CHAPTER 5- MY CRUSH IS A FUCKING MAFIA BOSS!?

Isabella POV

“Hey Ava, It’s Isabella. I was wondering if you knew anything about the welcoming committee that just greeted me as soon as I stepped foot in Italy, because believe me they weren’t the flower and chocolate type of guys. More like the I’ll kidnap you and tie you to a chair so you love me type.”

I knew I was rambling nonsense at this point so I tried to take a few deep breaths like my therapist showed me so I could calm the fuck down and not have a panic attack while on the phone.

“Wait what the hell are you talking about? OMG ARE YOU IN ROME!!!”

“Of course, that’s what you choose to focus on, not on the fact that I practically got mauled by some bear ass looking men, who looked like the dollar tree version of men in black.”

“Right sorry, I just got so excited that you’re finally in the same country and time zone as me that I kind of forgot about that.”

I just smiled fondly to myself, I’ve known Ava for approximately 5 years now and we’ve been very good friends for 4 of those years. Ava’s genuinely one of the sweetest and most innocent people I know, she always makes me feel special and appreciated since she’s a big fan of female empowerment.

“It’s okay Ava, you can make it up to me by getting your cute little ass to my hotel so we can hug properly. I’ve missed you so much and those zoom calls are not doing it for me, I need to see my Avi in real life.”

I pouted for extra affect, but I knew she wouldn’t refuse me since she’s been begging me to visit Rome for the past 2 years while I’ve been begging her to visit New York by telling her about all the famous clubs and designer shops in hopes to tempt her.

Alas neither of us had the time to visit the other so we had to resort to watching barbie movies together at the same time while eating a shit ton of McDonald fries and nuggets on our respective sides of the world.

“Yess I need to see my Bella in real life too, it’s been way too long and there’s so much I need to tell you that I feel like I’m practically bursting at the seams.”

“Great I’ll order McDonalds as usual and see if I can find any Barbie movies on the Tv.”

“It’s a date then.”

I rolled my eyes at the exaggerated wink she gave me along with the kissy sounds I could hear her making into the speaker.

“Yeah, yeah just get here first, I’m staying at the Grand Hotel Plaza, I’ll let them know you’re coming so that they can bring you up to my room.”

“I’ll be there in about 20 minutes okay.”

I hung up with a smile on my face and then reached for the hotel phone to call the guy at the reception to escort Ava to my room (which just also happens to be the King Suite).

The next thing I did was order 20 chicken nuggets and 3 large fries with a vanilla shake and a diet coke, which was our go to order every time we met up after a long time to discuss drama. We had a different order combination depending on what we were doing together to really set the mood.

Fortunately, I found Barbie Princess Charm School playing on one of the channels in Italian with English subtitles, not that I needed them since I pretty much knew like 7 languages including, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, Hindi and Mandarin.

True to her word Ava arrived exactly 20 minutes and 43 seconds later, and the moment I opened the door I had an arm full of Ava. Her dark brunette hair was fading into a cotton candy pink which looked so stunning on her that I was almost jealous of her sharp, mysterious features, while I had blonde hair and fair skin like the rest of my family.

“I could NOT sit still the whole car ride because I was so excited, Gustavo our driver kept having to tell me to keep my seatbelt on and to stop moving so much or else we could crash.”

“Ava how much candy did you have and how much coffee did you drink.” I asked feeling genuinely concerned for a minute at how energetic and fast she was, almost reminding me of an overexcited puppy.

“Ummm let’s see, I had 2 packs of m&m’s this morning at like 4 am with a shot of expresso, then after the meeting Stephano called, I ate a few skittles and drank a bottle of coke.”

I could feel myself become more and more horrified with each word that came out of her mouth. “How are you still alive?” I ask with real wonder and surprise in my voice.

“I’m Ava fucking Ferrari, a little sugar is not going to kill me, I once ate a whole pepperoni pizza while drinking 3 bottles of champagne on my own when my boyfriend broke up with me.”

“AVA THAT’S NOT SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF!!”

At this Ava started laughing like a fucking crazy person while jumping on my bed for some reason.

“Your bed is so comfy, god I should tell Stephano to get better beds for us, I mean it’s not like we don’t have the money for it, because we, like I haven’t seen the accounts in a while, but I’m pretty sure we’re like fucking filthy rich….”

She kept going on and on further, but I was confused at who this ‘Stephano’ she kept mentioning was and decided to ask her before she kept rambling.

“Hey Ava, who’s Stephano?”

“Oooh right, I forgot I never told you about him. So, remember when I told you about my uptight younger sister Zahra and cool older brother Henrik.”

At my nod she continued, “well Stephan or Stephano as I call him is Henrik’s less fun, older by an hour twin. Stephan is the leader while Henrik is his second in command.”

“Wait when you say leader, you mean the goddamn boss of the Italian Mafia, as in the most powerful man IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD!!!”

At the end of my sentence, I was literally shouting. Okay so maybe I was overreacting a little bit and maybe I wasn’t being completely honest with my shouting because I wasn’t mad that he was mega powerful, like I’m sure that’s like a super threat or something, but since I’m not involved in the whole Mafia world thing, I could care less if he was the goddamn king of all the mafia’s.

I was more terrified about the fact that the guy I saw staring at me at the Mafia Association Ball, who Liam told me was the new leader of the Italian Mafia, aka the guy that I’ve had a crush on for the past 5 years was one of my best friend’s brothers aka the leader of the most powerful mafia in the world.

Why was my life so fucking hard? Like what did I do to deserve this? You’d think I was living in one of those Mafia x Reader books, but I do not want to end up being the goddamn Y/N who swoons when the guy so much as breathes and acts fucking helpless the whole fucking book. So, with that thought in my head I made a new promise to myself.

I would not fall for Stephan Ferrari; I would hate him and resist him. From today onwards Stephan Ferrari was officially my enemy #1 and I would make his life fucking hell to the point he wished that he had never met me.