Page 176 of Mila: The Godfather

That woman leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She’s cold and calculating. There’s just something off about her. There’s no light in her eyes. They’re empty. Never have I met anyone who gave me the chills whenever they entered a room, but when this woman enters a room, the atmosphere changes. It suddenly becomes darker and cold. I wonder, at times, just how much evil she has seen. How much more than her sisters she had to endure to end up like this.

“Sirius.” My wife gently squeezes my hand before releasing it and walking towards her sister. We all watch as Mila throws herself at Kadra, crying silently. This was not how I wanted her to see her sister again. It takes a moment, but Kadra wraps her arms around her little sister, hugging her close.

She gives nothing away, though. Not a smile, not a tear. Nothing.

Both sisters break apart, looking at each other. “You’re here. I missed you.” My sweet wife whispers to her sister.

“Are you hurt? Did this animal hurt you in any way?” Kadra asks my wife in a monotone voice, but there’s a tenderness in her eyes that wasn’t there before. I guess not even the cold woman is immune to Mila’s sweetness.

“Never. Riagan would never hurt me.” My wife whispers, looking back at me. I wink at her, and then she turns to her sister. “H-he’s my one day, Sirius. I-I know this all might seem crazy, but I feel free when I’m with him. I feel like I don’t have to hide, and I can be me.”

Thud fucking thud.

Her words make my heartbeat race.

I look at her while she stands tall, facing her big sister, who looks like Satan’s bride against my fairy-like wife.

“I must confess I came here with every intention of taking you home with me and gutting him with my favorite knife.” Kadra’s bottomless eyes meet mine for a second before she dismisses me again and goes back to staring at Mila. “Until I walked in and realized I had already lost you.”

“You could never lose me, Kadra. Never.” Mila grabs her sister’s gloved hand.

“But I did lose you long before he got to you. Didn’t I?” Kadra raises her other hand and pushes Mila’s curls back. “I never thought I would have to let you go, stelina.” The Parisi boss looks at her little sister as if she’s seeing her as a woman for the first time instead of her defenseless baby sister. “I guess I held on so tightly, trying to keep you from the horrors I—” Kadra stopped herself from saying whatever the hell she was about to say and cleared her throat. “I tried to keep you safe and, in a bubble, thinking it was best for you that I didn’t realize how badly I was hurting you.”

I watch as Mila shakes her head vehemently. “No! You never–”

The Parisi boss does something, something I never thought I would witness. She shows her human side. The side that loves her little sister. She leans forward and kisses Mila’s head before pulling away. “You’ll always have me, Mila. I’m never too far away.”

For the first time, I think I see the Parisi boss’s human side. The sister who went through hell more times than a child should ever go through just to keep the flames from touching the people she holds dear to her heart or whatever she has inside her chest. Once, I would have thought she had a rock for a damn heart but I see it now. The pain behind all that darkness. I only ever saw that look once, and that’s on a man most people call the unfeeling. “If this man is what you want, then I won’t get in your way. Just know that if he ever hurts you.” The Parisi boss looks my way now and then looks every man in the room in the eye. “If you ever hurt my sister, not even your city could keep me from coming after you.”

“Noted,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Crow.” She motions her soldier forward and extends her gloved hand his way. We all watch as the man hands her a small plant. A cactus.

That must be the famous —-

“Mr. Prickles.” My wife gasps, finishing my thought.

“Now you have so much more to care for than a plant.” The older sister says, reminding me that at one-point, Mila didn’t have what she has now. Friends who understood her. A family who would go to war for her.

A man who would go against God and Satan for her if need be.

She had her sisters, yes, but no one she could protect and care for like she did her plants.

“You and Arianna were enough for me.” The pain in my butterfly’s voice cuts me deep, hurting me more than my fresh wounds.

“But we both know you deserve more.”

She sure as fuck does.

She knows it.

We all know it.

My wife is too damn nice to say it, but deep down, she knows it too. Her sisters will always have a place of their own in her heart, but now she has more people in her corner. More people who care for her and love her.

She has me.

My chest tightens when I see Mila hug her sister as if she’s afraid to let go because, deep down, she knows the moment she does let go, things won’t ever be as they once were, back when she only had Kadra and Arianna. When they were all each other had.

---