Page 20 of Mafia Don's Secret Twins

My eyes widen, then narrow. “Gia told you.”

“Gia didn’t need to tell me,” he says quietly. “I knew.”

“You… what?”

He extends his hands, placing them against the plastic rail of the hospital bed. He leans forward, until his eyes are so close, I can see the slight ring of forest green around his pupils.

Dark green. I knew it.

The color is somehow comforting to me.

I look down at his knuckles, noticing the tattoos. They cover his hands completely, and then run up his arms. It’s unclear to me what they are. A tumble of words and images, some whole, some bisected by scars.

How many scars does Dino have?

He shifts again, this time leaning forward. I catch the very top of a large letter M, tucked right at the top of his collarbone, before I look up at him.

“I knew, Marisol. I knew about the twins. I knew about you. And I know for sure that now that I have you? I am never, ever fucking letting you go again.”

The words should scare me. This is not my Dino. Not the man I remember.

Instead, however, I bite my lip.

Because I’m not scared of him.

Or, if I am, there’s an even bigger truth.

I like being scared of him.

3

DINO

I don’t knowwhat I’m doing.

I’m running on pure instinct. And every single one of those instincts, right now, is telling me that I’m an idiot if I let Marisol walk out on me.

So I won’t let her.

She’s not going anywhere, a fact that is resoundingly clear to me. I don’t care if I have to keep her here under lock and fucking key.

I’m not letting Marisol out of my sight again. It isn’t a fucking option.

Her brown eyes narrow as she looks at me from Elio’s makeshift hospital bed. “Keeping me here puts everyone in danger, Dino.”

“I don’t give a fuck.” I truly don’t. If I need to use Elio’s army to keep her here, and every last one of them dies protecting her, I don’t care.

I’m not letting her go back there.

“If you know about me and the twins, then you know about my father.”

Everyone knows about her father.

Benicio Souza is the nightmare that keeps the cartels in line. He’s something else entirely, a monster made human.

When I first found out that Marisol was his daughter, I couldn’t figure it out. The difference between the two of them seems completely irreconcilable. Where she is kind and thoughtful, and sweet, he’s.. not.

He’s a hardened killer. His attack dog, Andrei, is brutal and nasty not because it’s necessary to fuck people up the way he does, but because Benicio is entertained by it. I’m sure Andrei has a couple of screws loose, but I’m also certain that Benicio loosened them right up.

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