Page 136 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

I nodded toward the bathroom where Nyah had been for a long time. “She okay?”

Lynx brushed his hands off on his suit pants. “Yeah. Fine. Of course. Why?”

I eyed him and the squeak in his voice. “Why are you being weird?”

“I’m not!”

“Your voice is two octaves higher than it normally is.”

“Is it?” He tried lowering his voice to its usual deep bass. “Apparently, it is.”

“Stop stressing about the passport thing. I promise you aren’t getting picked up by customs. Don’t forget, we have some practice smuggling people in and out of the country.” There was so much anger beneath the sarcasm it was impossible to miss.

He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “Your dad is a piece of work, huh?”

“To put it nicely.”

Nyah came back down the aisle and went to sit in her seat and then seemed to think better of it. She tucked her bag away, but when she sat it was on the other side of me. “What are we talking about?”

“How much we hate my father,” I said idly.

She rubbed a hand over her chest. “Do I need to sign a membership form to join this club? Pay a fee? I’m in.”

My own scar, much older than hers, felt too tight.

The staff on the plane was always very good at keeping themselves unseen unless needed. They sat behind a curtain, giving us the main body of the plane and the semblance of privacy necessary for all the business deals that had taken place here over the years. I’d seen and heard and been a part of many of them. It was almost nice that there was nobody here this time, and I could just take a fucking flight without having to discuss a cargo load of women we were smuggling like they were mass-manufactured goods, made in bulk and shipped from a third-world country.

“We should get membership badges,” I suggested. “We can pin them right on our chests, over our brands.”

Nyah snorted. “Or we could get membership cards. Ones with a discount. One free Guerra branding per member.”

“All members are invited to a bullet carving day,” I added. “You know, to etch his name into them.”

They both stared at me.

Lynx shook his head. “That’s dark. You thinking about killing your old man?”

I shrugged. “Wouldn’t you?”

He glanced toward the partition the crew sat behind, and I waved my hand dismissively.

“Don’t worry about them. They know I’m joking. I love my father.” I couldn’t keep the tipsy laughter at bay at that one.

Lynx eyed me with that worried frown that made him seem older than he was. I waved him off.

“Relax! I’m not going to kill him. Where’s the fun in that? Doing little things to torture him the way he’s spent his whole life torturing me is much more interesting.”

Lynx’s frown deepened. “Like what?”

I shrugged and threw my hands up. “I don’t know. Let his prize peacock fly free. Fuck those birds. He never let me name them when I was a kid. I just wanted to call one Pinocchio, but noooo, he had to tell me that was a stupid name. You know he named that fucking bird Mike instead?” I huffed. “Pinocchio was a way better name for a peacock.”

Nyah hid a smile. “You could replace that peanut butter he likes with the crunchy version.”

I laughed. “The man hates texture of any sort. That would definitely piss him off. I like it. You can join my club.”

I reached out a fist to her, and she bumped hers against it.

“What about you, Lynx? You want to join the club? You can switch his thousand-thread-count sheets for a scratchy Walmart set.”