I nodded. “Yes,” I answered. “My name is Mia and I have a brother named Michael.”
“That’s good, honey,” he said. “I’m friends with your brother Michael.”
I was right. These men worked with Michael. “Do you guys work with him?”
The man kept smiling. “You could say that.”
I looked over at the other men in the room. “Is he with you?”
The nice guy shook his head. “No, honey, he’s not. But he asked us if we could come over and pick you up.”
That confused me. “Pick me up for what?”
The man didn’t answer. “How old are you, Mia?”
“I’m eight. I’ll be nine in two months,” I told him.
“Mia, have you ever heard of your mother’s cousin, Jeanie?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Well, Michael is over at Jeanie’s house, and he’s getting a room ready for you so you can go stay with him. Would you like that?”
I looked over at Momma crying on the couch. “Wh…what about…what about Momma?”
“Your Momma is sick, honey,” he said. “We’re going to take her to the doctor, so she can get better. Would you like that?”
“Really?” I hoped he wasn’t lying. I’d like Momma to get better if she was sick.
“Yes, but she’s very sick,” he said again. “So, it’s going to take a long time for her to get better. But Michael and your cousin, Jeanie, are going to take care of you while she gets better.”
I grabbed his face and pulled him closer. I didn’t want the other men to hear. “Does that mean there won’t be stranger-danger anymore?”
His voice sounded funny, but he kept smiling. “I promise, Mia. There won’t be any stranger-danger at all. There will always be someone looking out for you.”
“What about Robert?” I asked him. “Won’t he get mad at Momma if I’m not here to play with him?”
The man grabbed my shoulders and said, “Don’t you worry about Robert, honey. I’m going to make sure he never gets mad at anyone ever again.”
Chapter 1
Nico – (Twelve Years Later)~
College was bullshit.
I mean, I got the point of it all, but it was a pain in the ass following Mia all over the campus. It wasn’t like grade school or high school where her hours were set. Here, she made her own schedule every semester and it was a pain in the fucking ass. That being said, I’d still follow the girl anywhere, given the choice.
However, I didn’t have a choice.
I’d been following Mia Gallo’s every step since I was 14-years-old, and it was my fulltime job as part of the Benetti Family crew.
When I was fourteen, Massimo had died of cancer and left all us latchkey kids to have to fend for ourselves. It wasn’t that my parents were bad people, but Nico and Stella Rossi were poor and worked back-breaking hours, leaving me alone a lot. Like most of the kids in the neighborhood, Massimo had fed and clothed me when necessary. He also hid me from the cops a time or two.
Within a month or so of his death, Luca Benetti had swept the neighborhood, looking for any kids that needed extra help now that Massimo was gone. He had assigned someone to look over us, but it hadn’t been the same.
There’d been only one Massimo.
The first time I met Luca Benetti, I had almost pissed my ill-fitting pants. He had come to take care of Massimo’s personal matter, like his house, car, and stuff, and he had found me quietly crying in the back room that Massimo, sometimes, let me sleep in.
I remember looking up into those black eyes of his and thinking he was Satan come to kill me. I’m not sure why I had thought that, but Luca Benetti had that effect on people. During my years with the Benetti Family, I’ve learned that one look from Luca Benetti could cause someone to slit their own wrists. Twelve years later, he was just as brutal.
His wife, Remy, hadn’t softened shit.
However, that meeting twelve years ago had sealed my fate.
It had brought me to Mia Gallo.
Luca had questioned me to lengths that night, asking about my parents, school, friends, the whole shebang. After answering every question, he asked me if I wanted a job. It was a fairly easy job for a kid my age he had assured me.
But he had lied.
There was nothing easy about Mia Gallo.
At first, my job was to spy on her. I was to watch her whenever her older brother, Michael Morelli, wasn’t around. I