Page 51 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

Now I was quite sure I could kill Carlos Guerra without a second thought, if it meant I got to take my girl home with me.

She pressed her forehead to my chest. “You wouldn’t get within six feet of him before someone would take you out.”

I put a finger beneath her chin and lifted it so she was gazing up at me again. “Wouldn’t I? I got into his house, didn’t I?”

“That won’t work again. Luca knows about you now. He knows something was up. He’s not stupid.”

But maybe I was. Stupid enough to do whatever it was I had to do. I didn’t know what that was yet, but I had to think of something. I kissed her again. “You aren’t marrying him.”

“I have to,” she whispered back. “They’ll hurt you if I don’t.”

I jerked back. “That’s what they’re holding over your head? That they’ll hurt me? Fuck them, then, Nyah! Walk out of here with me right now. Let them come for me, I don’t care! Me being dead is better than you living with a monster.”

She shook her head viciously. “No, it’s not.” She stared up at me, demanding my attention. “Because the way you feel about keeping me safe is the same way I feel about you. Either way, one of us is losing the other.” She sniffed. “At least my way, both of us are still alive.”

I wanted to scream. Wanted to storm out and end every person who stood in the way of me and her being together.

She’d warned me. Warned me her life wasn’t her own. That her father would come for her one day.

I’d fallen for her anyway.

But I hadn’t had a choice. She was too damn easy to love.

A knock came at the door. “Nyah?” Lynx called. “You okay in there?”

Luca’s more impatient tone followed. “You shit your pants or something? What’s taking so long?”

Nyah’s eyes widened, and she pushed me into a stall. “Stay here until we leave, then sneak out. And, Dax? Don’t come back. Please. This is too hard to keep doing over and over. You’re breaking my heart just as much as I broke yours.”

I stared at her. “Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll walk away.”

She closed her eyes for a long moment.

Luca banged on the door. “Nyah! Hurry the hell up.”

She opened her eyes. “Don’t come back, Dax. Please. For both of our sakes.”

She turned and slipped out the door before I could say another word.

But the ones she hadn’t said hung in the air.

She hadn’t said she didn’t love me.

16

LYNX

Dear Diary,

I am absolutely not qualified for this. But fuck it. Let’s see what happens.

Nyah was lucky Luca was in a tailspin about this hockey team he’d inherited, and so didn’t notice her kiss-swollen lips, or the way her hair suddenly looked like a flock of seagulls had nested in it.

I raised one eyebrow at her, and she elbowed me so sharply I couldn’t help but grin.

Dax was smart enough to stay in the bathroom, but I doubted he’d stay there long, so I swiftly urged Luca and Nyah away from the bathrooms and back to the ice.

Nyah squinted out at it and the team there, training. “What are we doing here anyway?”