Page 26 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

Nobody called him that except our parents. And me when I wanted to piss him off, as was my right as the eldest brother. He went by our last name, King, always claiming it was ridiculous that I was Dax, and his twin was Roarke, and he’d gotten saddled with Timothy.

Truth was, my mother had named me and Roarke. And her taste in names ran on the slightly unusual side.

Our father had claimed naming rights over his youngest son. And since my mom had named me and Roarke, she couldn’t really say no when he’d come up with a much more traditional name for their last kid.

Roarke passed me a mug of steaming-hot coffee, black, just the way I liked it. “You get a doctor to do something about that cut on your head?”

“Do you see any stitches in it?” I asked.

“No, which is exactly why I asked. It looks like it needed a few, though it’s probably too late. That’s gonna scar.” He leaned in and prodded the swelling around my eye.

I flinched back.

Roarke just frowned at me. “At least take your fucking eyebrow ring out when you fight, you dumbass.”

King grinned. “Or fight better, so you don’t get hit in the first place.”

I sipped my coffee. “I won, didn’t I?”

Roarke put the milk back in the little bar fridge beneath the countertop. “Only because the other guy sucked.”

“Who needs enemies when you have brothers,” I muttered beneath my breath. I sulked over to my workstation and slumped into my chair.

The bell over the door, which was entirely too fucking chirpy for my mood at this time of the morning, gave its tinkle, and I didn’t even bother glancing over before calling out, “We don’t open ’til ten!”

A few months ago, I would have never turned away a paying customer who came into the shop early. I would have been helpful and polite. I had never wanted some dark and dingy shop where anyone who wasn’t a biker or thug was too scared to even set foot in it. So I’d spent the last ten years making my store bright and friendly and non-intimidating.

It had worked. We’d been busier than ever, with all sorts of clientele. Moms who’d always wanted to get their kids names, to the sixty-plus crowd who were realizing that a tattoo was something they wanted before they kicked the bucket. Saint View wasn’t exactly a highbrow sorta area, so we did our fair share of bikers and thugs too, but the goal of making Saint View Tattoo a thriving, mainstream business had been achieved. Over the years, I’d been able to bring in both my brothers, and most recently, Reaper as our apprentice.

“Are you really going to make your mother come back during business hours?”

I spun around on my chair in surprise.

My mother stood in the doorway, all five feet nothing of her, but pride in her eyes as she gazed at her sons.

Roarke and King moved in to give her a hug, and I held back, because I already knew what was coming.

She held her arms out to me, and I leaned down, wrapping mine around her.

“Maddax Andrew King, you are going to be the death of me.” She pulled back, holding me at arm’s length and studying the damage the fight had done to my face two nights before. “That’s not the only black eye you’ve had in the last few weeks. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

Roarke leaned his ass back on the front desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “Because he got dumped and he’s still in the self-destruction phase of the breakup.”

I shot my brother a warning look not to say anything more. I didn’t need my mom worrying about me.

But this was more than just a breakup.

It was the woman I loved, who I’d been planning to spend the rest of my life with, leaving without barely more than a word.

I didn’t have a broken heart.

I was just fucking broken.

I was sad. And I was angry. And fighting was good for both. A sharp punch to the ribs was a hell of a lot easier to bear than my mother staring at me with sad eyes that made me feel like shit.

She squeezed my fingers. “She’s just a woman. There will be others.”

“Nyah wasn’t ‘just a woman,’ Mom.” That was like saying the Mona Lisa was just a painting.