It had been a couple of months now since Angela's move back to Miami. Adriano would fly over frequently, sometimes every weekend, to spend time with her. The summer had passed, it was now late november and everything seemed to be going good for the pair. Despite the distance Angela really wished wasn't there sometimes, they both tried their best to stay in contact.

It was a Friday evening and Angela had just returned home from work. A deep sigh escaped her lips when she finally put her key in her door. She stepped into her apartment and heard the showering running. The humming she could hear had gotten louder when the running water was turned off. Adriano stepped out of the bathroom wearing just a towel, the startled look on his face made her grin become even bigger. He had flew in while she was at work.

"Make yourself at home?" she raised an eyebrow and he chuckled.

"I didn't think you'd be home yet." He smiled at her before closing the distance between them. He wrapped her in a big hug that she shrugged quickly away from.

"Adriano! You made my clothes wet now?" she tried to sound annoyed but knew she was failing terribly.

"I guess we'll have to take them off then..." he kissed her roughly, the two laughing into the kiss.

They went for dinner in Angela's parents' house on Saturday night for dinner. In the last couple of months of Adriano traveling back and forth from New York to Miami, he had met Angela's parents only a small number of times. The reason for this being more so Angela's fretful mind. She knew that the last time her family had met one of her boyfriends, it was Derek and didn't know how they would take Adriano. She felt protective over him, despite there being little need for this.

Like the other meetings in the past, dinner had gone great. Adriano was a gentleman the whole time and her family had begun to warm to him. He was a likeable character when he acted the way he did at dinner. He was both warm and charming, knowing he didn't have to keep appearances up for anyone in the mafia. Adriano quite liked Angela's family, he was glad she had such supportive people when she returned to Miami.

"Adriano, can you get me some water? I feel sick." Angela groaned beside him on the sofa. She was lying down with her feet on his lap. She gripped her stomach and he detected the pain in her voice.

"Sure." He shot up and quickly brought her drink back to her before leaning down to her eye level. "Are you okay?" he brushed her hair off of her face and looked into her glassy eyes.

"I still feel sick." She put on a brave face her him but he still looked concerned.

"I wonder what's wrong?" he searched his mind for a reason why she still felt sick.

"I think I ate too much." She shifted on the couch to sit up.

"Come here." His tone was warm. He sat back down on the sofa beside her. Angela moved closer and snuggled up beside him as he put his arm around her. He kissed her on the cheek before looking back at the TV. She was drifting slowly off to sleep in his arms. Adriano managed to pull the blanket down that was resting behind them over the back of the sofa and wrapped it over the two of them.

Angela woke up an hour or two later in a cold sweat beside Adriano, who was still watching TV. She felt her stomach jolt and shot up quickly to run to the bathroom. She slammed the lid open and threw her head down as she vomited. Adriano soon followed her into the bathroom and held her hair as she got sick again.

"Oh no." she groaned as she looked down the bowl. She didn't want to move and allow Adriano to see her face. "You should go, I don't want you to see me like this." She said before her jerked forward again and emptied the contents of her stomach.

"Shh, it's okay. Don't worry about it babe." Adriano said soothingly. He rubbed her back as he sat on the edge of the bath.

After a couple of minutes, she finally felt like the vomiting had passed. She looked up at him now and he noticed her pale face. He wiped the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead with a towel gently and gave her a small smile. She washed her face and brushed her teeth. When she was done she extended her arms out for him to hug.

"Let's go to bed eh?" he spoke quietly as he hugged her tightly.

"Mhm." She nodded. Adriano took her head and lead her to her bedroom where they both got ready for bed.

Angela gingerly got under her covers on her side of the bed and lay on her side to face him. He turned off the light and kissed her forehead before playing with her hair, the two lying there in silence.

"What time is your flight at tomorrow?" Angela had forgotten.

"Twelve." He said sleepily. Another silence had hit the room before Angela broke it again.

"Are we going to be like this forever?" She would do whatever possible to be with him, and he with her but sometimes she just wanted him to be around all the time- not just weekends. Angela looked into his eyes now and saw how he seemed to be calculating in his head.

"No, I promise." He shook his head lightly as he spoke; now wide awake and thinking about the familia.

"Okay." She whispered quietly, still taking in every inch of his appearance as he lay there beside her. It was times like this when she didn't want to go asleep- all she wanted to do was watch him.

His content thoughts were beginning to cloud over with the ideas he had in his head to get out of the mafia. He swore one day he would do it, for both him and Angela. But the options he had to catch his father out were very few. Lucio had always been a clever man and Adriano knew no matter how long he watched, he would probably never find a way to use anything against him.

He would just have to tell his father he wanted out- there was nothing more left to do. But Adriano was unsure how the news would be taken, especially in his family. He had heard of people being disowned for what he was willingly prepared to do and a life without contact with his family would be unimaginably awful.

"Love you." She smiled sleepily at him, not being able to keep her eyes open any longer as they got heavier and heavier.

"I love you too Angie. I really don't deserve you."

"Oh shut up." She nudged him before yawning, her eyes never opened when she spoke.

"Ti amo," (I love you) he whispered as she drifted off to sleep. He gazed dreamily at her sleeping body and kissed her on the forehead before adding "più della mia stessa vita." (More than my existence.)

********

Angela had gotten sick again the next morning but it soon passed. Angela thought she may have food poisoning of some sort since they ordered take out on the Friday night of Adriano's arrival but he was still concerned for her. Her being sick made him not want to leave even more this time and he contemplated all morning what would happen if he stayed even just for an extra day. Angela reassured him she would be fine countless times, she was a big girl now she had teased.

And after a long time of convincing him to go before he missed his flight, he finally obeyed. As much as she had wanted him to stay she knew she may have been being a little selfish. Angela knew he had other things back at New York he had to sort out. The thoughts of him visiting Miami over the fast-approaching Christmas holidays had made it easier to leave when he eventually had. He found it crazy to think they had met each other over a year ago.

Now, Adriano had wanted to meet her a different way but the past could not be changed. A lot had changed in just over a year but it was for the better. He would never take back meeting her, regardless of how they crossed paths.

"Adriano, we need to talk about your birthday." His father's unusual words cut into his thoughts and he furrowed his brows as he looked at Lucio.

"Are you taking over from Mom now?" Adriano raised a brow but was met with a cold stare from his father who had a very small sense of humour.

"No. Adamo and his father will be attending this year."

"There's nothing to attend. And even if there was, you definitely can't expect them to be there this time. Not after what's happened." Adriano said icily, looking his father in the eye then.

"You're having something to celebrate your birthday, and Adamo is going." His father said with force.

"How can you expect anyone in this family to do something like that? After everything that's happened!" Adriano raised his voice, unable to keep his rage at bay.

"Watch your tone son."

"No! I could never understand why you continued to talk to the DeLuco family? After what they've done to us, to your own children?" Adriano spit out in disgust.

"Listen to me Adriano," Lucio's voice was daringly low as he moved intimidatingly closer to his son. "You may not understand completely what I have planned, but you're going to do what I tell you because what I say goes. We're inviting Adamo, we will invite the whole. Fucking. DeLuco. Family. If I like, is that clear?" Lucio's voice was filled with a quiet and dangerous rage as he spit the last few words outs in a low whisper.

"You have something planned?"

"Do you really think I've been putting up with those bastards all this time for nothing? I am not a fool, and I never forgive or forget son. You've been too wrapped up with that girl that I couldn't tell you, but wherever she's gone I want her to stay there because without her, you've gone back to having nothing they can hold against you."

"Dad..." Adriano warned, almost growling.

"We have better things to be worrying about at this time Adriano, let's not get into a disagreement about who graces your bed right now."

"Better things? I don't understand where you want this to go." As hard as it was to ignore his father's comments about Angela, he would just this once.

"We're going to get revenge son. An eye for an eye and they've taken plenty from us that I have made us refrain from retaliating against. We're going to kill Adamo. We're going to kill them all: Adamo, his father, his two brothers. No one gets away with what they have done." Lucio's eyes burned with rage and mischief as he grinned menacingly at his son.

"There's one condition father, if we go through with all of this." Adriano didn't want to sound like he was hesitating but felt that now was the time, the time to break the news to his father that he wanted out of the mafia. The perfect opportunity had come and if his father's plans went ahead, Adriano would get revenge also on Adamo's family before leaving and never coming back.

"And what's that?" Lucio asked, not fazed by Adriano's words.

"This is it. After we do this, I want out..."

********

"Angela I'm worried about you, you still look sick."

"Oh thanks little sis. You're so good at giving compliments." Angela rolled her eyes as she wheeled her cart down another aisle.

"Seriously though, it's been a couple days and you're still not fully recovered." Lucy said worriedly on the other end of the phone. Angela placed something from the shelf into the cart and started to push along. She was out grocery shopping when Lucy decided to give her a call. It was curing the week and around midday so there was barely anyone in the store.

"Everything's okay. I am getting better, just not as quickly as I had expected..." Angela tried her best to speak with confidence, she didn't want Lucy to think there was anything wrong.

"I can tell you're lying."

"Lucy-" Angela's feet came to a stop as she looked at the shelves in front of her, her mouth slightly agape. Her grip loosened on the phone as she scanned the prices, in too much of a daze to listen to her sister. "I'm fine..." Angela's words trailed off as she tried to rip her eyes away from what was staring back at her. She quickly said goodbye to Lucy despite her demands she stay on the phone and put it back in her purse.

Angela was on the aisle she wanted to stay away from the most. She couldn't wait any longer, she had to find out. As soon as she had entered the store, it was an aisle she was automatically pulled towards: the one that contained the pregnancy tests.

She picked out three different brands and went straight to the check out, leaving behind what other shopping she had to get. She raced home, Kenny hot on her trail and most likely wondering what the hell had gotten into her. Only weeks ago, they decided Angela didn't ned two guards and Kenny was the one that stayed with her.

"Are you trying to kill yourself kid? What's wrong?" he asked as she got out of her car after parking right in front of her building.

"Nothing, everything's fine." She was out of breath as she rushed up to her door with her groceries and quickly opened it with her key.

"Whatever you say." Kenny wasn't convinced and rolled his eyes at her before she shut the door and he stood like as statue outside.

Angela took the first test, then the second and third. Each leaving two red lines staring up at her as she held it with shaking hands.

She was pregnant, there could be no denying it.