Sniping Her Mafia King
Chapter 38

Arwen was coming in from the back yard of her farmhouse when the murmurs of Deidre talking with someone and coming through the front door caught her ear. "Honey, we're home," Addy's voice called out mockingly.

Arwen almost dropped the tray of smoked ham on the floor at the words. Was she playing house now with Adrianu Cavallaro? Deidre was grinning at his words as Arwen looked at them in surprise. Addy appeared very relaxed, still in his suit jacket but his collar was unbuttoned and the gold chain around his neck was visible. If she hadn't known he'd been semi-tortured she would never have guessed from his disposition he'd been zip-tied to a chair, had his balls punched and had been punched not once but three times. One of them by Jesse.

When Arwen had been preparing to leave the safehouse, Jesse was coming off her high of the debrief and the new impromptu assignment and had cornered Arwen. She'd admitted she was in a heap of trouble once Addy got her alone because Artemis had asked him a question, he'd mocked her, and Jesse had slapped him with a closed fist for disrespecting the woman. Arwen had roared with laughter. Jesse was definitely going to get told off when they were alone and maybe turned over a knee. "Oh my god, Arwen, it smells so good in here," Deidre groaned loudly as she flung her bag onto the floor.

Addy got close and leaned over her shoulder as she put the tray of meat on the counter. "What is this? It smells like heaven in here."

"A ham I threw on my smoker before I went to work this morning, just after you left. It's been smoking all day." She smiled up at him as he looked around the kitchen. He stared back in amazement.

"I didn't even know you had a smoker."

"I do."

"Did you make the biscuits?" Deidre asked as she grabbed a glass from the cupboard and moved to the ice maker for ice.

"I did make your biscuits. Had a moment of panic thinking I didn't have flour," she looked to Addy pointedly knowing he'd used a bunch for pancakes, "but then remembered I had picked some up last weekend."

Addy lifted a dish of preserves from the middle of the kitchen table and sniffed it, "What is this?"

"Arwen makes preserves and jams like my mom used to. The one you tried is the pineapple orange one she makes special for me." Deidre pulled a spoon from the utensil drawer and dipped it into the dish and held it out to Addy. "Think of this with the salty ham on a buttery biscuit."

He tasted the jam and looked to Arwen, "this is really good."

"Thanks," she looked away as she began carving up the meat in front of her. She slapped at Deidre's hands as she tried to pilfer a chunk of meat and then Addy grabbed from her opposite side and shared with Deidre behind her head. "Would you two go sit down, please?"

"You baked biscuits?" Addy was watching her in awe.

"She bakes the biscuits, smokes my ham and makes me a peach cobbler instead of a birthday cake." Deidre was bouncing now as she pulled a chair back from the table. "Addy, I don't have a lot of memories of my mom. Many are really faded now but I remember this. I remember my mom's favorite thing to eat was smoked ham on biscuits with jam. Life on the farm was busy and many days it was just sandwiches for a meal, and this version was her favorite. It's a weird combination and probably nobody else in the world would dare try it but it reminds me of mom. I can't have her here with me on my birthday, so I have her favorite meal and it has now become one of my favorites." She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, "the peach cobbler was dad's favorite." "Ah, piccola, I am very grateful you allowed me to be here to celebrate with you."

Arwen considered Addy's voice was an octave lower as he processed the emotions of Deidre's revelations. "Addy, can you put this on the table?" She motioned to the tray of meat she'd sliced. She bent down in front of the oven and pulled out the peach cobbler. Then Arwen plated a dozen warm fluffy biscuits onto a serving platter.

"This is a lot of food for two women." He frowned as he looked around.

"It's how I knew we had enough to invite you," Deidre grinned at him as she sat down at the table.

They sat at the table together and Deidre poured everyone lemonade. "Arwen, tell me something about one of my birthday parties."

Arwen smiled obligingly. This was her request every year. Tell her a story to trigger a memory of her mother and father. Something she could take to bed with her later and think of them.

"On your fourth birthday, we were still reeling from my dad's death." Arwen started with a quiet breath, "but Aunt Charlotte said if we didn't throw you a party, dad was going to haunt our dreams and make us sorry."

"I remember her saying things like this." Deidre made a face. "Whenever you didn't want to do something, she'd say, if you didn't do it, your dad would be in your dreams."

"She was a superstitious nut," Arwen nodded with a laugh. "Anyway, for your fourth birthday she decided she was going to make cupcakes for you. You had a thing for Dora the Explorer, so she decided to make cupcakes of Boots the Monkey. The problem is the color of Boots is brown. The cupcakes looked like a tray of turds. She put big googly eyed things on them, but they weren't edible. It looked like poop with eyes and then you ate one of the eyes and Aunt Charlotte had to watch for plastic remnants for twenty-four hours. Your mom was a fantastic cook and there wasn't anything she couldn't make but there were lots of times you closed your eyes because it looked bad and just savored the food."

Deidre was giggling and Addy chuckled at her story.

"I remember her trying to make cabbage rolls." Deidre scrunched her face with the memory. "I remember more Dad laughing at them."

"She turned them into a casserole instead. Still tasted amazing but they did not stay folded up." Arwen grinned. "It became a staple in the house. Cabbage roll casserole."

"You still make it," Deidre whispered with a tiny hint of a smile as she used a fork to load ham onto her biscuit. "You do it just like she did."

"Why mess with a good thing?" Arwen almost whispered back. She looked to Addy, "okay, ham, jam, biscuit. That's it. Easy. We will not be offended if you hate it. I promise. You can forgo the jam and I can get the mustard for you."

"Arwen, this is perfect. This," he waved to the two women, "is perfect. There is nowhere else I'd rather be and in case you missed it, I'm ready to arm wrestle Deidre for the ham. In Italy, we love our cured meats, especially hams. This rivals those I've had home." "What's it like where you are from Addy?" Deidre asked curiously. "It is a big city?"

"No," he shook his head as he took a bite of a biscuit and then made eyes at Arwen and groaned over the mouthful. "This is divine."

Arwen giggled at his reaction.

He swallowed his mouthful and looked back to Deidre, "I grew up in the countryside. When I was young, we split our time between New York and Sicily. Winters there, summers here with trips back and forth. We had lemon groves and olive groves. A large compound with many smaller houses on the property for extended family. I also spent a lot of time with my mother's parents in Tuscany. They have a vineyard and a small farm of goats, sheep, and chicken," he grinned at Deidre's surprise.

"That's why you knew how to handle Henrietta." Deidre laughed.

"It is. I remember for a short time they had a rooster they had named Sal. It was a mean thing and would chase me all over the place."

"What did you do?"

"I ate him," he said simply as Deidre's jaw dropped open.

"He's kidding." Arwen nudged him under the table. "You're kidding right?"

"Maybe," he winked at Deidre.

"Addy!" Deidre laughed as he chuckled. "I believed you for a minute."

"I did not eat the bird. I simply threatened to take all his girlfriends away from him and he learned to play nice." He laughed loudly as Deidre and Arwen both rolled their eyes. "Hey, boys, even roosters, don't like to be challenged for their girlfriends." Deidre looked to the floor suddenly and flushed red.

"Did I say something wrong?" Addy asked at her sudden change in behaviour.

"No." Deidre pulled another biscuit apart and slathered it with the jam. "I did something, and I felt guilty over it and messed everything up and I'm trying to be tough like Arwen but ugh. Boys are hard."

"Is this about the coffee date?" Arwen asked curiously.

"You had a date?" Addy asked frowning as he looked sideways at Arwen as if annoyed, she hadn't said anything to him.

Arwen raised an eyebrow. A few weeks of knowing Deidre and he was worse than an overprotective parent. A*s. She grinned and mentally corrected her word. Stronzo.

"Yeah, the guy from the library, Warrick, asked me out tonight and I said I'd do coffee, but I wasn't going to miss my birthday dinner with you two. He insisted since it was my birthday, he pay for coffee but," she couldn't look up from her plate, "it felt weird, so I told Mathis and I think he's angry at me. He didn't say he was, but I could tell from his texts he was unhappy with me."

"Do you regret going?" Arwen asked as she pulled a piece of ham from her sandwich and dropped it into her mouth.

"It was weird. It was last minute so I didn't have time to overthink it but then when we were in the coffee shop, all I was thinking of was what Mathis would think. I've liked Warrick a long time and he finally paid attention and yet the entire time I was there, I felt I wasn't there." She sighed deeply.

"You don't owe either man anything," Addy spoke before Arwen could. "Mathis lives in another city and unless he makes his intentions to you about what he wants or needs from you in terms of a relationship then you owe him nothing and even then, if you don't agree with his wants or needs, you owe him nothing. As for this Warrick, if you've liked him a long time and he's only asked you out now, he is not the one. A man who cannot make up his mind and speak to you how he feels isn't worth your efforts, Deidre. You're more important than that."

"Not all men have your confidence, Addy," Arwen cut in. "Some men are shy."

"Some men are, and I would argue those men can date girls other than Deidre. Deidre deserves a person in her life who won't leave her second guessing her worth. Someone who is shy and reserved and takes months upon months to act on his feelings is going to leave her constantly wondering."

Both women stared at him with their mouths open.

He held his hands upward, "am I wrong? Did you not spend the entire time at coffee wondering what changed he finally grew balls and asked you out?"

"Yes. I did. It bothered me because today Arwen did my make up and he finally asked me out. I couldn't figure out if it were why."

"Did you ask him?"

"No!" she blinked wildly at him. "I could never."

"Why not?" He motioned to Arwen, "if I did something and you wanted to know my intentions, wouldn't you just ask?"

"Yup but Deidre isn't me."

"True, you are one of a kind," he ducked away from her playful slap. "I'm only saying Deidre, the boy from the library is a fool for not giving you the attention you deserve. As for Mathis, even if it's only a few days old, you have the right to ask what the relationship is. If it's just a flirtation and some long-distance chatting, then he has no right to be upset if you date another guy just like you have no right if he dates another woman." Addy paused, "but if he says he wants to be exclusive, you need to decide if it's what you want and tell him. Rules and boundaries are important in relationships."

"Addy likes rules," Arwen giggled as Deidre gave a loud laugh. Arwen could see her cousin's cogs turning in her head as she considered Addy's words. The same words Arwen had preached to her countless times seemed to be heard coming from the man's mouth. "What if what he wants and what I want are not the same?" Deidre asked toying with a few crumbs on her plate.

"Then I kill him," Arwen deadpanned as Deidre made a face. Addy's eyes widened at Arwen's words. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding."

"She makes macabre jokes like this all the time, Addy." Deidre made a face at Arwen. "She was state champion in multiple shooting competitions and her father wanted her to join the marines and be the first female sniper. Personally, I think it's weird a man would want his daughter to kill people but what do I know? I don't remember my uncle much, but my dad was weird too. He wanted me to ride bulls." "Ride bulls?"

"Yeah, like he and my uncle and Arwen did. They all did bull-riding."

"Broncos were more fun." Arwen said with a twist of her lips. "It was the one thing your dad just couldn't do after my dad died. He said he could do everything else but competitive riding was just too hard."

"I remember my dad being really tough." Deidre said quietly. "I remember he got into it with one of the guys from his construction team. I don't think I was four or five, but I remember him dragging him from the barn and beating him up right in our front yard. I remember thinking the other guy was maybe a teenager or something and wondered what he'd done to make dad so angry."

Arwen laughed loudly, "you're funny. You remember that?" Arwen was holding her sides as she laughed loudly while both Addy and Deidre stared at her as if she'd lost her marbles. She gave a knowing smirk to Addy, "he was the boy from the hayloft. When I pushed him out of the hayloft, he landed right in front of Uncle Zed. Zed took one look at him and knew what we'd been up to." Addy's sudden grin told her he remembered her story from the other evening.

"Arwen! Are you saying -" Deidre stopped talking her cheeks flushed with embarrassment?

"Yeah, we were fooling around in the hayloft, and I swear it was over faster than it started, and I was pissed off. My first time and it lasted all of two minutes. He was twenty and Uncle Zed happened to be there when I shoved him out of the loft." "Arwen! You were sixteen and he was twenty?"

"He might have been twenty, but it was his first time too and I hope for his sake, along the way he got better at what he was doing otherwise he's been pushed out of a lot of haylofts."

"Oh my god," Deidre covered her face with her hands. "My poor father knew you were up there doing the nasty with one of his employees? No wonder he beat the s**t out of him." She looked to Addy in horror. "I thought he'd stolen from dad's company or something."

Arwen giggled again and stretched her hands over her head, "nope. It was all my fault. I walked around in my shorty jean shorts and a crop top and whispered all kinds of naughty things. Then it was so bad, I figured the only way to get him back for being such a lousy lay was to make sure Uncle Zed knew what we'd done. I knew he wouldn't be mad at me because I was his little girl."

"You're the devil!" Addy interrupted the story. "You deliberately threw him in front of your uncle?"

"I sure did."

"Your uncle and aunt had their hands full with you, I'm sure of it."

"Pfft," she waved her hand in the air. "If they wanted someone who was prim and proper with exquisite manners and wore dresses and behaved like a lady, they would not have raised me on a farm with the horses and cattle. I wouldn't have been shooting and hunting at four and I wouldn't have been four wheeling and riding dirt-bikes when I started walking and I wouldn't have been riding broncos. The only reason they put me in gymnastics was for the flexibility for riding. Uncle Zed had me in boxing because he was a state champion." She pointed at Deidre, "he did the same thing with you. You were riding shotgun on the ATVs before you could walk. You spent more time making mud pies than in the kitchen and I don't think you owned more than one dress at a time, and it was only ever worn for church services when someone got married or died. They didn't believe a girl's place was in the kitchen," Arwen cupped Deidre's cheek. "He would want you to be feisty and strong and say what's on your mind. I know he was cheering hard from wherever he is when you confronted the little b***h Raven on Monday."

"I remember him being overprotective." Deidre said with confusion.

"He was, just like my dad was. It's why the employee got the s**t kicked out of him." Arwen sighed and stood from the table. "One time, I was about fourteen and dad was deployed, a couple of girls at the school were giving me a hard time. I was pretty rough, and tumble and I didn't give a s**t whether I got to school wearing dirty overalls or smelling like the barn." Deidre wrinkled her nose in disgust at Arwen's description and she laughed, "the girls cornered me and were calling me names. I immediately started throwing punches. I got detention. Uncle Zed got a restraining order."

"Why?" Addy asked with his eyebrows high.

"He strongly disagreed with the newly appointed male principal whether my actions had been over the top and may have threatened him. He then stabbed three of his four tires. They couldn't prove he did it, but everyone knew. He wasn't allowed within a hundred yards of the principal." She gave a grin, "the rest of the town rallied behind Uncle Zed. None of the local businesses would serve him. Nobody would repair his car. He had a pipe break in the school, nobody would come fix it because he was the principal. He lost part of his roof during a storm and not one contractor would go out. It took two weeks, and the restraining order was lifted. Then my dad came back from overseas and the principal suddenly moved to another state."

"Oh my god," Deidre groaned. "How come I've never heard this story? This is crazy."

"At no time did they think I couldn't handle the punk a*s bitches at the school. They knew I could. They made sure I had the strength to do it. The adults though, the people I shouldn't have to deal with, Dad and Uncle Zed did what they did best. They protected me. I never once felt they were fighting battles for me, but they were always fighting battles with me."

As Arwen dished out dessert, she continued regaling Deidre and Addy with stories of Deidre's parents and her father. Reminiscing about the strong men and woman who had raised them was giving Deidre a reminder of who she was and where she came from, and it was giving Addy a glimpse into the woman Arwen was. As she spoke of the men though, she realized the man sitting across from her at the table with the wide smile on his face, as comfortable in their kitchen as he would be in a Michelin starred restaurant, she felt deep down her father and uncle would have approved of Addy. It made her want to extend the time he was there and to share with him as much as possible.

Right now, in this moment, they were not anything other than two people who shared affection for the third person in the room. They were not a mob boss and an assassin who every single day of their lives dealt in cruelty and violence. They were simply a little trio of happiness and Arwen decided she wanted this feeling, so reminiscent of life with her aunt and uncle, to last.