Page 26 of Mila: The Godfather

Message from C

Butterflies.

Butterflies make me smile. - C

The best idea

RIAGAN

“Some say snitch bitches, get stitches.

Nah, they get buried.” – R

“Wait a fucking second. I must be hearing wrong because ain’t no way you want me to work for the filthy Italians. Am I hearing this shit right, Cap?” Bain, one of the few people I trust in the clan, spits over the line. It’s three in the fucking morning and I’m parked outside a residence, in the street like a fucking creep, when I should be dealing with the fallout of the three families of Detroit’s decision to take over and get rid of the current bosses.

Benedetto Nicolasi, Gabriele Parisi, and that fucking rat Tommaso Volpe are gone. I should be drinking to celebrate their much-deserved fall from grace. Instead, the night led me here.

To the Parisi residence.

All paths led me here.

To her.

For the life of me, I can’t quite put a finger on what it is about that young girl that touched something in me that Halloween night months ago.

It’s so fucked.

I’m fucked.

She’s the youngest spawn of that fucker Parisi. Why the fuck do I care about what happens to her is beyond me.

But I do.

I fucking care.

I have no single fucking clue what it was about her that tugged at the dusty ass strings of my fucked-up heart.

Maybe it was the way her eyes, her sad eyes, called to the darkest part of me when she looked my way.

The fucking smoking fun fact.

Or the damn butterflies. Butterflies that have been haunting me ever since I was a boy.

Reminders of my mother.

I don’t believe in coincidences, you see.

That girl crossed my path that night, and there has to be a reason. There has to be a logical reason as to why, after I left the Nicolasi mansion that night, the girl kept popping into my mind.

I thought I stashed her memory away like I do everything that means shit to me, but that was not the case.

Instead, I found myself wondering why no one utters her name in the three families. Why after working for the families undercover for years, I never, not even once, saw her face. Not once. Just her two oldest sisters.

I kept wondering why she was kept hidden, as if there was something wrong with her. As if that fucking family is hiding something.

But what?

Remembering that I have Bain on the line, I speak up. “There’s a girl.” I look at the mansion and momentarily wonder which window belongs to her room. “The youngest Parisi. No one outside of the three families knows that she exists, and I want to keep it that way. I need you to keep her safe, and you don’t get caught, you got me? There’s word that Kadra Parisi will now take her father’s place as the boss and will clean house. That’s your way in.”

---