Page 3 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

I saw everything else. The danger. The fear. The brutality. The daily pain my mother went through as the wife of a Mafia don.

It was a life I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and yet it was one my father was selling me into.

He yanked me in so close his warm breath brushed over my skin. “I promised him you.”

“I won’t abort the baby,” I practically spat in his face, struggling to get free of him.

My mother gasped and made the sign of the cross. Like that might ward off the evil my words had brought into the room.

My staunchly religious parents didn’t believe in sex before marriage. Abortion. Birth control. Apparently, overlooking the whole, “Don’t murder thy neighbor,” part of the Bible was easily done, but heaven forbid they support gay rights or a woman’s right to choose.

“You only have one choice as I see it, daughter.” He let my arm go.

I nodded. “I’ll be out of your house by tomorrow.”

“You’re right, Nyah,” he agreed. “You will be.”

A rush of relief filled me, followed by pure joy. I had nothing here I wanted to take with me. I just needed to get out, away from the fences my father kept me locked behind. I would find a phone. Call Dax. Tell him I was so damn sorry for everything I’d said. That it was all lies. That I loved him and I was having his baby.

That we could be together.

I went to move past my father, desperate to get out from beneath his roof.

He stepped in front of me, his mouth twisted into a cruel scowl. “You’ll leave this house tomorrow. And you’ll go back to Providence. You’ll go to the Guerra mansion and live there until your wedding.”

“What?” My heart stopped at the mention of Providence, with its huge houses and flashy wealth. Not because I cared about those things, but because it was the town that neighbored Saint View, where Dax lived and worked and where we’d met. Saint View was the wrong side of the tracks, where the average person lived beneath the poverty line.

And I’d been happier there than anywhere else.

Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll do as I say, Nyah. You won’t like the consequences if you don’t. We’ve talked about what those are.”

My blood ran cold, and hate solidified itself in my heart. “Don’t you dare touch him.”

My father’s cruelty knew no bounds. He wouldn’t think twice about hurting Dax to control me. His threats to end Dax’s life if I didn’t obey weren’t idle. He had me, and we both knew it. I’d made a vital mistake in caring for someone else.

That realization sank down on me so heavily my knees buckled. My words were bitter when I managed to get them out. “This was why you let me go, wasn’t it? You let me go just long enough to find people I loved, to find friends and a partner I would give up everything to protect. All so you could control me.”

I suddenly understood exactly how little my father cared for me. How willing he was to hurt me to get what he wanted.

He narrowed his eyes. “When you get to that house tomorrow, sweet daughter of mine, you had better find Carlos Guerra and show him exactly how sweet you are. Show him those titties, and your virgin fucking pussy, and hope he takes the bait.”

I recoiled, disgusted by my own father speaking about me like that. In the doorway, my mother turned away, a quiet sob falling from her lips.

I wondered if she was reliving the night she, too, had been given to a monster.

“I won’t,” I spat back at him.

He grabbed me again, twisting my arm until it felt like it would snap. “You have no choice, you stupid slut. You need Carlos Guerra to fuck you so there’s even a half-plausible explanation for why you’ll have a baby in your arms in less than nine months’ time. Maybe if it’s small enough, the old prick will actually think it’s his.”

I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. I was supposed to have more time. Months before I had to take up the role I’d always known I would be forced to fill. I was to be the bridge between our two families that my father so desperately needed if he didn’t want the Guerras to obliterate him.

But now he was telling me my time was up. That he was sending me to them so I could seduce a man twice my age and then marry him.

And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

2

LUCA