Nico (Ruin & Revenge #1)(85)
Jules stared at the annulment form and shook her head. “I don’t get it. I thought you liked him. I thought he was the one.”
“I never wanted to marry into the mob. It was just a way of protecting Kat and getting away from Tony.” Mia shrugged. “It was a stupid plan.”
“I’ve never known you to come up with a stupid plan.” Jules took a pen from the holder on Mia’s desk. “I also never saw you so happy as you were with him.” She doodled a happy face on the form. “Oops. Look what I did. Now you can’t get the marriage annulled. Silly me.”
Mia groaned. “Jules … that’s not going to change anything. I’ll just print off another. I’m sure he’s already filed his by now. He didn’t say anything to me after we left his nonna’s house except about getting the marriage annulled. He wouldn’t even get in the car. He sent me home with Luca, and he and Frankie walked off down the street.”
“What happened at his nonna’s house?” Jules continued to doodle. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t insult her cooking. I know there’s a lot of mob stuff you don’t want me to know, but it’s not like I don’t have a good understanding of what the underground world is like. I lived rough on the streets for six years. There’s very little I didn’t see. And if you’re trying to protect me, don’t. I can look after myself.”
“I knew something.” Mia swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I knew how his dad really died. I watched him shake hands with his father’s killer, and I didn’t say anything. Revenge is the one thing he’s wanted for the last ten years, and I didn’t tell him it was right in front of him.”
Jules doodled another happy face and added a bow on top. “I’m sure you had a good reason.”
“I did.”
“Then give him some time to figure that out. Four to six weeks maybe.” She drew a giant “L.O.V.E” on the paper, and then crushed it into a ball. “Don’t sign this and make it easy.”
“My father is going to make me marry Tony as soon as the annulment goes through.” Mia sighed and rested her chin in her hands. “Why drag it out? I need to protect Kat, and I’m tired of all this. Tired of fighting an institution that I can’t change. Tired of fighting the inevitable. Tired of watching people I care about get hurt. Women have no power in the Mafia. There’s nothing we can do but accept it. “
“Bullshit.” Jules threw the paper at Mia. “Stop the pity party. No one can force you into a marriage. You ran away with Kat before. Do it again.”
“I’ll put people at risk.” Mia caught the paper and smoothed it out. “My father has only just realized that the best way to hurt me is through the people I care about. I can’t protect everyone.”
“You’re right,” Jules said. “But you don’t need to keep protecting the people you’ve helped out along the way. At some point you have to let them go, and focus on taking care of yourself. I can look after myself. Your mom looks after herself. I’m sure your brother does, too. And your sister seemed pretty switched on when she climbed out her bedroom window so you guys could run away. She’s not a little girl, Mia. I saw the same fire in her that I see in you. If you want to empower women, give us a push and let us fly, just like you do with the girls in your coding class. You give them the tools and leave them to find their way to hacker greatness.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is the same,” Jules said. “If you want to be there to catch us when we fall, show us you’ve got someone to catch you, too. There’s nothing wrong with needing a little help. I wouldn’t be here working with you doing a job I love to do if I’d pushed you away. It doesn’t make you less; it makes you more. It means you can see your limitations, and you’ll do what has to be done to overcome them. You live in a crazy-ass world where the normal rules don’t apply. It’s a jungle, Mia, and you don’t walk alone in the jungle with a stick when you need a lion by your side.”
“He hates me, and I don’t blame him.” She tossed the paper in the waste bin.
“He’s got a thorn in his paw,” Jules said. “And he needs you to take it out.”
TWENTY-THREE
“Hey, Big Joe!” Mikey Muscles waved from across the clubhouse. “You got a minute?”
Ben put down his pool cue and headed over to the door. He’d dropped Kat off at Mia’s house last night after getting a text from Frankie. Although, Frankie told him Nico wasn’t protecting her anymore, he’d exchanged phone numbers with her just in case. He couldn’t just throw that sweet girl to the wolves, and he had a feeling Nico would agree when he calmed down. It was a bad situation for everyone. He could see both sides and he just wanted to keep his head down and ride out the next couple of weeks until he could find a way to get his little Daisy out of that house.
“Frankie’s waiting outside.” Mikey Muscles put his arm around Ben’s shoulder in a gesture that would have been friendly but for Mike Muscles’s firm grip and the way he steered Ben toward the door. “We’re going for a ride.”
This is it.
Ben tried not to tense up as they walked through the door. “Going for a ride” only ever meant one thing. Someone was going to get whacked. And he had a very bad feeling it was going to be him.