on top of the desk. The room is empty aside from that desk in the middle of it.
“There you are.” Tony says as he turns down the hall. “C’mon.” He tugs you lightly by the arm into the office, shutting the door behind him.
“Quite the rearrangement, Tony.” You comment, putting your hands in your pockets as you pace around the desk. “What's goin’ on, huh? What'd you suddenly need me for?”
“The ledger.” Tony says, cutting to the chase. “We need the ledger for the other business.”
You look at Tony, head turning to the side. We? You think to yourself as you study him. Suddenly it's we. And you're not a part of that we. “No.” You finally say.
“What?? What d’you mean no? Look, Y/N, my ass is on the line now, and we need that ledger that you have to have.”
“Oh, I have it.” You say. For all intents and purposes, you do. Only you and your wife know where it is. “I just ain't giving it to you. Tell whoever you're answerin’ to that if they want it; they better talk to me directly. ‘Cause I ain't trustin’ it with you, Tony. I wouldn't have trusted you to balance the cash register drawer.”
He goes to argue, but your phone ringing interrupts him. You roll your eyes at him as you leave, answering it.
“Hello?”
“Babe, where are you? Why didn’t you wake me?” your wife nearly shouts into the phone. “I just woke up!”
“Honey, you needed the sleep,” you tell her softly.
“What I needed was to see my girls off to school and to check on my wife before heading into work- on time!”
Her shouting at you makes you tear up all over again as you slam the door to your car. “I’m sorry. I’ll come pick you-”
“Don’t even bother,” Melissa huffs. “I’ll walk the few blocks.” And then she hangs up on you.
Your heart nearly shatters in your chest, and your eyes instantly well up with more tears that threaten to spill over. “Mel,” you whisper out softly.
You do still drive the way to her work, and when you get there, she’s just storming in. It’s clear she’s on a warpath as she slams the back door and throws her bag on the chair in the office. You step in a few seconds later, sending a sympathetic look at Valentina; she looks horrified.
“Mel,” you whisper as you wrap your arms around her waist, trying to stop her anger. She just shrugs you off. “Mel, please.” Your voice breaks as your heart actually does shatter this time.
She turns around at the hiccup in your voice, and there’s a fire in her eyes that dies out as soon as she sees the redness in your eyes and the tears that are there.
“Mi amore,” she whispers as she pulls you in.
“Mel, I- I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m so sorry I didn’t wake you this-”
“Hey,” she hushes you gently. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I got so frustrated and yelled. I just… this all has me stressed to the max, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”
You cry into her shoulder, and your wife is quick to kick the door shut with her heeled foot. You cry just as harshly and abrasively as you did last night, although this time you don’t have to stifle the sobs that come bubbling out of your body.
“Honey,” she whispers as she rubs your back soothingly. “Baby.”
“I- I don’t even know,” you continue to shake with the sobs that rack through your body.
It takes you much longer to calm down than she hopes. But eventually she does, and after checking her progress on the ledger, she ushers you out of the building. She shouts to Valentina that she’s in charge, at least for this morning, and if someone comes in with an envelope full of money to just leave it on her desk.
“Melissa, you can stay,” you whisper as you wipe at your nose with your sleeve. “I’ll be- I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Melissa answers, leading you to the passenger side of your car. “If anything big goes on; Val will call me. Right now, you’re more important, amore.” She squeezes the hand she’s been leading you out by lightly, her head nodding for you to get in.
It’s only once you do that she closes the door for you before rounding the car and sliding into the driver’s seat. She reclaims your hand once you’ve buckled your seatbelt, kissing your knuckles as she pulls out of the parking lot.
“You really could have stayed.” You say quietly.
She squeezes your hand again, glancing away from the road just long enough to raise an eyebrow at you before looking back. “I’m not gonna leave ya when you’re clearly not okay. And don’t go saying you’re fine. I know when you’re lyin’, remember?”
You sigh, leaning back in your seat for the short drive back to your home. “I’m just…over emotional with all the changes. It’ll pass. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be fine, that much is true.” Mel agrees though she keeps a hold of your hand held in her lap. “But I’m not going to just expect this to pass. It’s been a lot lately, yeah. But it ain’t like you to just…” She sighs, without finishing. “You’re gonna tell me ya weren’t this way last night, too? Before I got home?” She asks softly instead, her thumb gently passing repeatedly over your knuckles.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Melissa nods, with a half grin on her face. “Which just means yes.” She says. “This is more than just everythin’ goin’ on- even if it has been a lot lately. For right now, stop tryin’ to fight me on stayin’ home, and consider talkin’ to me and lettin’ me help instead, huh?”
You don’t say anything else on the rest of the short drive. Instead, you consider everything over in your mind. As if you haven’t already a hundred times. By the time you’re following Melissa into the house, you could have another anxiety breakdown without much push.
You gladly slip into her side on your couch, her arms that had been held out in invitation instantly wrap around you. You sigh, though you don’t begin crying again. You return your wife’s embrace equally, clinging to her as much as you’re curling up to her side.
“Talk to me, tesoro.” Melissa repeats quietly, kissing your temple as she holds you close.
“Did Sammy tell you I almost turned myself in the other week? When they had you in the station?” You can guess her answer before she gives it based on how you feel her briefly freeze against you.
“No.” Melissa finally answers, one of her hands gently rubbing across your shoulders. “He didn’t. Probably ‘cause he already knew I was seconds away from tearin’ somebody to shreds that day. You really almost did?”
You nod, sniffling slightly. “I just…didn’t know what else to do. All this pressure on us and then gettin’ you so involved….them tearing apart Twelve Tables… God, that was as bad as watching somebody beat you, Mel. It’s like the same thing. You worked so hard for it and they ruined it because of me and—”
“Shh,” Melissa murmurs, tugging you into her lap to hug you even tighter. “None of it’s because of you, amore. We talked about all this plenty before we got serious, didn’t we? Then all over again before we got married? Don’t go actin’ like I’m some innocent little housewife over here, huh? You treat me better than that. You treat me like your partner, your equal, in everything. Includin’ all this. I knew what we were gettin’ into when we started, baby. We both did.”
“I know,” you mumble into her side. “But now... it’s so much more than just us and the business. We have your restaurant now. We have the girls now. The only thing that stopped me from turning myself in was the girls. I- I couldn't turn myself in and miss everything for the next ten to twenty years... the teen years, graduating and sending them off to college, high school boy or girl drama... potential grandbabies.”
“If either of them has a baby before they’re twenty, we are going to have problems,” Melissa chuckles lightly.
“Well... if I wasn’t there, you know that data shows kids with one absent parent statistically are more likely to fall into...”
“Not our girls,” your wife states firmly. “If anything happens to one of us, I have full faith that those girls will stay on the right track because of whoever is left with them.”
You just sigh into her, inhaling the scent of the perfume that she has on. You take a few shaky breaths, tears threatening to spill over again. They don’t though. You have your anchor right now.
“What do you need right now?” your wife asks you gently, once your breathing becomes more regulated. “Comfort, a solution, or to just... sit in the shit together?”
You shrug against her, and she only kisses your head as a response. You end up falling asleep, and when you wake up, Melissa is no longer next to you. In fact, the only reason you wake up is because your two tiny terrors are jumping on the couch next to you despite your wife’s quiet protests.
“Girls, let Mam sleep,” you can hear the redhead sigh as she drops their backpacks at the door.
“We are!” Rosie protests. “We just want to cuddle her and make her feel better after last night!”
Your response is to pull them both close to your chest with a soft sigh as you keep your eyes closed. “Mam needs some Cat and Rosie snuggles.”
“‘See?” Cat tells your wife pointedly. “Mam needs us!”
You hear Melissa’s low chuckle before she exhales quietly. “Is Mam going to be okay if I head to the restaurant?”
“Can we come with you?!” Rosie asks. “I miss Auntie Val.”
“Stay with Mam,” you tell them gently as you pull them further into your lap. “Cuddles, some pizza, and-”
“I only like the Pizza that Vince makes at the restaurant,” Cat tells you.
“We can order takeout from Mommy’s restaurant then,” you try to placate.
“Why can’t we just go there?” Rosie whines out as she tries to break free from your hold. For such a small little thing, she sure is strong. She ends up getting out of your restraint, and she’s quick to put her shoes on and grab her backpack before taking hold of Melissa’s hand.
“Girls, why don’t you... go grab some coloring sheets and crayons from the basement?” your wife suggests. They run off.
“They are not going to the restaurant now that it’s the front,” you tell her.
When you expect your wife to agree, she merely shrugs. “There are usually other kids with their parents, and the guys drop off in the back.”
“Melissa!” you say sternly. “My girls are not going to a front!”
“They are our girls,” she tells you firmly. “And I think... I think that if they’re at the restaurant, and the Feds show up, having the girls there will help fool them into thinking we aren’t up to anything.”
“Melissa.”
She just shrugs. “You want them off our backs? I think this is the best way to get them off our backs.”
You go to protest her idea again, but the girls come running back with new boxes of crayons and a multitude of coloring sheets in their hands.
“Come on, sweet things,” she says softly. “We can all go to Twelve Tables.” The redhead takes both of their hands, grabs their backpacks, and leads them out the door. You fume as you follow behind her. You can’t believe she would go against your wishes and make such a big decision on her own.
Tags: @thesapphictimelady @marvel210 @itisdoctortoyousir @morgana-larkin @thesamesweetie @doesthatsuggestanythingtoyou @marvels--slut @gwennybriggs @megamultifandomtrashposts @lemz378 @http-sam @melissaschemmentisbranzino @imaginesmultifandoms @sexysapphicshopowner @lilfartbox1 @maybe-a-humanbean @imlike-so-gaydude @sapphicxrat @a-queen-and-her-throne @sunsol-22 @notinmyvocab @melanielaufeyson @dvrkhcld
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