Page 70 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

I whirled on her, my whole body hot, and only a little of it because I’d had to stand there listening to her moan while Dax fucked her.

Mostly I was on fire because I’d thought she was dead, buried beneath that cage or trampled in the crowd.

And all because I hadn’t been able to get to her.

“Do you have a fucking death wish?” I shouted at her. “What the fuck is wrong with you? It was bad enough I had to stand there while you and Dax were in that car. But I did, because that’s my damn job. I even gave you the heads-up that Luca and Carlos were coming, but oh noooo. Nothing was going to stop you getting your pussy filled, was it? Did you forget you’re supposed to be a fucking virgin?”

She flushed red, but then to her credit, she got right back up in my face…well, as much as she could, considering she was probably a foot shorter than I was. She poked a finger into my chest. “No, I didn’t forget. You know what else I didn’t forget? That I love Dax. That my father and Carlos pulled me away from the only man in my life who has ever shown me a scrap of fucking kindness.”

I shook my head, because that was rich. “Not the only man. What the fuck am I?”

She blinked.

I bent down so we were face-to-face. “Aren’t I a man who’s been kind to you, Nyah?”

Some of the fight went out of her, and we both breathed out long, wobbly breaths, realizing we’d taken this too far.

Or at least, that’s how I felt. I was her bodyguard. I had no right to be getting this worked up.

Except I couldn’t help it. I’d spent panicked minutes trying to get to her, knowing she needed me and not being able to give her that because I couldn’t fucking reach her.

I should have been thanking Dax for getting her out.

And instead, I was a ball of jealousy because he had something with her that no one could touch. I wanted to lay her out on a bed and spank her naked ass for deliberately slipping away from me when she should have been at my side.

She put her arms around my middle and hugged me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We put you in a shit position and we shouldn’t have. You’re a good friend.”

Friend. Yep. Awesome. That was exactly what I was. Nyah’s bodyguard. Nyah’s buddy. Nyah’s friend.

Kill me now.

I put my arms around her and hugged her back, because I had permission to touch her and I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I was just glad she had made it out without more than the cut on her head, even though I clearly needed to be fired as a bodyguard, since all I’d managed to do tonight was run around like a headless chicken, then distract the Guerras from paying too much attention to the rocking car.

I was the one who ended the hug. I pulled her arms away from my back and stepped away, putting some space between us so I could think. “We need to get back to Luca and the others.”

But she shook her head. “I need to go to the hospital. I don’t want them knowing.”

Panic that had only just extinguished lit up inside me. “What? Why?” I brushed her hair away from the Band-Aid on her head. “Is it that cut? Do you need stitches?”

“Um, yes. I think so.”

There were people everywhere, all hanging around gawking at the police and ambulances and fire trucks that had all poured in while Dax and Nyah were getting their funky thang on in the back of the car. People had been hurt when that cage had come down. The crowd had been crushing, a force of nature even I, at well over the height and weight of most people, had been scared of. I couldn’t see the Guerras or the goon squad anywhere, though that didn’t mean they weren’t still here.

But Nyah was right. When I peeled back the Band-Aid on her head, it was quite bad. She could have a concussion or a bleed on the brain or anything.

If Luca and Carlos had found her naked on the back seat of that car with Dax, maybe we could have blamed it on that.

I sighed, tugged her out onto the main road, and flagged down a passing taxi. “I think I like it better when you’re tucked up in your bedroom and I’m counting grapes on paintings.”

She got into the back seat, and I slid in beside her, pulling out my phone to text Luca.

She nibbled her thumbnail nervously. “What are you telling him?”

“That I have you and we’re going out for ice cream.’

She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”