Page 111 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

I’d been trying to watch and learn. Lynx liked the stupid sport, so hell, maybe I could too. But watching the replay of the game we’d lost so painfully to the Wardens was not exactly the most thrilling way to spend my life.

I scrolled my phone aimlessly while pretending to study the team we were somehow supposed to turn into champions, and thought for the hundredth time about googling Lynx’s name.

A knock on the door stopped me from thinking about it any further. “Yeah. Come in.”

Lynx poked his head in, his gaze straying to the TV for a second. “Reliving us getting our asses kicked, huh?”

I shook my head. “Just trying to work out why you love this game so much.”

He shrugged. “I played it all my life. And then it was taken away from me when I went to prison. I imagine it’s much like how you’d feel if someone took away…I dunno. Your sports car.”

I stared at him. “Seriously? You think I give a shit about the fucking car I drive?”

He shrugged. “Or your suits then.” He eyed my closet, where there definitely were an obnoxious number of expensive clothes.

“I was driving a barely running, beat-up truck that I paid five hundred bucks for when you met me. And I was wearing jeans and a hoodie and dirty work boots.”

“And how many of those things were actually you?”

He had a point. “Fine. Guilty. I like expensive shit. So sue me.”

Lynx rolled his eyes. “What sports do rich people like you normally enjoy? Fucking lacrosse or polo or something where you’re served a nice cup of tea and watch the whole thing happen through a pair of binoculars?”

“Fighting,” I said instantly. Then added in more of a smart-ass manner, “And mind games.”

Lynx leaned on the doorjamb, his gaze straying back to the hockey game on the screen. “Yeah, I’d believe that.” He winced as our goalie missed another shot and the puck hit the back of the net. “Listen, I actually came in here for a reason. Have you seen Nyah?”

“Isn’t she in her room?”

“No. I took over from the other guy when I got here, but that was hours ago, and she didn’t come out for dinner, so I stuck my head in her room and she isn’t there.”

“So you’ve been guarding an empty room all evening?” I laughed at him.

“Blame the idiot who does day shift. I took over his position. It didn’t occur to me I should ask him if Nyah was actually in the room. Seemed like a given.”

He looked like a sulky teenager who’d gotten a D on their group assignment because he’d been the only one working on it.

“Is she down in the kitchen with Virginia? I skipped dinner, so I didn’t see her down there.”

Lynx shook his head. “When I realized she wasn’t in her room, I went searching for her. Virginia’s already gone home for the night. There’s nobody down in the kitchen.”

I picked up on the worry in his voice. “You think she’s done a runner? Or jumped out the window or something?”

Lynx blanched. “Don’t say shit like that. If she jumped out that window, she’d probably be dead at the bottom of it.”

Both of us stared at each other, then in unison moved to my window that faced over the same garden as Nyah’s did. I opened it and stuck my head out, peering down at the dark ground below. Lynx even went so far as to pull out his phone and attempt to light the ground with the flashlight function.

He let out a shuddering breath when there was nothing down there but grass and shrubs.

I stared at him. “You really thought she’d jumped for a second then, didn’t you?”

He’d turned vaguely green. “Can you blame me? She’s being forced to marry a man twice her age. A man she grew up knowing only as her father’s enemy. You think she actually wants any of this?”

I stared at him. “You think she doesn’t? She gets a wealthy husband, a mansion to live in, never has to worry about a thing for the rest of her life other than getting her nails and hair done and playing tennis.”

“You don’t know her at all if you think she cares about any of that shit.”

He was right. Maybe I didn’t know her. But I hadn’t actually considered that she might not want to be here. I was sure she was reporting shit back to her family, even without a phone, but I had assumed that she enjoyed the life her mother had. The same one she’d get as my father’s bride.