Page 5 of Mistletoe in the Mafia

I look back at the papers in my hand. My gaze lingers on her photograph, then drifts to the name at the top of her file—Madelyn Flores. Not her real name, an alias she’s been living under for the past fifteen years. I shrug, looking back at my friend.

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly.

I could return the file and walk away, close this chapter for good. But turning the page isn’t in my nature—not when so many questions remain unanswered.

I tried hard to find her, and now that I have, it should be over. A better man would leave her alone. But that’s something I’ve never claimed to be.

“There’s no information on her life before the FBI got involved,” I point out in question.

A muscle ticks in Joshua’s jaw., “That’s classified information not even I have access to.”

“Hmm,” I say in acknowledgment.

Interesting. Our food arrives, and Joshua’s immediately distracted. He digs in, leaving me to my thoughts on my next course of action.

I still have a lot of questions. Which means I can’t leave herMadelyn Flores alone.

CHAPTER 2

Madelyn

The only good thing about nightmares? I can wake up from them.

“Run, baby! Run, and don’t look back!” my mother’s voice echoes, trembling with fear as blood pools beneath her shaking hands. Her eyes—wide, desperate—lock onto mine, silently begging me to live.

Everything in me wants to stay with her, to help her. But one look at the man advancing and the desperate plea in her eyes, and I know I have to leave.

“Mom?” I try, wanting so badly for her to ask me to stay.

“Run!” she screams again, louder this time.

That jolts me into action. Tears well up in my eyes as I turn around and do as she asked. I run as fast as my legs can carry me, and. I don’t stop, not even when I hear the sounds of a knife piercing through my mother’s skin. Not when I hear her pleas for her life.

I want so badly to look behind me, but I don’t.

And then I wake up. Unfortunately, it’s much harder to shake off nightmares when they’re a reality you’ve lived before. Doesn’t mean I don’t try my fucking hardest to do so, though.

I sit up on my bed and shut my eyes for a couple seconds, trying to banish the images from my mind.

“One, two, three, four, five. Breathe, Maddie,” I tell myself, inhaling and exhaling a soft breath.

I repeat it until I feel the trembling in my limbs start to settle. And then I smile. If there’s one thing I’ve had to learn and reinforce over the years, it’s that I can’t let the bad memories get to me. There’s a lot of life left to live, and I can’t spend every single second dwelling on my life’s tragedies. It’s harder on some days than others, but not today.

There’s officially thirty-five days to my favorite holiday. Really, the only holiday that matters to me.

I climb out of bed with a light heart, whistling a Christmas tune as I grab my outfit for the day out of my closet. When I walk into the office, it’s buzzing with lighthearted banter, which seems out of place considering the grim cases we dissect daily. I paste on a bright smile—my armor—before stepping into the break room.

When people think about working for the FBI, they automatically assume it’s a high-stakes environment, with guns blazing and us whooping the asses of high-profile criminals. And sure, we do that. But every morning, my team meets in the office break room for the morning debrief, and while we do talk about our active cases and stuff like that, there’s another reason why our morning debriefs are so sacred to us.

Donuts!

It’s a tradition I might have started when I first joined up with the team, and everyone has happily gone along with it. It’s pretty simple, really—each day, someone brings in donuts for the team to share after our meeting. It keeps us all happy and helps relieve stress.

I just hope there’s a cinnamon donut today. I’m feeling very cinnamony. It must be because Christmas is so close.

“Madelyn,” a voice calls, permeating my donut fantasies, “are you listening to me?”

I look up at the supervisory head of operations, also known as my boss. He’s the youngest team leader in the entire force at the moment and it’s not hard to figure out how and why. Nepotism aside, Joshua Benson is actually quite capable. He’s a man focused singularly on capturing criminals. And while there are sometimes whispers that he only has his position because his father’s a director at the FBI, I think he’s actually pretty cool. Plus, he lets me get away with all my little quirks.

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