Page 1 of Make Me Your Hitta

Adonis “The Guardian” Cardelo

The mansion’s marble floors echoed my footsteps. Each click of my nine-hundred-dollar shoes was another nail in the coffin of my freedom. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I instantly felt the darkness at my back like a shadow. I fished it out long enough to jab the red ignore button and shove it back down.

Fuck. How did I end up here again?

My jaw clenched as I approached the study door. The old man was waiting, ready to cash in on a debt I could never repay. A life for a life. Mine for his son’s—my best friend. Payment for everything that happened years ago. The last time I stepped foot inside the Hawthorne mansion.

I knocked twice, short and sharp.

“Enter,” he commanded, his gravelly voice chilling my spine.

I forced my way into the dimly lit room, thick with cigar smoke and regret. Don Hawthorne sat behind his massive desk with a tumbler of amber-colored whiskey in his gnarled left hand that was missing its middle finger. It was a constant reminder of his dangerous life as a mafia boss.

He was in his mid-fifties but still wielded the kind of presence that commanded the respect of everyone in the roomas if he were still a young boss. His skin was a rich, deep chocolate brown, and his hair, though graying at the temples, was still dark, thick, and cut into a fade. The salt-and-pepper goatee that encased his lips was neatly trimmed. His posture was aligned and assertive, giving off an air of dominance alongside the tailored suit on his body and the gold watch on his left wrist.

His chocolate brown eyes were cold and calculating. He scanned his surroundings with sharp awareness before boring into me.

“Adonis. You’re late.”

“Traffic, sir,” I lied. “Won’t happen again.”

He grunted, waving me into a chair. I perched on the edge, muscles coiled tight.

“The Toussaint’s are making moves,” he growled. “I’m going away on business. I’ll be flying back and forth between New York and Miami for the next month or two until the deal is sealed. I need eyes on Xenobia at all times. With Santo gone, you’re the only one I trust.”

My stomach clenched at her name.Xenobia.Damn, how long had it been? Six years and three months. Over two thousand days. I knew precisely how fuckin’ long.

“With all due respect, sir, I know we have an arrangement, but there are other men—”

“I said you!” he hollered as his fist slammed the desk. “You owe me, boy. Or have you forgotten?”

The scar on my jaw throbbed. How could I forget? The words that followed froze my blood.

“You can have your old room back across the hall from Xenobia’s. She needs a guard dog. You’ll be her shadow, day and night.”

Shit.Day and night? With her? My body betrayed me, blood racing to my dick. I shifted quickly, praying to God he didn’t notice.

“Yes, sir,” I gritted out.

A knock at the door saved me from further humiliation. It creaked open, and there she was.

Xenobia.

My breath caught in my throat. She was even more beautiful than I remembered, all curves and hellfire. Her brown eyes flashed as they landed on me, full lips curling into a sneer. Her long, wavy brown hair cascaded down her back like a delicate waterfall. Her sandy brown skin was as smooth as butter, and her eyes were a deep, passionate brown that seemed to hold a thousand unspoken words she wanted to say to me. Despite her natural beauty, there were visible scars on her cheek and collarbone, remnants of a past attack that she carried as a silent reminder of all that we’d lost that day.

She inched closer, moving with a level of poise and confidence that contradicted her young age. Her posture remained upright and assertive.

“What’s he doing here?” she snapped.

I bit back a groan.This is gonna be hell.

As the only daughter of a well-known mafia boss, she exuded the same air of authority as her father. The only difference was that I knew there was a softness behind her fiery eyes and tough exterior. Unsolicited memories flooded my mind: Xenobia and me as kids, chasing each other through these same halls, her laughter echoing off the marble floors, and how she looked at me like I was her whole world.

Now, her eyes were cold, distant. What happened to us?

My mind raced back to the beginning of it all. Our mothers had been childhood best friends. When she became pregnant with me, she fled New York. We lived in Houston until I turned twelve, and she sent me to New York to live with Xenobia’s family for my safety. When we pulled up to the Hawthorne gates, she told me she was doing it for my safety and that they wouldwatch over me. Three months later, she was murdered by a mafia hitman in the two-bedroom apartment she’d raised me in.

For nine years, I was raised alongside Xenobia’s older brother, Santo, who was the same age as me. We were like brothers. Xenobia was three years younger than us and was the annoying kid who always wanted to tag along, and we’d have to ditch her. It wasn’t until we got older that I started to look at her differently. It was the summer she turned eighteen, to be exact. She gave herself to me, and then two nights later, our worlds cracked in half.

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