Taken by Her Prince

She gave me a look. “It’s not really a choice, not when you’ve got six siblings, your dad’s a drunk, your mom’s working all the time, and they need food on the table.”

“How many guys like that do you know?”

“More than you’d think.” She took off her hat and reached up to take out the hair tie. She let her hair spill down her shoulders and shook it out before running her hands through it. “You ever think about why your soldiers work for you?”

“I know some of their reasons,” I said, which was true. I knew Luca’s father was in the family from way back when, and he grew up in it. I knew Simon joined because he came from a bad family and it was all he knew.

“But not all of them,” she said.

“No,” I said. “Not all of them. It’s not something we talk about.”

“Maybe you should.” She looked out the window. “Maybe you’d hesitate to throw their lives away.”

I felt a surge of anger run through me. “Why are you so convinced that’s what I’m doing?” I asked. “You really think I want any of my soldiers to get hurt?”

“I think you’re willing to do whatever it takes, and that’s what they’re there for,” she said. “They can get hurt, and you don’t care.”

I clenched my jaw and gripped the steering wheel. I had to take a few deep, calming breaths before I got myself under control.

“Two years ago,” I said, “we got into a war with the Russians.”

She looked at me, her blue eyes cold and flat, a little frown on her face. But she didn’t speak up to interrupt me, so I kept going.

“Things got bad,” I said. “Dante was fighting for his life while trying to protect a girl. Sort of like you, actually. We had this friend, this guy we came up with named Gino. Dante sort of took Gino in under his wing, taught him a lot, you know, became close. Dante put Gino in charge of watching the girl, partially to keep her safe, but mostly to keep Gino out of the line of fire.”

I stopped for a moment and remembered the first time we met Gino. He was so grateful when we saved him from these low life thug assholes that wanted to rob him. I remembered his awkward laugh, his bad singing voice, his love of motorcycles.

“What happened?” she asked, her face softening.

“Got killed,” I said. “Died when the Russians went after that girl. He died saving the girl and Dante. He was a fucking hero. But you know what? If I could go back, I’d save his life. I think about Gino every fucking day.” I turned to her and stared, my eyes going hard. “So don’t tell me I don’t care. I care about all my soldiers, and I want to make sure they get through this without getting hurt. But it’s either my boys or their boys, and I’m going to make damn sure it’s all them.”

She shook her head and didn’t say anything for a few seconds. She looked away, back at the park, at the rain dripping from a nearby streetlight that was on and flickering, despite the time of day.

“That’s the problem right there,” she said. “All that us or them shit. That’s the sort of thing that’s going to get people killed.”

“Then people get killed,” I said. “If your uncle wanted to roll over and give me what I want, then nobody would die. But he’s not going to do that, and I’m not going to stop, so here we are, making this fucking list.”

She looked back at me. “I’m helping you,” she said. “Okay? I’m helping, but I’m not happy about it.”

“I didn’t ask you to be happy. I just asked you to do your job.”

She glared then leaned back in her seat. She crossed her arms over her chest and didn’t speak. I sat there looking at her body, feeling annoyed and frustrated. She had this idea about me, that I was some cold, unfeeling killer, and that was true to an extent. I’d grown calluses all over myself from years of fighting, years of living with danger and death.

But I wasn’t a monster. Not yet, at least.

I checked for traffic then pulled out again. I drove around the block and headed toward home. I took the long, scenic route, cutting down south street, jutting along the city, past tourists looking frustrated sitting just inside restaurants, staring at the rain.

“Don’t you miss it?” I asked as I turned left.

“Miss what?”

“The Club,” I said.

She shook her head. “Not at all.”

“Come on. How old were you when your father left?”

“Eight,” she said.

“So you remember it.”

She hesitated. “I remember some of it.”

“You have to miss it.”

She was quiet for a long moment and I thought she might be ignoring me. But as we rolled through a stop sign and passed a church on the right, she spoke up.