Page 3 of Secret Mafia Daddy

Well, hello there.

The feeling of familiarity I get is so strong it feels like it slams into me. Do I know her? Where have I seen her before? I try to pinpoint where I know her from, because I just know I do. It’s this gut feeling inside me.

She is so familiar and yet a complete stranger. But no matter how much I try, I can’t place her. All I know is that my heart is racing as I look at the woman standing at the bar, leaning against it and looking bored out at the dance floor.

She looks to be a natural dirty blonde. Her hair curls at the ends, trailing down her shoulders and upper arms. I wonder what it’ll be like to run my fingers through it. The way my fingers twitch with the need to touch it and a knowing of how silky it would feel, I can’t help but wonder if I already have. Is it possible I have been with the silver-eyed beauty?

Would I forget her if I had? Because I don’t think I would.

She’s taller than the girls standing around her, maybe five-foot-nine in heels, but I’m well over six feet, so when I walk closer, I tower over her.

She wobbles a bit on her heels but I don’t smell alcohol on her breath, and with all the bodies in the club pushing me forward as I walk, I’m close enough to tell.

“Excuse me,” she says in a low tone, but loud enough for me to hear her. Her silver eyes flash and she presses her full lips together.

“Excuse me,” I say politely, sliding my hand past her to touch the bar. “Just trying to get a beer.”

“There’s too many people in here,” she mutters, and I nod in agreement, although I don’t quite mind the push of a crowd. Keeps me anonymous.

Then she looks up at me for the first time, scanning her eyes over my face as if sizing me up, and her gray eyes widen. Does she know who I am? Does she remember me even if I can’t quite remember her?

“Have we met before?” I ask, leaning against the bar like she is to face the dance floor, my shoulder brushing against hers. My curiosity about this girl and what I’m feeling makes me want to know if this gut-deep recognition is real or if it is just me.

She looks at me for a moment longer. “No,” she says flatly, and takes off, pushing her way through the crowd to go out into the alley.

I grin widely, my heart pounding.

I love a good chase. I know what I came here for tonight, but the guy isn’t here yet and there is no way this little bunny is running away from me.

If only I could figure out why she feels so familiar.

2

CATARINA

I hate The Angel because it’s always too crowded and the guys are too drunk and handsy, but my best friend, Alyssa, loves it. She loves the crowds and all the attention.

Even though we’ve been best friends since I was young, we are very different.

I don’t get many nights out, and when I do, I like to go somewhere calm, chill, a place where I can relax and have fun. This is not my idea of fun.

I don’t like the idea of meeting someone at a place like this, of going home with them. Been there, done that. And once was more than enough to serve as a cautionary tale. Yet, Alyssa does it at least once a month. Well, hopefully she doesn’t have the same luck as me.

That night haunts me every day since. It gave me Chelsea, my sweet three-year-old daughter, but it also gave me a broken heart.

I found out the hard way that I can´t be intimate with someone without my heart being involved. So, that was my one and done. The “one” time I had casual sex and learned I couldn’t keep sex casual, and after that, I was “done” with it. I don’t need the hassle, and besides, I want to get the hell out of the city as soon as possible. I need to leave my family and their lifestyle and run as far away as I can, so I can’t afford to get attached anyway. I love them, but their life is not mine.

When we get to The Angel, I immediately notice the two big guys watching me and Alyssa, staring at our every move. All thanks to Alonzo DeLuca.

I love my stepfather, I really do, but I’m already annoyed.

He took me and my mother in when we had no place else to go, and he adopted me and treated me like his own, so I’m grateful, but at the same time...

He’s overprotective because of the lifestyle he leads, and I want no part of it. I long to go back to the days when my biological father would take me to the pier, show me the boats that he fished on. The breeze had been so nice, the sound of the waves soothing.

My stepfather’s use of the pier is not for the faint-hearted and he’d never take me there. I wouldn’t want him to, anyway. Besides, there isn’t any peace when my mother constantly has to worry about my stepfather being shot.

I don’t want the lifestyle that she has as a mob wife, so I need to get out of here. Go somewhere else, like the Midwest or something. Live a quiet, country life. Or maybe I’ll go to California, near the sea, so that I can think of my father as I the hear the waves crashing against the shore.

---