Page 51 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

I curled up against him, running my fingers through his wet locks. He wrapped the duvet around us and pressed his nose into my hair.

“Sorry, it’s not a real piano,” he mumbled.

Tears formed behind my eyes as I buried into his chest. I didn’t know what to say to that, except that none of this was okay. None of this was fair. He shouldn’t have to kill to stay alive or keep me safe. He shouldn’t have to bend to Sean’s will just to get warm bedding at night. He shouldn’t have to break his bones, tear his skin or torment his mind just to give me some sense of normality. Minutes passed as I tried to find the right words and the courage to say them.

“I don’t need a piano,” I murmured into his skin. “I need you to fight for your freedom. I miss my family. I need to see them again. I want a life with you, Monster. More than anything. But not like this. Please.”

When he didn’t respond, I ‌glanced up at his face. He was already asleep.

Predicament

Istared at the wall as I took a deep drag of my cigarette, my thoughts racing. The fight the other night was the wake-up call I needed. Sean was testing me, seeing how far he could push me and how hard I’d fight to keep Soraya safe. She was right. All it would take was one unlucky fight, one perfectly timed fatal blow, and I’d be gone. I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t leave her here alone and unprotected.

The thought of a life beyond these four walls was too impossible to imagine. I used to hope and fantasise about a future. I used to dream of freedom. And I came so fucking close once, only for reality to brutally put me back in my place.

Eight years ago, I spotted an opportunity and took it. Nolan hadn’t clipped the handcuffs properly, and I pretended not to notice. As soon as we were driving, I killed all the men in the car, strangling the driver until the vehicle crashed into the side of the road. I barely made it out alive.

I spent three days on the run, sleeping in ditches and under subways, before I begged on the street for some money and walked into a small cafe in Dublin for food. The TV was showing the local news, and my stomach dropped. There was my younger sister’s face, announcing her brutal assault and murder in a Dublin park. Sean’s message was loud and clear. He’d come for them all until I came back.

I raced outside, threw up on the street, slid down the side of the building, and waited for his men to find me. He’d warned me what would happen if I ever escaped him. But I called his bluff. And one of my sisters was dead because of it. That’s when I shut down. I switched off the hopes and dreams of a different life and accepted my fate. Sean had a way of making you believe that everything that happened was a consequence of your choices. And that… that fucking eats away at your soul until all you feel is self-loathing.

I swore I’d never think that way again. I’d never want more than what I was given. Until now. Until her.

But how the fuck was I supposed to escape this with her and keep my siblings alive?

“You’re quiet today,” Raya said as she re-dressed the wound on my side. It was already healing thanks to the aftereffects of the Raw Mercy, so I didn’t see the point, but she insisted.

“Thinkin’,” I answered, taking another drag.

“A worry shared is a worry halved.”

“That’s bollocks. A worry shared is a worry doubled.”

“You’re so pessimistic,” she teased, but wasn’t that the truth? Optimism was delusional in my world. She finished the dressing and kissed my shoulder. “My family always used to say they wished they could read my thoughts because I was so quiet and guarded. I never understood why anyone would want that ability until I met you.”

“You don’t wanna read my thoughts, Little Monster. My mind’s a disturbin’ place.”

“That only appeals to me more,” she said playfully, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. I stood up and paced a few steps back and forth. She watched me, frowning, making the little scar beneath her eye stretch.

“How’d you get that?” I asked, pointing at it with my cigarette.

She lifted her finger to touch the thin scar tissue. “When I was fifteen, my brother and I were ambushed by soldiers from the New York Mafia at my papi’s grave. One tackled me to the ground, and I hit my face on a gravestone before he broke my arm.”

I cracked my neck to the side, not liking that story. “What happened next?”

“Sani saved me. He beat the soldier’s head into the ground with part of a gravestone and then carried me home.”

“Sani. Your brother?”

She nodded, and I stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray. “He protected you. Saved your life, with little regard for his own?”

“Yes,” she answered slowly, unsure where I was going with it.

“I have siblings. All younger than me.”

It was the first time I’d given her any information about my family, except that my parents were dead. Her eyes widened, but she stayed still on the bed, afraid that any movement might shut me up.

“When I escaped before… Sean had my…” I inhaled to ease the pressure in my chest before I said the name I hadn’t spoken in years. “He had one of my sisters killed. Roisin. She wasn’t called that anymore, but that’s the name I knew her by. Little Rose. The last time I saw her, she was four years old. She was only twenty when he murdered her. She was a twin.”