Mafia King: A Mafia Royals Novella, Rachel Dyken [i am malala young readers edition .txt] 📗

her call him ‘Daddy’ one more time in that syrupy-sweet voice of hers with those fucking dimples, I’m going to lose my shit.”

“Ash,” Junior warned. “Don’t be a dick. Meaning, don’t be yourself.”

“What?” Ash was clearly drunk. “She doesn’t belong here, not with us, not ever. God, can you imagine if she saw half the shit we did? She’d run to Sergio in a heartbeat with crocodile tears in her eyes, and we’d all get the shit beat out of us.”

“She wouldn’t tell.” Izzy glared at her brother. “God, you’re even more of an ass than I thought.”

“She would.” Ash just kept talking. “I’ll say it again, Kartini can’t hang. She doesn’t belong here, and—”

Tank cleared his throat.

I looked down at the shoes I’d had trouble walking in.

And, suddenly, felt like an imposter.

A big, giant fake.

A little girl playing dress-up in her mom’s closet, holding her dad’s whiskey and pretending she knew the horrors of the world when she’d only ever been shielded from them.

Every single cousin gaped at me, most likely to see if I’d cry or just yell at them. Instead, I handed Tank my drink with a shaking hand, kicked off my stilettos, and threw both of them directly at Ash’s drunken face before I turned and ran toward the shore.

Fighting ensued.

Tank’s voice rose.

I tried to catch my breath, but it was like there was no air for me to suck in, as if someone had rid the universe of all of it and left me with lungs that wouldn’t work.

I stumbled onto the small shoreline and watched the waves of Puget Sound wash across the rocky shore.

“Hey.” One of the guys from before, the blond one, approached. “I’m Jenner.”

He held out his hand.

I stared at it and then finally shook it. “Kartini.”

“I know.”

“Apparently, everyone does.” I crossed my arms.

“You alone?”

I frowned. “Uh, no. There’re like a billion people at this wedding.”

He chuckled and tossed back the rest of his beer then set the bottle on the shore. “Nah, I mean out here…”

Goosebumps rose all over my body when I realized just how far I’d run—the music would drown out my screams. I’d left my heels, which meant I only had the knife I kept strapped to my thigh. And even then, he’d see me reach for it.

“I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” I lied. One thing about the mafia, the parents taught us how to lie very well at an early age. “He was grabbing us more drinks. So, basically, that’s a no. I will not make out with you, Jenner.”

He threw back his head and laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world. “I heard you were cute…pristine…untouched, but I had no idea how funny.”

“I’m hilarious,” I deadpanned. “Now, leave before my boyfriend rips your head from your body.”

“I wonder…” He started to circle me.

“Fine, I’ll play.” I crossed my arms. “What? What do you wonder?”

His fingertip traced across my shoulder and around my neck to my other bare shoulder. My navy-blue strapless dress suddenly felt like too little clothing as he moved to stand behind me. “I wonder how good it’ll feel to rip this dress from your body while nobody hears you scream.”

I tried not to shake. “Your funeral, Jenner, your funeral.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend,” he whispered in my ear, placing his hands on my shoulders and gripping them tightly. “And nobody’s going to hear because you won’t be alive when it’s happening. Think of it as a parting gift. That I’ll kill you before I fuck you.”

My legs wobbled. “Go home, Jenner, you’re clearly drunk, and only sociopaths are into necrophilia.”

His dark chuckle wasn’t helpful at all as his hands continued roaming from my shoulders down my arms. “I think I can be into anything if it means I take out Sergio Abandonato’s favorite daughter.”

“So, this is a hit?” I hoped I sounded curious as I slid a shaking hand down the front of my dress and slowly started to hike it up.

“Imagine when your daddy finds you on the beach, dress ripped, virginity stolen—”

“Then don’t let me die a virgin. If you’re gonna kill me, you may as well send me off with a nice screw. That is unless your dick’s tiny. And if that’s the case, no thank you.”

He shoved me forward. “You little bitch!”

I laughed, hoping to taunt him. “Oh, wow, so it is small? Is this your kink, then? You have to wait until the girls are dead so they don’t point and laugh?”

“Shut your mouth!” he roared as I continued lifting my dress, inviting him to watch. His eyes were furious, but his jaw went slack when he saw what I was doing.

“Like what you see, tiny dick?”

“Say it again, and I won’t do it.”

I pouted. “Fine. Tell me how much you want me, gorgeous.”

He grunted. “Better.”

Men were idiots.

I sauntered toward him as he jerked off his tie then pulled his black trousers loose, taking himself in hand with a moan.

I nearly barfed as I smiled up at him. “That’s hot…”

“You’re not…”

“Yeah, too bad I’m about to be dead…cold…”

“I have to.” He hissed out a grunt as I moved toward him and then gripped him with my hand, shoving his away. “Oh, shit…”

“Glad to be proven wrong…” I whispered. One hand worked him, and the other finally reached the holster around my upper thigh. I slowly slid my knife out.

His eyes popped open.

I gripped him harder.

He stumbled forward just as I pushed the tip of my blade toward his stomach and shoved, using the momentum of his body to get it in deep.

“Son of a bitch!” He slammed me away from him, my knife still sticking out of his gut as blood stained his hands. “I’m gonna kill you!”

He grabbed me by the hair. I kicked him in the thigh and then kneed him in his engorged dick before he slammed me back against the rocks.

He jerked out the knife and came at me.

I jumped to my feet and knew in that moment that