Page 118 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

LUCA

Dear Diary,

Turns out heroics are punishable by incarceration.

Nyah’s mumbles about Dax replayed over and over in my head. Her words had been barely more than a slurred whisper, and yet they echoed so loudly in my ears it was as if she’d screamed them.

I took the steps down to my father’s office, knowing what I needed to do.

He lifted his gaze when I entered and sat back, folding his arms across his chest. “I wondered when I’d be seeing you. I just had Viktor in here with a lump on his head the size of Texas and his eyes so unfocused they were rolling back in his head. Enzo just took him to the hospital.”

“What a shame. Poor, poor Viktor.”

My father narrowed his eyes at the thick sarcasm in my tone. “Enzo told me you played the hero with my fiancée. Carried her up the stairs wearing your clothes.”

The same anger that had kindled inside me lit up again at the reminder of the way I’d found her in that cage. Wild like a hurt animal who’d been cornered, the smell of her burnt flesh still hanging in the air, and my uncle’s gaze raking over every inch of her body in a way that made me want to put a bullet in his brain even more than I normally did.

There was no point denying it. My father had probably watched the entire thing on the cameras that monitored his cages. “I did.”

“So I assume that means you’ll be taking the punishment for her? Is that correct?”

My jaw clenched so hard it ached. “How long?”

“Seventy-two hours.”

I gaped at him. “She was in fucking agony! And you were just going to leave her there on that cold, dirty floor in her own piss and shit with no food for seventy-two hours?”

My father shrugged. “Well, thanks to you, she’s now tucked up in the luxury of her bedroom, hopefully with a better understanding of what’s expected from a woman about to become my wife. But someone has to do the punishment, Luca. And if it’s not her, then I guess it’s you.”

My skin crawled at the thought of spending seventy-two hours in those cages. But I’d known what I was getting into when I’d opened that cage and set her free.

This was how my father had always worked. One mindfuck after the next, not just with me, but with every man and woman in his circle.

It was how he’d gotten where he was. Because nobody ever knew what to expect.

It was what made him deadly. He could smile at you one minute, then cut your throat the next.

I wasn’t exempt just because I was his flesh and blood.

But all I had to tell him was what Nyah had said about Dax.

That she was in love with him.

And it would switch my father’s focus. I’d suddenly become the son who had his back, reporting that his fiancée had feelings for another man.

All my punishments could go away, and the scrutiny would be right back on Nyah.

A few years ago, it was the option I would have taken in a heartbeat. But a few years ago, I hadn’t watched my sister be married off to a man twice her age. I hadn’t watched her scream and cry at the altar, begging my father not to sell her off.

And I hadn’t sat by and let the whole thing happen, as cold and detached as the man who’d given me life.

I didn’t want to be that man again. So all I said was, “I’ll take her punishment.”

My father narrowed his eyes. “Do you have a hard-on for my future wife, son?”

“No.”

“Then why are you doing this?”