Page 184 of Mila: The Godfather

“It’s not funny.”

Suddenly, I feel my daughter put her hand on mine. Ready?

And just like that, my mood brightens.

As we walked toward the beach house, I held my girls tighter and started thinking of ways to make this work with the kid. He has no one. From what Mila told me about the kid, he comes from a dark background and has been in the system from the time he was three years old until now.

That makes me ease up on the kid for now.

Every child deserves a chance at a happy life. It all starts with a happy home, and there’s no happier place than with my girls.

Our life.

Our home.

My baby girl pokes my leg, catching my attention, and then she signs with a soft smile.

I laugh and shake my head. “How did Daddy meet Mommy? You wanna hear that story again?” Mila asks Willow, and our daughter nods her head.

Squeezing Mila’s hand, I say, “When I met Mommy the second time, she was running from a bad guy who ended up at the end of my gun’s barrel.”

“Riagan!” Mila laughs happily.

“You killed the bad man?” This comes from Madden. Mila and Willow nodded their heads. I never hid who I was, and I never will. My girls know there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them safe and with me. Nothing. Murder included.

Tell us all of it. Willow signs.

And I do exactly that all the way to the gates of our home.

I enter the digits on the gate’s keypad and wait for it to buzz open, and when it does, I usher my family inside. The kid, Madden, looks up at our beach home unimpressed before he says, “I don’t believe in fairytales or love.” He says in a dry tone.

I stare at him, trying to figure him out.

One second, he’s hardened and cold, and the next, I get a glimpse of the young boy inside.

“Oh, it’s funny that you think you have a choice, boy,” I tell him as he finally steps foot inside the gate with his eyes trained on the back of my daughter’s head.

Yeah, I don’t like this shit one bit.

Perhaps this wasn’t one of Mila’s best ideas.

But then my girls turn around while holding each other’s hands, looking at me with those beautiful faces of pure happiness that make my heart stop inside my chest and then come back to life, one heartbeat at a time, filling me with a new purpose every time.

And right now, the kid standing stoically next to me has a part in that happiness, so I suck it up and hope for the fucking best because bad idea or not…only time will tell.

Willow runs back to Madden and grabs his hand, pointing toward the back area of the house. The kid looks back at us and raises an eyebrow. He’s a little asshole, I see. “She’s asking if you would like to see the butterflies.” Mila translates for our daughter, sounding way too damn happy about that.

Madden looks down at my girl and shrugs, and she takes it as a yes.

We stand back watching them walk toward the garden where my old man is sitting on the gazebo, next to the woman who brought him back to life– looking as healthy as ever after battling stage four lung cancer and coming out victorious. All I can do is hope that this decision doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass. Because I really don’t want to add to my long list of crimes.

“Oh, look at how cute they look, Riagan!” Mila beams next to me. She just sees two kids with the potential of becoming great friends or forming a familial bond but I know better.

It’s troublesome.

“Yeah, real cute,” I mumble, trying to sound as positive as she does but failing. I’ve done a lot of hard shit in my life, but becoming a father has been the hardest job. The most rewarding, yes, but hard all the same. Because right now, I get to watch half of my heart walk hand in hand with a kid with a chip on his shoulder who looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie. No father wants to deal with boys and heartbreaks. Especially when their daughters are this young. Shit.

“It’s all going to be okay, my gentle giant.” I laugh at her cute attempt at giving me a nickname.

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