Page 6 of Mafia Don's Secret Twins

She's not giving an inch. I lean back, ready to needle her into a reaction. "How do you know I'm not like some kind of fucking rapist?"

She tilts her head. "You might be."

"That doesn't scare you?"

Slowly, she shakes her head. Her curls bounce, some of them having come free from her braid. "No. It doesn't."

"Why?"

Her eyes gleam slightly. "One, I know how to take care of myself. And two... I've already survived the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Lighting doesn't strike twice."

I snort. "That's... both depressing and optimistic."

"It's real," she says softly.

Real.

That's the word that comes to mind when I think of her.. In our short interaction, I can tell that she's the most real person I've ever met.

And I fucking like that.

"What's your name?"

She smiles, a small curl at the edges of her lips. "Marisol. You?"

No last names. Noted. "Dino."

"Okay. Are you tired, Dino?"

No. I shake my head. "Not really."

"Okay."

I shift. "I um... thank you."

"For what?"

"For.. this," I gesture.

She shrugs. "Like I said. I can't call myself a nice person if I don't act like one, so. Yeah."

That statement is so compelling.

I've met a lot of people in my life. Part of the deal, I guess, because I'm a De Luca.

I very rarely meet people whose integrity matters to them so much. I mean, she took me, a total stranger and potential danger, and she fed me, let me shower, and put me in some new clothes.

Fuck.

That's... the bravest thing that I've ever heard.

"So, Marisol," I smile at her. "Are you just here to rescue sad looking fuck-ups?"

"You're hardly sad looking, and why do you say you're a fuck-up?"

"I..." I don't answer. I can't.

I don't need her to know how I'm not just the black sheep in my family.

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