Page 1 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

1

NYAH

Dear Diary,

Today, I almost ruined a million-dollar Mafia wedding with a twelve-dollar pregnancy test.

Every moment of the last seven days, I had wondered one thing.

Would the flimsy lace of my wedding dress be strong enough to hang myself with?

If I somehow managed to rip it up into long strips and tied them together, could I make a noose? One that wouldn’t just tear when I fit it around my neck?

The window was another option. From the second-floor bedroom of my parents’ mansion, I could probably do myself a pretty good injury. If I landed on my head, I might even die.

But where would be the symbolism in that?

I didn’t want to kill myself.

But I sure as hell didn’t want to marry my father’s enemy either. And since those were apparently my only two options, death was definitely more appealing.

Perhaps I could push my father out the window instead?

That idea almost brought a smile to my face. I would have taken great pleasure in watching his arms windmill while he tried to regain his balance, and the horror play out across his classically handsome, middle-aged features as he realized he wasn’t going to be able to claw his way back to safety.

I’d record his screams so I could play them over and over, enjoying each one to the fullest before the satisfying crunch of his body hitting the concrete.

But now, a third option had presented itself.

I stared down at the positive pregnancy test gripped in my fingers, and my heart skipped a beat. There were two pink lines in the results window. And a quick check of the instructions confirmed what I already knew.

I was still pregnant.

I’d been so sure I’d lost it. I’d had bleeding a few weeks back, not long after I’d first realized I had a little hitchhiker on board. I’d been so heartbroken I’d buried my head in the sand. Pretended I could just forget about it and move on. Refused to see a doctor, stubbornly determined to pretend everything was fine.

When my father had come for me, ripping me away from the only man who’d ever shown me any kindness, my heart had broken all over again.

But now, a tiny spark of hope glimmered in front of me. That pregnancy test was my key out of the prison my Mafia family had created for me.

The door to my bedroom burst open, and my mother barged in, trailing expensive perfume and in a deep-purple dress that swept around her ankles. Her maid carried a veil that was about as long as a freight train, trying, and failing, to keep it from dragging along the carpet.

My mother peered down her elegant nose at me, like I was something to be studied, rather than her flesh-and-blood daughter. “Yes,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. She took the veil from Daphne and ran her perfectly manicured fingers over it. “Try this on. This is going to be stunning when it’s all spread out on the big day. The garbage that first designer tried to get by me wasn’t even close to acceptable, but this is exactly what I wanted. The lace is a one-hundred-percent match for your dress.” She paused in the open doorway of my bathroom and raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow in question, waiting for me to gush over the ridiculous tulle monstrosity. “Isn’t it just stunning?”

I couldn’t say anything. My fingers shook, clenched around the positive pregnancy test. I couldn’t have stopped my gaze from dipping to it even if I’d tried.

My mother’s followed. The veil slowly fell to the floor. “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is?”

I turned the test around and showed her the results.

For a split second, I thought I saw something happy flicker in her eyes. Something full of excitement and promise, and my heart sped up, anticipating the way she would gasp and fling her arms around me. How she’d squeal in grandmotherly delight and jump up and down, clutching my arms, so thrilled her only daughter was about to have a baby.

At least, that might have been what she’d do if she’d been a different sort of woman.

A different sort of mother.

Her eyes hardened. She grasped my arm, but it wasn’t in the excited way I might have been stupid enough to hope for.

It was only to dig her nails in so sharply I was sure they would draw blood.