Page 111 of Mila: The Godfather

She’ll not only be mine in the sense of the word but by law.

With my name and my ring, she’ll not only be protected by my city but respected by my men and my enemies as well.

That, I’ll make sure.

Looking at my watch, I count the minutes she’s been away from me. Seventy minutes, to be exact.

I entrusted Maeve with helping Mila get ready for this moment, but now that the minutes keep ticking by I wonder if I shouldn’t have left her alone. Perhaps she got nervous? Or anxious? Shit she doesn’t know Maeve.

What if she—

“I’m proud of you, a sheòid” I feel my father’s still strong hand clasp my shoulder. Turning my face away from the double doors, where my bride should be walking through any second now, I look at my father.

He stands in the center dressed as usual. A long black sleeve button down with two buttons undone, revealing butterfly tattoos almost identical to mine. His are black ink butterflies, while mine were filled in with blue ink.

I’m glad to see him looking better than he did a week ago, but still he lost some weight. His doctors told him the chemotherapy would be hell on him. For the most part, he’s been good at hiding how rough it has been on him, but he can’t hide the changes to his appearance. He had to shave his hair, and the dark circles under his eyes are a clear sign that he’s not been getting enough sleep.

Still, he’s a fighter.

He doesn’t complain and wakes up every morning, ready to fight that fucker cancer with all he has.

Cancer was a word that was never part of my vocabulary. Yes, I know it happens to many people, but it never crossed my mind that it would hit so close to home.

Touching my father’s hand, I give him a reassuring squeeze. He needs me to be okay, just as much as I need him to be here with me for as long as life allows him to. “I’m proud of you, too, Da.”

“I hear she’s a beauty.” Da murmurs, looking ahead, then back at me.

Fucking Kelly.

“Kelly has a big mouth.” I mumble while the image of his beady little eyes staring at Mila’s naked chest still burns in my memory.

“And a great appreciation for a woman’s beauty.” Da laughs, and it’s like music to my ears. Although, it seems like things are finally falling into place now that Mila is where she should’ve been all along. Another part feels as if it’ll all crumble at my feet if my father is taken from me. “He’s a good man and an even better soldier. He’s loyal as fuck, too, boy.”

I know.

I wouldn’t have chosen him as my right hand if I didn’t trust him.

I trust him with my goddamn heart. I proved that in Turks and Caicos.

He still has a penchant for pissing me the fuck off and testing my patience.

But it seems like all my men do.

“That’s the only reason he’s still breathing.” I joke with my father while we wait for her. My father will serve as the officiant and both Maeve and Kelly will be witnesses.

“I don’t know for how long this will la—” I don’t let him finish his thought before I answer.

“Till my last breath.”

My father’s face turns soft. “Does she feel the same?”

I think back to how her pretty face lights up every time I came near her, even when she didn’t really know me. When she was afraid and anxious. When she was just a girl alone in the dark on that Halloween night. Her eyes lit up the damn night like, to this day, she lights up my entire fucking world. Her beautiful smiling face flashes through my mind, and so does every memory of her I have engraved in my brain, and I have my answer. My girl was kept from the world for so long, she grew up a bit naive and sheltered, yet she is so brave and kind. Nothing has hardened that sweet heart of hers, and I know, without a doubt, that nothing ever will.

She’s that good.

That fucking magical.

“She does.” And she does. I see it in her eyes. In the way she looks at me when she doesn’t think I’m looking. In the way she feels safe enough with me to not hide under her baseball cap. Safe enough to share her wishes and fun facts about the things she’s passionate about.

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