Page 29 of The Mafia’s Fiancee

Chapter 11

Luke

Emma and I didn’t needto be told that we should lie low and let thing settle. We weren’t stupid. I felt ignorant about a lot of what happened in the mafia world, but I was determined to learn it all. Knowledge was power, and I intended to soak it all up.

After the first day that we hid at Randy’s safehouse, I carefully covered up and went outside. I found a dinky little mask, leftover from the covid days, in one of the drawers in the kitchen, and that gave me a decent disguise to leave the house. Emma remained back, with the one gun that she unearthed between the mattresses. It housed a single bullet, and she confirmed that she knew how to handle it.

“You father wanted you to know how to shoot?” I asked when she held it aloft, seeming confident and comfortable with the firearm in her hands.

“No.” She smirked at me like I was an idiot to suggest that. I supposed I was. Damon Giordino was all for keeping Emma submissive and without control.

“Krista—her father is a capo—taught me. Well, we learned together. She’s friendlier with the guards.”

“Fucks them to get her way, you mean?”

She shrugged one shoulder, inspecting the gun. “Yeah. They never treated her the same as they did me. I was off-limits. To trap and keep under rule. We got bored and she had a guard take us to the range. It became a little bit of a hobby, something new to learn. We never got to go to school. We were tutored and kept home. So, yeah, it was something different to do.” Closing one eye, she held the gun up with both hands and tested her sights. “We couldn’t practice consistently, but if someone were to threaten me here, I could shoot them.”

I nodded, eyeing her in a new light. “Fuck.” I huffed an incredulous laugh.

“What?”

I shrugged, not sure how to word my reaction. “I don’t know how to handle a gun.” I’d only learned to kill with my hands, my body.

“You’ve proven your skills otherwise.”

“Will you teach me?”

She raised her brows. “Seriously?”

“Not now. But someday.”

Her small smile came slowly. “Yeah. Of course.”

I got the impression that she was seldom asked to share anything. That she was so used to being dismissed and shoved aside that my simple question lifted her spirits. It seemed to make her feel smart, or worthy.

“Since it looks like I’ll have to embrace my ‘inner mafia’ now...”

She cracked up, lowering the gun. “Inner mafia?”

I pulled her in for a hug, glad that we could still joke and act like normal, goofy idiots together.

Later, though, with this mask covering my face, and knowing she had that one gun with that one bullet for protection in the safe house, I headed down the street to get supplies.

We needed food and water. More clothes. Neither of us had money or phones, and it would be a challenge to procure all of the essentials. While the safehouse was an independent location where we could be safe, there was no way we’d stay there for good. Likewise, we didn’t know where to go from here.

I set out to get a little bit of cash in the easiest way possible. I headed to a bar and singled out the drunkest idiot to talk shit with. I taunted him first, pissing him off a bit. Daring him to a fight in the back alley riled him up. He was cocky and stupid, betting that he’d whip my ass. Twenty minutes later, courtesy of his loaded pockets and his idiot friends, I walked away with six hundred dollars in cash.

That got me a couple of burner phones, a couple of bags of food, and a few clothes.

On the walk back to the safehouse, I took a long, winding, confusing route in case anyone was watching me. I remained alert, watching my surroundings, and dialed the number I had for Jimmy.

He greeted me with a stupid line of common sense I had already figured out myself.

“Lucas? Fuck, am I glad to hear from you. You need to lie low.”

I scoffed. “No shit.”

“Is Emma with you?”