was to report if she was happy and if anyone was bothering her. It’d been easy because Michael had spent a lot of time with her, so I only really had to spy on her between after school and when she went to sleep. Michael was always there to take her to school in the morning and drive her home afterwards.
Then she hit her teen years, and that’s when my life became a living hell.
I was six years older than Mia, and nothing was more mind-numbing that listening to teenage girls talk about fashion and Reality T. V. Mia had been everything a carefree, young girl should have been. Her mother’s cousin, Jeanie, had treated her well, and she had been happy by all accounts. The only dark spot in her life was that, after a stint in rehab, her mother had come out only to die of a drug overdose shortly after. I think, by that time, Mia had already written her mother off, though.
When I wasn’t watching Mia, I was earning my Benetti stripes. Even though Luca Benetti was head of the Benetti Family, I had been assigned to Ciro Mancini because Mia was special to him. Ciro had been the one who had saved her from her mother’s lifestyle all those years ago.
So, under the tutelage of Ciro Mancini, I had killed my first man at the age of seventeen, proving myself and, from there, I was assigned shipment jobs, enforcement jobs, etc. Whatever they needed of me, I did it.
And I did it well.
I became a Made Man at the tender age of twenty-four and got my first fulltime gig.
Protecting Mia while she went to Sterling University in Morgan City.
The really fucked-up thing about it, though?
I watched Mia grow from the time she was eight to now, but it wasn’t until I stood in the shadows and watched her blossom into a confident college student her freshmen year that my dick started noticing her.
I’ll never forget the first time I thought of Mia in that way. She had walked out of the dorms with a couple of friends, and she was dressed in a black button-up man’s shirt, untucked, over a pair of dark blue jeans with black heals. Her dark brown hair had been thrown up in a messy bun, and even from where I stood in the shadows, I could see she had minimal makeup on.
She had looked mesmerizing.
She had also looked happy and that had made her look stunning.
I followed and blended in with my surroundings, as I was used to doing, but I remember it being the longest night of my life. Every time some asshole flirted with her, I had been on the verge of losing my shit and blowing my cover. Lucky for her, and the men of Sterling University, she had gone home alone. She’s dated, but as far as I knew, it’s all always been casual. That, I got from Michael.
And thank God.
Mia Gallo was mine, even if she didn’t know it yet.
I even had Michael’s blessing on the condition that I waited until she graduated from college to make my claim. Even though Mia knew Michael worked for the Benettis, he wanted her to have choices in case she didn’t fall for my charms-his words, not mine. Mia having a college degree gave her those choices. She was going to school for chemical engineering, a degree I knew Ciro was in favor of. His hope was that Mia would fall to the dark side and help him create better torturing methods.
The dude was fucking insane.
It didn’t matter, though. Mia wouldn’t have a choice when the time came. For two years I’ve been in love with this girl. There was no way she was getting away from me. I knew everything about her. And I do mean every-fucking-thing. From her favorite movie to the last grade she got on her chem test.
Will she be pissed when she finds out I’ve been watching after her for the past twelve years? Possibly. But will she be surprised? I doubted it. She knew her brother worked for the Benettis. She also knew the truth behind the night Ciro took her to go live with her cousin, Jeanie. I couldn’t see Mia being shocked that the Mafia’s been protecting her, however, I could see her being surprised that her sentinel wasn’t her brother, but me instead.
I continued to sit in the stacks of the Sterling University campus library as Mia had a