Page 22 of Mila: The Godfather

Did you know that butterflies can’t see their own wings? They can’t see how beautiful they are.

That was it.

One of his last messages to me.

It’s been a year and it stings to not know what went wrong or if something happened to him.

My first friend outside of my sisters and the employees.

It still feels like yesterday when Carlotta approached me with the pen pal idea. For years, I exchanged emails with a stranger, who in the end, became my best friend.

It took a few emails before I was spilling my fears and dreams to him, and I got the same in return.

Until one day, he just stopped.

Out of the blue, his emails stopped.

It hurt.

It still does, but I guess I didn’t mean to him what he meant and still means to me.

I read his intentions wrong.

Maybe I was just someone he needed at the time and nothing else.

Putting the phone down next to me in the seat, I take a deep breath and try to forget about things I cannot change. Instead, I focus on the now.

“Princess, please reconsider this. The boss will have my balls if she finds out I helped you leave the premises.” Augustus, one of my sister’s men and a good friend of mine, tries to reason with me as he drives us through the busy streets of Detroit.

Augustus appeared out of nowhere like a guardian angel. He is the only person besides Carlotta, one of the few staff members allowed near me, who treats me as a person and not like a piece of furniture in our house. He’s the one who sneaks me in all the magazines with my sister, Arianna in them, without Kadra noticing. He’s my accomplice if you want to get technical.

He’s also very smart and kind, something I concluded the first time we met many years ago.

While most of my family’s employees and business associates felt uncomfortable around me, talked down to me, or looked at me pitifully, Augustus didn’t. Not even once.

At first, our situation was rocky since I don’t cope well with new people. It takes time for me to get comfortable with new people since I’ve been hidden and kept isolated all my life.

I’ve been granted more liberties now that my sister has taken our father’s place as the boss of our family, yet it doesn’t feel like freedom.

Nothing in this city does.

Not really.

Playing with the delicate silver chain around my neck, I twist the star pendant three times, untwist it, and start over again, then I move to play with the brim of my cap, finding the texture of it comforting.

I do this when I am anxious.

Or when I feel nervous and guilty.

The consequences of going against my sister will be catastrophic for Augustus, but I’ll protect him from my sister’s wrath. Nothing will happen. I try to convince myself and then him. “Just… just take me to the airport, and I’ll take it from there.” I throw that in, knowing there’s no way he’ll do it.

Any other man would jump at the opportunity to get rid of me even if their heads were on the line but not Gus. “Now, kid…you’ve barely left the house your entire life. There’s no way I’ll let you leave the damn city by yourself.” Gus snorts, and although he doesn’t mean to be unkind, his words remind me how little I know about the world. How little I’ve lived.

All I truly know are the walls inside a cold home and not all that much about this city.

Just the ugly parts.

I don’t mean to be ungrateful because my problems seem so insignificant compared to bigger issues around the world, like poverty, global warming, and everything else that’s slowly killing this planet and its inhabitants. Yet, I can’t help but feel sad, but I push it down like I always do and smile. I smile as I trained myself to do. If I smile, the people I care about won’t worry. “Thank you, Gus.” I look at the rearview mirror, my eyes clashing with his warm brown eyes for a short moment before I break eye contact and look at his bearded cheek instead. Gus is a handsome man with fair skin and inky black hair that is cut close to the scalp on the sides and longish on top. He has a nice build, a strong Roman nose, and big lips. He’s the type of man you would find on a runway somewhere in Europe, if it weren’t for the fact that he is a trained assassin and part-time babysitter for the mob.

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