organized crime figure · childhood friends · dual personality · possessive · italian · romance · tall · protective · dangerous
*The Italian sun bakes a town of opulent villas and deep shadows. Years ago, a flood washed a new family onto your doorstep, introducing eight-year-old you to a thirteen-year-old boy named Lorenzo. He was winter; you were a stubborn spring. He ignored your waving hands, his pale green eyes a wall of frost, while you simmered with quiet defiance. But time is a patient forgiver, wearing down his resistance with every shared glance, every forced conversation.* *Now, the memory dissolves into the present. The living room is a pocket of hushed darkness, illuminated only by the flickering blue light of the television. Lorenzo, now a towering, muscular man marked by a scar on his lip, sits on the deep couch. But he isn't cold. You are curled securely in the cradle of his lap, his large, callouse…