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IDFC

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BLACKBEAR _______________

CELINE HAD STOPPED dancing a few minutes after Albert popped open more wine. By then, she'd had at least seven glasses—nine if you counted the shots from earlier. She insisted she wasn't drunk, but the way her grin lingered and her movements slowed said otherwise.

The older women and their husbands had wandered toward the pool area, taking cigarettes out of hidden cases as they murmured about "an overdue smoke." That left my cousins and me around the poker table, the stakes rising with every round.

Nico checked his cards, his expression calm but with that telltale glint in his eye. "All in," he said, pushing his chips forward with authority.

"All in," Matteo repeated, matching his older brother with a smirk.

Ambrosia sighed dramatically, tossing in a few chips of her own. "You're all ridiculous."

Maria shoved in a stack, her tone playful. "Bam. Try me."

"Oh, I will," Dante, her twin brother, fired back, sliding in his chips. "Don't worry about that."

Sofia, the youngest at the table, hesitated briefly before adding her chips. "I've got nothing to lose. Let's see how this goes."

Then it was Celine's turn. She leaned back in her chair, her fingers lightly drumming against the table as she surveyed the pile of chips. Her lips curved into a sly smile.

"All in," she said confidently, shoving her entire stack forward.

The table stilled for a moment, Nico's sharp gaze locking onto hers. "You're sure?" he asked, his voice even, though the challenge in it was clear.

Celine tilted her head. "You play to win, right? So do I."

One by one, hands were revealed, groans filling the room as cards hit the table. Nico's smirk faltered when Celine laid down her hand with a flourish.

"Royal flush," she announced, her grin widening as the table erupted into exclamations.

"No way," Matteo groaned. "That's impossible!"

"She's bluffing," Dante muttered, leaning forward to examine her cards.

"She's not," Sofia said, laughing. "I don't know whether to be impressed or terrified."

Celine began gathering the chips, her expression one of pure satisfaction. "Told you," she said lightly, reshuffling the deck.

"Alright," Nico said, leaning back and crossing his arms. "Where'd you learn to play like that?"

Her grin sharpened, and she flicked a card across the table with practiced ease. "I'm a Luciano, remember?" she replied. "I was born in 2001, right in the middle of the Diamante Nero investigation."

The room fell silent at the name. The Black Diamond investigation was one of the biggest cracks in mafia history. A hidden camera planted at a dock had fed footage straight to the FBI. Families that had evaded suspicion for decades were exposed. Many went down entirely, while others, like the Lucianos, barely managed to escape by emptying their accounts and fleeing back to Italy.

"You could still play poker while all that was going on?" Dante asked, disbelief coloring his tone. "I thought cops went to Italy too."

"Well, I wouldn't know," Celine said, dealing out the next hand. "I wasn't in Italy."

Dante frowned. "Luciano didn't go with the rest of his family?"

"Nope." Celine's tone was casual, but her eyes carried a flicker of something heavier. "We went to Monaco."

"Monaco?" Matteo repeated.

She nodded. "But my father didn't want a newborn in the middle of all that chaos, so he kept me with him. My brother and sister went with my mother."

A beat of silence passed before Sofia asked, "And what did he do with you?"

"He taught me," Celine said simply, shuffling the deck again. "He loved poker. So did my nonni. They all taught me how to play—and how to win." Her gaze flicked toward Nico, who was watching her carefully.

"That's not all he taught you, is it?" Nico said, his tone quieter now.

Celine's smile softened, but it didn't lose its edge. "No. By the time I was ten, I could play the piano, train for hours without breaking form, and tame a snake. My dad said I had to be ready for anything."

"And after the investigation?"

"He didn't let me come back to Chicago," she admitted, her voice losing some of its levity. "Not right away. He made me stay in Monaco and train. He'd visit sometimes, take me on family trips, but..." She trailed off, shrugging lightly. "It was always weird. Spending time with siblings I barely knew."

"When did you come back?"

"I was fourteen," she replied, dealing out the cards. "By then, he figured I'd learned enough. But you know what's funny?" She smirked as she looked around the table. "None of it was ever about me being a girl. He didn't care. He just wanted me to be the best."

The room fell quiet again, the weight of her words settling over us. For the first time, I saw her not just as Celine, my sharp-tongued wife, but as someone who had lived through things most people couldn't imagine.

"So," she said, breaking the silence with a grin, "who's ready to lose again?"

"Wait, so you were raised by sociopaths for 14 years who told you were an only child?" Dante blurted, earning a sharp kick under the table from Sofia.

"What?" he asked, scowling as he rubbed his shin. "It's not like we're not all raised by killers. She knows what I mean."

Celine smirked, tilting the wine bottle in her hand as she leaned back. "I knew I had siblings," she said, unfazed. "We spoke a few times, but not often. You know, in case..."

"Calls would be traced?" Ambrosia guessed, raising her brows knowingly.

Celine nodded. "Exactly. And honestly, it wasn't like I had time to miss anyone. My training didn't leave much room for that."

"What's it like, though?" Sofia asked, leaning forward.

"To what?"

"To grow up like that. No choices, no breaks... Just doing whatever your father told you, day in and day out."

Celine's gaze flicked toward Sofia, her smirk softening. She glanced at her cards and laid them flat against the table. "It's like this," she said smoothly, flipping them over to reveal a royal flush.

The table erupted.

"Oh, come on!" Matteo groaned, tossing his cards down in frustration.

"That's not even fair!" Maria protested.

"Cheating! She's cheating!" Dante accused.

"You can't keep getting royal flushes!" Ambrosia exclaimed, shaking her head.

"I wasn't even paying attention!" Matteo grumbled.

Celine laughed, sweeping the chips toward her with ease. "You're all terrible losers."

"You're insufferable," Nico said, though the faint twitch of his lips betrayed his amusement.

"I'm not insufferable," Celine replied, lifting the wine bottle for another swig. "I'm just better than you." She wiped her mouth with her wrist, setting the bottle down with a satisfied sigh. "This wine's good. How old is it?"

"Older than you, probably," Sofia muttered, narrowing her eyes.

"Not surprising," Celine said, rolling a chip between her fingers. "The Lucianos always had great taste. Wine, poker, survival—everything, really."

Her words hung in the air, and for a moment, everyone at the table fell quiet.

Matteo cleared his throat. "Okay, but seriously. What's it like, growing up like that? You're sitting here drinking with us, winning at poker like you own the table—but back then?"

Celine tilted her head, considering him. "Normal," she said simply.

Matteo snorted. "Normal?"

A part of me was discomforted on Celine's behalf for all the questions my family were asking but an even bigger part of me needed answers to the same questions.

"For me, yeah," she replied. "When it's all you've ever known, it doesn't feel strange. You don't question why your dad's teaching you how to shoot a target before you can write your full name, or why you're running drills when other kids are playing tag. You just...do it."

"See, that's what I don't get," Ambrosia said, leaning back in her chair. "We were raised in this life, too, but we had choices. You didn't."

Celine shrugged. "I didn't need choices. It was survival. My dad wasn't just trying to raise me—he was trying to keep me alive."

Dante leaned forward. "Yeah, but how the hell do you even survive something like that? That's not training—that's straight-up conditioning."

Celine's smirk returned, sharper this time. "You call it conditioning, I call it being a Luciano. My father had me training every day: guns, knives, piano, poker—you name it, he made me master it. All by the time I was ten."

"And you never got to come back to the States?" Sofia asked quietly.

"Not until I was fourteen," Celine said. "By then, I didn't even recognize this place. My dad would visit where I was staying, sometimes take me on trips, but..." She shrugged, her voice turning distant. "It was weird. My siblings weren't strangers, but they didn't feel like family, either. Not at first."

"It's wild to think about," Ambrosia said, shaking her head. "You didn't get the normalcy we had. Even if we're all in the mafia, our parents still gave us a choice, a life. You never got that."

Celine laughed softly, her eyes gleaming as she dealt another round of cards. "That's the difference, though, isn't it? Your parents gave you choices. Mine gave me survival. And honestly? I wouldn't change a thing."

The Luciano's were famous for their ruthlessness. Celine was known for it. Famous for it in fact. I just had never thought of what it had took for her to achieve that.

Celine pushed back her chair with more force than necessary, rising to her feet. "I want pizza," she announced, wobbling slightly as she stood.

My hands shot out instinctively, catching her by the arm to steady her. "You sure about that?" I asked, my tone half-teasing.

"I'm fine," she insisted, brushing me off with a wave of her hand. She started toward the kitchen, her steps uneven but determined, leaving the rest of us at the table.

I watched her go, my hand lingering mid-air for a moment before I returned it to the table.

"You're gonna let her raid the kitchen like that?" Dante asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Like I can stop her," I muttered, though my eyes were still locked on the doorway she had disappeared through.

"Celine drunk in a kitchen? God help your chef," Ambrosia added with a grin, throwing a chip into the pot.

"She'll be fine," Nico said with a shrug. "Though I'm not sure about the pizza."

"She's a Luciano," Matteo said dryly, leaning back in his chair. "If anyone can figure out how to make a pizza drunk, it's her."

A wave of chuckles rippled through the table, but I didn't join in. My mind was already halfway to the kitchen, wondering if she was actually okay or just pretending to be.

"Antonio," Sofia called, breaking my focus.

"What?"

"You look like you're about to bolt after her. Go already," she said with an exaggerated sigh. "We all know you're not gonna last more than five minutes sitting here worrying about her."

"I'm not—" I began, but she cut me off with a knowing smirk.

"Go."

I didn't argue further. Pushing my chair back, I stood and made my way toward the kitchen, the sound of their amused laughter following me.

When I stepped into the kitchen, I found Celine leaning against the counter, staring at the oven as if it might magically produce the pizza she wanted. She was holding a jar of tomato sauce in one hand and a block of cheese in the other, a thoughtful but slightly unfocused look on her face.

"You planning on eating that raw or actually making something?" I asked, leaning against the doorway.

She turned her head slowly, her expression shifting from concentration to a lazy smirk. "I'm debating my options."

I walked over, taking the jar of sauce from her hand. "How about you let me handle this before you set something on fire?"

"I wasn't going to set anything on fire," she protested, though she swayed slightly as she spoke.

I raised an eyebrow. "You're drunk, and you just tried to open a block of cheese with a fork."

She looked down at the fork in her other hand, as if noticing it for the first time, and then laughed softly. "Okay, fine. Maybe I'm a little drunk."

"A little?" I set the jar and cheese down on the counter before stepping closer to her. "You're wobbling like a baby deer, Celine."

"I'm fine," she insisted, but when she tried to straighten up, she ended up leaning into me instead.

"Sure you are," I muttered, wrapping an arm around her waist to steady her.

She glanced up at me, her expression softening. "You didn't have to come check on me, you know."

"I wasn't checking on you," I said, though the lie was obvious even to me. "I just didn't trust you not to burn my kitchen down."

Her lips twitched, and she tilted her head against my chest. "Liar."

I let out a quiet sigh, brushing a stray braid away from her face. "You're impossible, you know that?"

"And you love it," she said, her voice light but laced with something deeper.

I didn't respond, letting the moment stretch between us as she relaxed further into my hold. Whatever else I might've said was forgotten as the sound of her steady breathing filled the room, grounding me in a way I hadn't realized I needed.

Celine tried to get up from her spot against the counter and failed, nearly sliding back down before catching herself.

"Need help?" I asked, watching her with a mix of amusement and exasperation.

"I got it," she muttered, more to herself than to me. She dug her nails into the edge of the counter and hoisted herself up with a determined grunt. "Ta-da," she announced, throwing her arms up like she'd just stuck a perfect landing at the Olympics.

"Impressive," I said dryly, crossing my arms. "Now let's get you to bed. Where are your shoes?"

She looked down at her feet, wiggling her toes. "I lost them," she said, wagging her foot at me like that explained everything.

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "Of course you did." Without another word, I left the kitchen to grab her shoes from the poker room.

As I stepped back into the room, Dante looked up from the table. "How is she?"

"She's—" I started, but before I could finish, Celine's voice rang out from the kitchen.

"I don't wanna stay here!"

I turned on my heel and called back, "You can't walk!"

"I can too!" she shot back, defiance dripping from every word.

"Celine, aquí," I said firmly, my voice carrying the same edge my father used to get us to behave as kids.

Moments later, she appeared in the doorway, barefoot, with a bright smile plastered across her face. "I'm fine!" she declared, as if nothing had happened.

I raised an eyebrow. "Alright, walk to me in a straight line."

Her smile faltered for half a second, but then she squared her shoulders. "Easy," she said, starting forward with exaggerated concentration.

She made it three steps before her balance wavered, and she had to grab the doorway to steady herself.

"Impressive," Matteo snickered from the poker table. "She's like a baby giraffe on ice."

"Shut up, Matteo," she shot back, sticking her tongue out at him before turning her attention back to me.

"You were saying?" I asked, fighting back a smirk.

"I tripped on...air," she muttered, brushing imaginary dust off her dress.

"Right," Ambrosia said, trying—and failing—to hide her laughter. "Classic air, always in the way."

"Okay, okay, we get it," Celine grumbled. She looked at me with a pout, clearly annoyed. "Happy now? I walked."

I stepped forward and held out my hand. "Let's just get you to bed."

She crossed her arms. "I don't need to go to bed."

"You lost your shoes, you're talking to air, and you can't walk in a straight line. Trust me, you need to go to bed," I said, taking her hand gently.

"I hate you," she mumbled, though she didn't resist as I started leading her toward the stairs.

"I know," I said, the corner of my mouth twitching upward.

Behind us, Dante called out, "You're not gonna carry her? What happened to chivalry?"

"She's drunk, not dying," I shot back, earning another round of laughter from the table.

Celine groaned. "You're all assholes."

"Love you too, Taipan," Ambrosia said with a grin.

Celine flipped her off without looking back, her head leaning against my shoulder as we made our way upstairs.

A part of me was overjoyed at seeing a drunk Celine'. A Celine who smiled and giggled and actually showed signs of humanity in her soul.

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look at me updating regularly 🤭. i'm basically a changed woman 😜

anyways y'all how was this chapter?? i promised I'd spice it up after chapter 20 i delivered. this is almost the slowest ive ever made a book lol after y'all bullied me about needed me I've been so scared to make another fast burn but I hope y'all liked a lil insight into Celine's backstory there's way more lore to come AND Antonio's.

Sorry I haven't been adding in more inner monologue from him I just noticed I do it alot in most chapters so I was trying something new.

anyways tysm for reading and remember to drink water !

- zio 🍸