ZellaBee Rating: Don’t Yuck My Yum (I kinda loved it)
(Audible): Indy Chopin & Vanessa Vasquez ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Summary: If Romeo and Juliet were Adult Virgins (and lived)
Backstory: 📜
😭27 years ago Rafael “Rafe” Valentino and his twin brother Nico were 11yrs old and out with their mother for ice cream when a drive by shooting orchestrated by Seraphina Serreto’s father.
😭Their mother tries to push them out of the way, Nico falls, Rafe didnt move and ended up shot along with his mother
😭Their mother dies while Rafe was in a coma for awhile.
👏🏾Their father, Lorenzo spent 7 years on a rampage killing whole bloodlines
😬Seraphina was 2 yrs old when he burned her parents and siblings alive in their home meaning to kill her the entire family
😒When Lorenzo found out she was alive, he wanted Rafe to find and kill her but he refused
Fast Forward:📼
🥺Nico and Rafe planned at 18 to walk away from the life
Rafe knew that his father would never let them both leave, even with 2 other brothers besides the twin
😩The day before their 18th b-day he made a deal with his father to take over the operation if he let Nico go free and clear
🥹Rafe knew Nico wouldn’t survive the life in the long run bc he’s the most like their mom
😡Nico thinks Rafe chose his father over him and has never spoken to any of them again.
And Then:😩
⭐️Seraphina is adopted at 10 yrs old and had identity changed to Amalia Santiago
⭐️Her foster father, Elvis Butera and her foster brother Diego raise her
😡Diego’s mother is married to the foster father while his biological father Dario was in prison for beating his mistress
👏🏾When Dario got out, Rafe killed him for his violence against women when Diego was 15 vowed revenge against him.
⭐️When the foster father dies, Diego finishes raising Amalia and moves her to a shithole.
Present Day:🎤
Starts in the middle of the night while Amalia Santiago (29), now a woman with the potential to be a badass while still being childish, and insecure at a size 10 (seriously authors!) is sleeping and someone breaks into her apartment. Sis grabs a bat and actually swings with full intention to knock this assholes head off…and misses. So she settles for throwing elbows and feet only to find out it’s her foster brother, Diego. He’s already gotten an asswhupping that night so her taps didn’t do nearly as much damage. Brother Diego has fucked up (as siblings tend to do in mafia stories) annndddd now it’s her problem or they’ll both die (of course). He’s Rafe Valentine’s family lawyer whose also an undercover agent AND been murdering members of rival territories to start a war between Rafe’s and Genovaze’s families. Busy man. His plan: To either get Rafe killed by the Latin Kings or Genovaze if not sent to prison for the rest of his life. His brothers will promptly be killed because Rafe is the only one keeping their heads on and all the Valentines will perish without anyone tracing it back to him. Except he’s TERRIBLE at doing one job much less 4! O did I forget to mention he also has been working for Genovaze? That’s who handed him his ass earlier and told him he would have him and his sister killed if he didn’t take care of Rafe for him. So their plan, for her to sacrifice herself (ugh) let Rafe “kidnap” her (knowing that he has a rule against hurting women, not just for his mob but all others in his city, and gather intel) to help put him in prison. Why must women work so hard? 🤦🏾♀️
Rafe Valentine (40) wants Diego’s ass with a bullet in his head and he’s looking for him. He sent someone to pick up the girlfriend and now he’s going to find who he sees 2x a month like clockwork (how does Diego even have time with all the shit he’s in to get some 🐈 and see sis?!) After he takes Amalia and brings her back to his place he decides he wants her to fall in love with him by Ch.3. After their kiss he locks her in his room and homegirl makes a rope using his expensive suits, ties and belts…while wearing a skirt. She made like a ladder to secure her feet with the belts. I’m not mad. Ballsy. Except you know she’s afraid of heights. It’s the little things. He actually blames himself for this reckless shit because now she’s stuck and refuses to let go for anyone to catch her because she’s sooooo heavy. Fuck me! He won’t let anyone touch her anyway so when she lets go finally he catches her. He’s an incredibly soft touch wanting her to trust him and open up to him. Very not mafia story like which is why I liked it. One night while they are sleeping next to each other he has a nightmare flashing back to his mom dying that makes him disassociate. He’s talking in his sleep and Amalia tries to shake him out of it he ends up on top of her with his hand around her throat. When he comes to he freaks out and goes away for 3 days without saying anything to her. So she spends the entire time he’s gone trying to run away.
Carmine is a creepy guard that Rafe employs with a scar on his face that apparently went to school with Amalia when her name was still Seraphina. He also is an inside man for Genovase Matte and wants to collect a bounty on Amalia’s head. The one that Genovase himself set. When he catches her in Rafe’s office while he’s out looking through his shit looking for evidence he blackmails her into coming with him. He tells the other guards that she ran away again and they all leave the house so she’s utterly alone with him. She knows she won’t come back from that trip he wants to take her on so she stashes a letter opener on her and makes him walk ahead of her. Before they get outside she stabs him in the leg and he throws her into a wall. Just as he’s about to make it over to her Rafe walks in snatches him up knocking him unconscious and has him taken to the docks to be shot like Old Yeller. The night he does that some little white girl with glasses sees the whole thing while hiding behind a crate and runs off when they spot her dropping her cell phone (amateur hour).
The girl that now knows too much is Nora Bishop, an astrophysics student of Rafe’s twin Nico (wait for it) who he’s sleeping with. Who didn’t see that coming? Anyway he’s gonna ask her to marry him so when he finds out what she saw he comes running into Rafe’s face to threaten him the selfish little shit. Rafe suddenly sees it as an opportunity to get his brother back and says he’ll leave Nora alone if he comes back to the family, which he agrees. That same night Amalia comes clean to him about everything (her working with her brother to bring him down, who she really is, her brother being 5-0 (FBI) and that he was working with G-baby. He thinks she never loved him and he hands her the evidence she needs to take him down and tells all his men to bail before leaving her alone in the house. She burns the evidence while waiting for him but when he doesn’t come back she leaves a too detailed message on Diego’s phone and tells him to meet her at their childhood home before leaving the house. Only for Rafe to come back and find her gone thinking she went to go cell him out (Romeo and Juliet if they had lived).
Nora shows up to find a very very drunk and sad Rafe pleading for him to let Nico go and she figured out that he sacrificed his future for his brother when they were 18. He agrees and sends her home only for Nico to show up an hour later thinking he kidnapped Nora. He tells him in a nice way to fuck off and find her himself. Then Diego shows up like the ghost of Christmas future holding a gun on him asking for Amalia. Meanwhile, Amalia’s been kidnapped by G-baby who wants her to marry his grandson so they can have her territory and kill Rafe off. She stalls by saying she wants to say goodbye to Rafe first. Rafe, his right hand Matteo, and Diego kill a ton of people and end up at the deli he used to meet Genovase at to find him there with Amalia. Diego thought G-baby wanted her dead so he’s pissed but Rafe kills the old man first so you snooze you lose. After all said and done she tells Diego she loves Rafe and won’t let him go with a long speech and then epilogue.
Here’s What Survives the Jump: 😍
💔The incredibly cute story about how his mom would never get any ice cream for herself so they each used to get her chocolate, which they both hated so they could share with her)
💛The one and only time Rafe stood up to his father was when he refused to kill an infant Amalia to finish out vengeance for his mothers death.
😂Amalia considering pushing Rafe down a flight of stairs when he took her but settled for shoulder checking him and throwing an elbow to his ribs to get past him
🌶️Their first kiss in Ch.2 after the longest argument of my ENTIRE life about her not sleeping in his bed, which she would have won if she didn’t need the last word so badly lol.
🌶️🌶️They have a fight kink-even though they’re BOTH VIRGINS (yep let that sink in)
🥰He cooks, is affectionate, doesn’t jump to ridiculous ass conclusions, protective, and probably the least problematic of all mafia men I’ve heard of.
😻He spent the 3 days he was gone getting intensive therapy and watching over the house so he wouldn’t hurt her again and to keep an eye on her (now that’s some sexy shit)
❤️Him NOT being mad that she didn’t tell him about being the shooters daughter because he can empathize with her trying to protect him from the truth
🥰The Epilogue (5 Year Jump): All the brothers, Matteo, Diego, and Nico are all at a family game night with their wives. Amalia and Rafe have twin girls and she’s pregnant with a boy (house full of love)
Here’s What Doesn’t Make It: i.e Shit I Never Want to See/Hear Again💩
😒Spent the time she was waiting to wack the intruder thinking about how this prowlers lawyer will spin what she wore to bed as an invitation to possible rape
🙋🏾♀️Why do Books Hate Moms: Anyone know why a lot of mothers dead/murdered in these stories? Esp mafia stories
🤮MILF: Amalia calls Rafe a “Mafioso id Like to Fuck”
😬“Fancy Pants Business Man” came out of the mouth of a woman whose brain is supposed to be fully developed
🛑“Tesoro” Rafe’s nickname for Amalia is in every fucking sentence
🙄Makes my dick hard-why am I hearing about dick in Ch 1
😩“Chocolate” “Mocha” Eyes” Both these motherfuckers have brown eyes
🤔What’s more than elusive than the beautiful, virgin in her goddamn 30s! (Latina & Italian)? The unicorn that is the hot, 40 year old virgin mafia boss that’s magically great in bed immediately! Yup!
🛑“Ruin you for everyone or every man”
😤Carmine’s Death- Rafe spent too long talking for a mafia boss that saw with his own eyes that this mofo tried to kidnap his girl. Stop playing with your food and kill him.
🙄Amalia crying over stabbing Carmine when Rafe already killed him
💢NICO that selfish cunt.
“You aren’t going to like it” I can’t hate this damn sentence more than Rafe who seems to hear if from every damn character in the book at least once
Amalia’s father selling her to Genevese the MOMENT he found out she would have a vagina
😪“All the Kings horses and all the Kings men couldn’t put us back together again”
🤡So we avenging shit fathers now? Diego’s father was a piece of shit. Was never around and if he was abusive to the mistress, he was DEFINITELY beating his mother! Dario wasn’t even around! Clowned out.
🤨Why does the FMC always live in squalor?! Apt of perverts/boarded up and bullet proof glass
🤬Diego keeps Amalia hidden in a lower income part of Chicago despite her having a significant inheritance and HE lives in a luxury penthouse downtown?!
🚫“Fucking my Way Into her Soul”