Page 45 of Forced Vows

Might be true? Is this guy for real? If I took his knife and stabbed him with it, would anyone really blame me? Would they?

"I know you're not stupid," he says, offering the words like a panacea. "But what you did that night was."

There it is. The screw he's determined to twist. But he's wrong.

"It wasn't though. Not for a normal person. And that night I thought that's what I got to be." I'd done everything I could to have one, solitary night of normalcy.

And it backfired spectacularly. He assigned Allessio and Zoey to stick to me like glue because of it. Now, even the parts of my life that were normal won't be.

"Going home with a stranger isn't smart, for anybody."

"You did it."

"I was armed. Were you?"

"You know I wasn't."

I hate that he is right. I created a fantasy in my head of what it meant to be normal and try to live it out for one night.

But I didn't do it in complete ignorance. "I did my homework. There are no mafia or mob ties in Portland. No one knew me there. It was my one chance to taste freedom."

"That taste of freedom could have cost you yours." He pauses to let that sink in.

Even though my stomach churns with the reality of what could have happened, but didn't, I glare back defiantly.

"As for the lack of a mafia presence," Miceli says, sounding like one of my professors. "The Hades Brotherhood took over territory there recently, but the bratva were looking for a foothold already."

I suppress a shiver. Like the mob, some bratvas have a code of honor that doesn't allow human trafficking. Others don't.

"And we have ties with the Greek mafia now. Even when the Cosa Nostra doesn't have a presence in a territory, that doesn't mean we don't have influence, or even people on the ground."

"I know that now." Do my grandmother and cousins know?

They will after I tell them. Among the women in our family, when it comes to information, it's share and share alike.

He nods. "Good. You need to stop living with your head in the clouds and accept your life for what it is."

"You sound disgustingly like Uncle Brogan."

Miceli shrugs his broad shoulders. "Accept the bodyguards with grace, or I'll tell your uncle about Portland." Miceli lets that sink in.

Blackmail: the one toy in the made man's closet he never hesitates to take out and play with.

"He'll make sure I don't have to worry about you slipping the leash again," he continues with unnecessary detail.

"I'm not a dog!"

Miceli's jaw sets implacably. "The bodyguards stay with you."

"Why did I even bother trying to reason with you?"

"Yelling at me like a harpy isn't reasoning."

"If I was a harpy, I'd carve that black stone you call a heart right out of your chest."

Chapter 16: RÓISE

"You did not say that to him." Kara's laugh is almost worth the confrontation with the most stubborn underboss in history.

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