Christmas was always your favourite time of the year.

The warm lights, the fuzzy feeling. Putting up the freshly cut pine trees which scent lingered around your halls, decorating them with traditional baubles and ornaments. Stockings by the fire place, presents by morning.

You could not wait for the day you had children of your own; to spoil them the same way your father spoiled you.

The same man who married you off to a Russo. Giovanni Russo, to be exact.

A man without a heart, truly. No mercy, not even for souls he believed, deep down, were kind and honest. You believed he was incapable of love, and from the moment your marriage was announced, you knew it would not be a love match.

Though, once you two had your two kids— Angela and Marco, after his own father— you noticed he changed around them.

Although you two remained in a loveless marriage, practically forced to fornicate until Angela was born; a disappointing case, a girl; and again until Marco was born, an heir to the Russo name— you noticed he cared when it came to them.

Yes, he was still constantly absent due to work. Yet, when he was home, he would allow them to enter his office when he was working and he did not get mad like you thought he would.

He would barely crack a smile when Angela gave him a drawing she drew with her private tutor, or when Marco would pretend he was smoking just like his papà with his chalk-sweet sticks.

And Christmas was rolling around again. You watched as the two of them sat on the carpet of the large living area, writing down what they wanted from Santa this year.

They place them atop of the fireplace for you to post in the morning to the North Pole, before heading up to bed for the night. You clean up the pens and papers from the floor, before Giovanni clears his throat.

He stood there, leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. He glances toward the letters on the fireplace. "Are they asleep yet?" He asks gruffly, ensuring they would be gone for the night so they wouldn't catch the two of you opening them.

After all, Christmas was a magical time of year, even in the Russo family.