Page 5 of Entangled Mafia Princess

She looks at me in surprise. “Um, I guess.”

Standing behind her chair, I watch her play. The video game has nothing to do with snowboarding. Instead, it’s a battle game in which players attempt to eliminate each other to be the last one standing.

“You seem very good,” I say to the girl.

She smiles. “Really? You don’t think it’s weird that I play Fortnite?”

“Why would I think it’s weird?”

“Kids at my school say that Fortnite is a boys’ game.”

“That’s sexist. And what does it matter to them that you like Fortnite? You do you. It looks like a fun game, and that Chloe Kim character—”

“It’s called a skin.”

“That skin is the bomb.”

I watch the girl play some more until my father waves me over. Kenton and his father have arrived.

*****

“Too bad your brother is in Ireland and couldn't make the party,” Hannah tells me as the party winds down.

I finish off my second slice of cake, glad I made it through all the small talk with everyone. Now I’m going to gift myself a little something by way of a place called Club de Sade.

But my plans are delayed when Kenton comes up and puts an arm around each of us.

“Ready to start the real celebration, ladies?” he asks.

“The real celebration?” I ask.

“Lucky O’Leary’s.”

His cousin, Andrew, seconds the idea.

“I don’t know if I’m up for it,” I reply.

“Not up for what?” my father asks as he approaches.

“Rite of passage, Mr. Callaghan,” Kenton explains. “At Lucky O’Leary’s.”

“I know the place. You kids have fun.” He turns to me. “Chase will drive you.”

I sigh. Chase is my bodyguard, and though my family has had one most of my life, the older I get, the more I dislike the security detail.

“Just one round of drinks,” I say. “I don’t know that I’m up for much tonight.”

My father raises a brow. “Are you turning twenty-one or eighty-one, Casey?”

If I arrive drunk at Club de Sade, they might not let me in. Even if they did, I prefer not to be under the influence when it comes to BDSM, my drug of choice, and I want the full experience, unadulterated by alcohol.

“Let me just change,” I say, reaching for my tiara.

“No!” Hannah protests. “That has to stay on, birthday girl.”

I roll my eyes. “Seriously? I’m going to a bar wearing a tiara?”

“That way everyone will know it’s your special day.”

---