Page 85 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

“I have a career, sir. I’m a tattoo artist.”

But Carlos wasn’t having it. “Son, you’re a fighter. I saw it in you the minute I stepped inside that warehouse. That’s where you’re going to make your millions. Not tattooing in Saint View where people can’t even afford to pay you a living wage.”

I bristled at that. Fuck him and his money. “I’m really proud of the business I’ve built,” I argued, probably stupidly, but I couldn’t stop myself. The shop had been my entire fucking life, until Nyah had walked into it.

And now that she was gone, it was all I had left.

Fighting was something I’d done for sport, and now it was something I did because it distracted me from the gaping hole she’d left in my heart when she’d walked away.

“Of course you are,” Carlos coaxed. “But Dax, I want you at this party tonight. You agreed to come last we spoke.”

“You didn’t mention a party. You mentioned five K.”

“And you’ll get it. Plus canapes.”

I paused, but I already knew what I was going to say. There was no other response. I had a feeling if I’d said no, Carlos would have found a way to make me say yes.

No matter what he wanted me to do tonight, it was a chance to see Nyah. “Fine. Five K when I walk through the doors. You want me to fight, whatever. I’ll fight.”

Carlos clucked his tongue. “Good choice, son. Good choice. I’ll see you at eight. And, Dax?”

I waited.

“Wear a suit.”

Ipulled into the Guerras’ circular driveway at nine. A man in a suit stepped up to my door before I could even get my fingers to the handle and opened it for me.

“I’ll park your car, sir.”

Nobody ever called me sir, and it was unsettling. But I handed him the key fob and let him take the wheel. I trailed behind a few other stragglers who’d also shown up fashionably late. Two giant peacocks elegantly wandered the gardens, their giant fanned-out tails glinting beneath the lights shining out from the house.

Inside, Carlos was nowhere to be seen, but I wandered through the foyer, following the sounds of the party that was clearly taking place out back. I sucked in a breath, the scene spread out in front of me like something out of The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

There were people everywhere, each one dressed to the nines in fancy suits that probably cost more than my house had, and dresses that showed more skin than you saw on the beach. Plunging necklines, high-cut splits, and jewels sparkling on fingers or around throats.

“Fuck me,” I muttered, pulling at the open neck of the white shirt I’d found at the back of my closet. I hadn’t worn it in years, my normal wardrobe consisting mostly of jeans and vintage tees that were more often than not stained with ink or paint.

The black pants clung to my ass more than I wanted them to, though I had figured that’s what tailored pants were supposed to do, and I just wasn’t used to them.

As I passed people, I got the impression they were talking about me, which only made hot embarrassment flush across my skin. I knew I didn’t belong here. My mother was the hired help, and it was like it was branded across the back of my shirt.

When someone stopped me and asked when the hors d’oeuvres were being served, I knew I fit in better with the waitstaff than with Carlos’s expensive friends.

I gazed around for my mother. Maybe I could escape into the kitchen and help her, because surely she was working here tonight.

But Carlos raised a hand from the other side of the sparkling blue pool, fairy lights strung over the top. “Dax! Come here.”

I’d been summoned and none too quietly. I muttered, “Excuse me, please,” and dodged people standing around in groups, glasses of champagne in their hands.

Everyone watched me go, since Carlos had turned it into a spectacle.

I got the impression these people hung on his every word. If he’d told them all to take their clothes off and jump in the pool, I suspected they would have done it without a second thought.

Whatever kept the man happy.

I probably needed to take a leaf out of their books.

I reached his side, and he offered me his hand, shaking mine vigorously.