Page 30 of That Time I Accidentally Took Over the Mafia

The sound of knuckles tapping on the door pulls me back, and I instinctively close the curtains, turning away from the two men I’m inexplicably drawn to.

“Yeah?” I call out, my voice thick with sorrow.

It’s Jax, peeking his head in cautiously before opening the door wider. He stands in the doorway with the ivory weekend bag they brought for me.

“I thought you’d want your stuff for a shower and some clean clothes,” he says.

The sadness in his eyes makes something in my chest tighten, cracking through the ice I’ve built around myself. I bite my lip, looking down at the floor for a moment before I take a deep breath and step toward him.

“Thanks.” My fingers wrap around the brown leather handle, but he doesn’t let go. I look at him, and I know what he wants. Damn it, I hate this part. I hate the vulnerability.

I want to pull away, to shut myself off completely, but I can’t. I realize that, without them, I wouldn’t have survived today. Death may not even be the worst thing that could have happened. What if the man who grabbed me had taken me? God knows what he would’ve done then.

A chill runs up my arm, and I shiver at the thought.

Jax gently runs a warm hand up my arm before cupping my face. I lean into his touch for a moment before he turns my face toward his.

“I’ll tell you the truth if you want it, Peach,” he says, his voice serious, almost sorrowful. “Just be ready to hate me once you hear it.”

“You were a mark I was supposed to make disappear.” Jax holds my gaze, unflinching, as I feel the weight of his words sink in.

He was supposed to kill me?

“The job didn’t come with a picture, and it paid a shitload of money, so I took it. I knew the time and place. I knew the signal—a cupcake with a sparkler on the table,” he says, his voice soft, almost pained.

A gasp escapes my mouth.

I remember that day.My birthday.

My father was supposed to meet me. He made yet another promise he never planned on keeping. That was the day I decided I was done with him—and the day I met Jax.

“You were alone, staring down at that cupcake like the loneliest woman in the world,” he continues, shaking his head. A crease forms between his eyes, the memory haunting him. “I couldn’t do anything but keep watching you, getting angrier by the second that someone would put a hit out on an angel.”

He rubs his knuckle gently along my cheek—a tenderness I wasn’t expecting.

“I fell in love with you from that single look. I knew I couldn’t let you get away. Someone else would just pick up the next hit and finish the job. So, I…” His voice trails off as he steps closer, one arm low on my back and the other cradling my jaw. “I went after you. Followed you into a few stores and then pretended to bump into you.”

This was the part of our love story we always joked about. A bottle of red wine was in that bag, and it busted. It splashed up the front of my white sundress, and I looked like Carrie when the bucket of pig’s blood was poured on her. We both just stood there in shock for a few seconds until I busted out laughing.

He took me to dinner to “make amends,” and it ended up being the best birthday I ever had.

My mouth twitches at the memory, but the sadness creeps in again.

“I found out who you were after that, but I was already too gone for you. I tracked down anyone I could find associated with the hit and buried them. But I never found out which boss was behind it, and you never told me about your father.”

Regret drips from his voice as he closes his eyes, like he’s replaying every moment and thinking of what he would’ve done differently.

I run my hands up his arms, feeling his warmth, then around his shoulders to circle his neck. He breathes me in like I’m his lifeline.

“Now I know, you were never hiding anything. You just had no idea.” He rubs his nose against mine for a moment, then pulls back to meet my eyes. “When they cuffed me and pulled me away from you, I never hated myself more for keeping this part of my life from you. I couldn’t breathe thinking something could happen to you while I was locked up.”

A darkness fills his gaze, a reminder of everything that could have gone wrong.

“So, what did you do?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

A small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I called an old flame.”

He chuckles when he sees my face fall in irritation at the mention of a former lover. “He wasn’t part of a family, but he was an associate, like me. If something had a hint of a digital footprint, he could erase it, fabricate it, change it—anything. I called Luca.”

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