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

every moment spent training with my dad at five in the morning and learning how to defend, how to kill, came down to this man and my life.

His smile flashed before my eyes.

My cousins’ hurtful words came next.

And then Tank, calling me “little girl” as I shot toward Jenner and flipped myself around to his back, putting him in a chokehold as he tried to slam his body back against the rocks.

With each slam of rock digging into my skin, I held tighter.

And I screamed.

I screamed until my voice was hoarse.

And until he stopped moving.

And then I screamed some more, only to hear Maksim’s voice.

“No, get away. I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” I yelled.

“Tiny!” Maksim peeled me away from Jenner and held me in his arms, bloody. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s me, it’s just me…calm down, he’s dead…”

“H-he’s dead? Are you sure?” I was shaking like a leaf as he held me close in his arms. “Are you sure?”

Maksim squeezed me harder and whispered, “You were fucking brilliant, Tiny.”

Blood stained my hands.

Tears stained my cheeks.

I would have scars forever on the inside.

And on my back.

And I knew, in that moment, that I’d just gone from sitting at the kid’s table to being made.

All before my time.

I’d killed Jenner.

And part of my innocence had died with him.

Chapter Two

Kartini

Present Day

“You look like shit.” Izzy plopped down on my bed with her phone and yawned. How she managed to look completely put-together in nothing but knee-high boots and a long sweatshirt was truly beyond my comprehension. She made effortless look chic and flawless.

“Thanks, bitch.” I smacked her on the ass then studied myself in the mirror. Sometimes, I still saw the blood on my hands.

Other times, I woke up with a choking sensation as Jenner promised to screw me after he killed me.

The worst was when I heard his dark chuckle, his voice still whispering my name as if he had a right to even conjure it from the pit of Hell.

Therapy hadn’t worked. Thanks, Dad. At least you tried.

And acting out was the only thing that made me feel…alive.

Less dead.

Less like a disappointment.

God, that had been the worst day.

Truly the absolute worst of my existence.

And it wasn’t just Jenner’s death.

It was that he’d told. Maksim.

He’d told my dad. My hero. Mine.

Maksim had brought me to him.

No longer the perfect princess but broken, bruised, battered, used, even though my virginity was still intact at seventeen—yay, me.

I couldn’t scratch the image of leaving him on that dance floor and then returning a failure from my mind. Even though he’d said he was proud of me, I could see the sadness in his eyes.

And it wasn’t because I’d lived.

It was because he knew what I would have to live with for the rest of my life, and the fact that he knew only made it feel worse, like swallowing fire and staring at water but not being able to reach it.

Since then, I couldn’t even look at him, my hero. Something had shifted, like I’d suddenly been altered, turned into this unsure villain despite my dad’s encouragement to defend myself, kill, whatever was necessary.

And that’s when I realized it.

Something I hadn’t seen.

The one thing that was broken inside me.

My confidence.

Because all my life, my confidence had been in my Family, in my father, in our name, in what we did.

And in one moment, one horrible person had shattered that.

And no matter what I did…

How many times I changed my hair…

Took shots of whiskey…

Got high like I actually enjoyed it when it only ever made me feel numb to the darkness that always tried to close in on me when I was by myself…

I was sick.

Broken.

And I felt stupid that it was over something so…ridiculously dumb when you compared it to everyone else in our Family.

I mean, my cousins Junior and Serena were willing to die for each other.

Valerian had an entirely different identity and then seduced Violet out of pure love and need to keep her safe, only after seducing her as, um… well, not a nice guy.

And don’t even get me started on Ash and Annie. The hate and the love were almost equal and yet it worked, you know, after he got over blaming her for his fianceé’s death.

I groaned.

See?

I had no reason for the baggage.

No reason for comparing my story to my cousins’—comparing my suffering.

And yet, there the baggage sat, unchecked, dangling from my arms and legs.

Izzy was quiet for way too long.

Had I been in my head—yup, I had been because her crystal-blue eyes stared at me in comfort and support, through my reflection in the mirror.

“What do you see?” I asked, crossing my arms across my black Nike crop top. It left a few inches of skin visible before meeting my white, high-waisted leggings and blue Jordan high-tops.

“Welllll…” Izzy winked. “I think you look hot. But what’s more than that…” Her face sobered briefly. “I think…no matter what you look like, you’ll always feel lost.”

Her eyes flickered away while mine turned down to my feet, to my brand-new expensive shoes, something that anyone nearly nineteen would kill for. And they were just shoes, footwear that hid something that was dying inside me.

Something that needed to be set free.

Something I couldn’t identify.

Couldn’t save.

“Look…” Izzy was suddenly behind me, her chin resting on my shoulder. “I love you, no matter what, Tiny. But I know something happened. I wish you’d trust me enough to tell me. The point in all of this is to find something that truly makes you happy. That makes…” Her eyes darted away and then back. “That makes you want to live. Do you think…you have that something?”

“You’re just a little girl!”

“Am not!” I stomped on Tank’s foot and then stormed off.

With a grin I hadn’t felt in a year, I looked up into the mirror and smirked. “I think I know what would make me happy.”

“Me?”

“No.”

“Good, because that smile was starting to make me feel like I needed a security