Page 1 of The Mafia’s Girlfriend

Chapter 1

Luke

Stabbing pricks of pain came up along my jawline. Heat rose with the inflamed skin where I’d taken a hard right hook last night. The stinging sensation jarred me awake, and I groaned as I slapped at my alarm clock going off.

Another fucking day in paradise.

Lots of people considered Florida such a utopia. Paradise with beaches, sunshine, and good times galore. But for those of us working here with no hope of ever catching up with life? Paradise was a joke.

“Lucas?”

I sighed at the sound of my mother’s voice, reminded all at once of my reason why. Why I forced myself to get up and go to work at the Tropican after a mere five hours of sleep. Why I stayed committed to street fighting to supplement my wage from the security job I held at that ritzy resort.

Nina Sawyer was my motivation, and I refused to ever quit on her. My mother deserved so much more than misery.

“I’m up. I’m up.”

Swinging my legs over the bed counted as being upright, at least. I rested my elbows on my knees and dropped my head in my hands as I willed away the lure to sleep for just a few more minutes.

“The car’s not fixed yet,” she called out from the kitchen where she toughed out the chronic weakness she suffered while making me eggs and toast. “So you’ll need all that time to walk.”

“I know.” How could I forget? I was the one who had to pay the mechanics to fix the piece of shit. They wouldn’t consider finishing the job until I paid the last of the bill. That’d be waiting a while yet. Groceries were a necessity, even if they scarcely lined our cupboards. And Mom’s medications were even higher on the list of priorities. Walking never killed anyone, so with another deep breath of exhaustion, I pushed to my feet and got ready for the day, just another one of living the dream.

I found her sitting in her chair at the small table we owned. A frugal life wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, but I wished I could offer her more.

“Ouch.” She winced at the sight of the slightly swollen redness along my jaw.

I shrugged, taking a seat to eat as quickly as I could. She had a point about the walk taking me longer. After haggling with Tim, my supervisor, for more shifts, it’d be a dick move for me not to show up on time for them. “It’s not that bad,” I told her before I dug in to the simple breakfast.

“You always say that.” She didn’t lose the lines etched on her brow. This poor woman would never stop worrying about me. And I’d never cease my concern for her. We only had each other, after all.

“So do you.” I tipped my chin at the painkillers on the table. “It’s that bad already?” I asked of the joint pain that wracked her body. Asthma, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis had reduced her to a shell of a woman she was once. The trio of ailments worsened since her bout of chemo last year.

“It’s not that bad,” she agreed.

It was a shitty inside joke for us to have.

“I got paid a little extra,” I told her, changing the subject. The news of more money was always a blessing. It served as a distraction, too, reminding her that the end justified the means.

“Oh?” She raised her brows as she crossed her thin arms.

“Yeah. He got a few lucky hits in, but I delivered a good fight.” I smiled more now, recalling the triumph over last night’s opponent. It was more like early this morning, since I was out at the fighting ring until two. Moonlighting as a fighter earned me double what I pulled in at the Tropican. Victory always tasted sweet, and my record of never losing made me more likely to win.

If Jimmy ever allows it. My “manager” wouldn’t budge on letting me move up the ranks, even though I’d proven myself for years in the fighting circuits. I’d never failed to overcome the odds. Still, that asshole cautioned me to be patient. To wait. In other words, to sit back and not make as much as I could when I wanted to. If I had decent income from those fights, I wouldn’t be in the position to ask Tim for more shifts at the resort.

Speaking of... I needed those few extra minutes this morning to see what else I could request.

“I’ll see you later,” I told my mom after I set my plate in the sink.

“Be careful,” she said as I headed through the kitchen. I could get coffee at the staff breakroom. There wasn’t any sense letting it get cold as I walked. Pausing at the table, I leaned over to kiss the top of her head, wishing against all wishes that her life didn’t have to be so hard.

“You too,” I warned.

“Oh, like I’m going to get up to any trouble?” she teased back. Unable to stand for long and too weak to do much around the house, she wouldn’t get up at all, period.

I wouldn’t be a jerk and remind her of it, though. Sometimes, life boiled down to the motto of if you can’t cry, laugh. Poking fun at ourselves dulled the ache of misery, I supposed.

“I don’t know. Trouble’s your middle name, isn’t it?”