Page 120 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

And I’d gotten it.

But even I could admit there was a part of me that wondered what if. What if I’d trained more? Fought more? What if I hadn’t quit?

Carlos had whispered dollar amounts in my ears that had me dizzy. They were figures I could never earn as a tattoo artist, no matter how many full back pieces I did. Especially not in a town like Saint View, where most people didn’t have the money for food, let alone luxuries like tattoos. My shop had done well. We were profitable. We could all afford to put food on the tables.

And yet the Guerras were offering me something more. A life I hadn’t considered I might want until I’d had a little taste of it.

The fact it brought me closer to her had sealed the deal.

It was always about her.

Every moon, star, and sun in my world revolved around Nyah Matish.

I didn’t know why Luca was mouthing her name at me as he was hauled away by his father’s man, but I didn’t need to know. I walked out of the hallway, past Carlos’s suite of rooms, and headed for the stairs that led up to the bedrooms. Mine was at the far end of the long hallway, but Nyah’s was closer, one of the first, and I knocked softly. “Nyah?”

There was no response from within, so I jiggled the door to unlatch the lock and opened it just an inch.

Nyah slept in the middle of the large bed, a silky sheet pooled around her waist. She was naked, her perfect tits on display, nipples hard with the cool night air and silently begging me to suck them.

Except an ugly white bandage covered her chest, and my heart sank. I closed the door behind me and stalked across the room. “Nyah?”

I shook her gently.

She mumbled something, something that sounded like my name, but didn’t open her eyes.

My gaze flickered to the bedside table and the packet of pills sitting beside the first aid kit. I picked it up, read the name on the back, and blanched. “Jesus fuck.” They were the same painkillers I’d had when I’d broken my leg about five years earlier. I remembered how strong they were. How fuzzy they had made my head. How vulnerable and weak I’d felt.

And I suddenly realized why Luca had sent me up here. Lynx was nowhere to be seen, and Nyah was hurt and so out of it she was completely helpless.

I bent and kissed her forehead tenderly. “I’ve got you, pretty girl,” I whispered, using the nickname I’d given her the night we’d met. “I’ve got you.”

It seemed I wasn’t the only one. The man downstairs, being dragged off to who knew where, apparently had her back as well.

38

NYAH

Dear Diary,

He paid for my freedom with his body. I don’t know how to live with that.

Days passed in a blur of painkillers, bandage changes, and sleeping too much because it was better than facing the reality that I was marrying a monster in a matter of weeks. I’d thought I’d known evil. I’d grown up surrounded by bad people.

And yet I’d been wrong. I’d never seen anything like the look in Carlos’s eyes when he’d burned my skin and locked me in a cage. For maybe the first time, I realized exactly what he was truly capable of.

And how the women he trafficked must feel.

Small. Helpless. Weak.

I felt all those things. And hated every one of them.

So on the third day, I forced myself out of bed. I stood in the bathroom, peeled off the bandage, and stared at the mess Carlos had made of my chest. This was who I was now, in flesh, even if not in name. Nyah fucking Guerra.

Just great.

The burn was healing. The doctor Luca had sent to me had prescribed something for the pain, and Virginia had diligently made sure I took every single one, fussing around me like a mother hen, bringing me food and drinks, and never once chastising me for lying in bed like my own mother would have.

I could practically hear my mother’s complaints. “Stop being so lazy, Nyah. You have a fiancé to please now. He’s not going to want you lying about in bed with your hair as messy as a bird’s nest.”