My Tragic Mafia Life | ✔️

54

She rolled her eyes. "I didn't mean like that." Her father had already spent countless hours droning about this volume or that. And years at highschool had done the same. She handed the book back to him. "Do you read in your free time?"

He took it back. "Yes."

She found the act wasteful but said no word. To each to its own. Josephine twirled a strand of her hair, half-observing him. "I meant what I said, you know, about parents' expectations and feeling alone." After what his half-siblings had told her, his history had drawn her in like a moth to a flame. "It wasn't a lie even though you laughed at me."

Dante said, "How is your life hard?"

She felt that surge of belittlement, comparison. The thief of all joy. "Just because I dress nice and buy nice things doesn't mean that my life is easy. My dad is the owner of the Williams Hotel branch. He expects a lot because one day I'm going to take over. Why do you think I'm so busy?"

Dante's eyes seem to study her as well. "I haven't heard anything about this."

"That's because I don't like to talk about it." She quipped. It was true. Though it wasn't uncommon for people to flock towards her because of what she had to offer: wealth, popularity, power. But she did her best separating the seriousness of what her luxuries brought forth and the pleasures it held. The kind of destiny she had was one that people went to sleep dreaming of. She had no intention to drive the dagger of envy further than where it stood.

Dante's fingers wrapped around the spine of his book. "I feel the same."

She had heard of his parents, the horrors of Beatriz and Houston's life, but she never dared imagine living his own. There was far too much she already knew about the inner details of his existence, and some things she was never meant to hear. But even though her life hadn't seemed as hard as his, and although she was working for a wicked, greedy cause, that didn't stop her heart beating all the same.

"Are you ashamed that you're the heir?" She dared ask, the weight between them becoming tremendous. Her lips parted, then closed. Because maybe when she thought about their fight, she wondered if sometimes he thought the same thing she so horribly said to him. The thing that kept him awake at night, threatening to become his will of way.

That it would have been better if he died.

"I know about your parents." She breathed. "About Houston and Beatriz."

Dante didn't react, but the distance between them seemed to expand as quickly as their worlds just collided. She wasn't supposed to know and yet she did. Dante was a victim in all of this madness. She didn't blame him for that bit—but she couldn't lie that in the midst of this pity there was a part still angry that he dragged her into it. Into everything. She could understand but it could not excuse anything.

Dante said, "You shouldn't know about anything."

It was true, but she was still involved. All because of him.

Everything was because of him.

She felt the urge to leave. Because that pity, that vulnerability that she so often let flourish, was slowly burning to hate. He was grieving, but he was still a bastard. He held no hesitation to tie her to a chair and put a gun to her face. Without an apology, even for last week, she felt that familiar sense to just scream and—

Josephine stood outright. She wasn't going to explode even Dante had finally gone to his good graces. If this were his best graces, given how she had seen him act. She clenched her jaw, turning to catch a glimpse of him.

He only echoed her stare.

"Text me if I'm gonna be forced to go somewhere. Your siblings and Isla could use a break from running around." There was no kindness blooming in her voice. Only the iron truth. And, "At least have the decency to tell me why I'm even going in the first place. I'm involved too." Because of you.