Page 433 of Sinfully Savage Mafia

Because he’s manipulative as hell and uses whoever her can to achieve his goals, which are usually blood-soaked.

So when I see him tonight, I want answers.

I will demand the answers!

And if I don’t like what I hear, I will handle things my own way. I’m not going to be his puppet for a single second more.

If he doesn’t like it, he’ll just have to kill me.

There’s no happy ending tothatstory. Not for him.

I lean down and scoop Aisling into my arms, carrying her into the nursery. There’s an odor wafting up from her diaper, but there’s no way I’m going to disturb her sleep by changing her diaper. It can wait. I doubled her up, in anticipation of this very circumstance.

No poop will be able to escape my master diaper job.

I turn on the monitor and grab the handheld before backing out of the room.

I pad into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge, a tiny moan slipping from my lips. This place, this job, this whole existence — it’s like an alternate reality and I’m caught in the middle of it with no desire to escape.

My job requires me to leave once I’ve delivered on the requirements, whatever the hell they may be.

But I don’t want to go.

I want to stay.

I like the Villanis.

I’m totally hot for Dante.

And I’m smitten with that baby.

Why can’t I have this life?

The question startles me because I’ve always pushed it out of my mind when it so much as threatens to surface.

But now that it’s out there, on the front burner after I’ve pushed it to the back for days on end, it demands an answer.

And I still don’t have one.

All I have are more burning questions…

I mean, why can’t I be a student at UNLV? I’ve always wanted to go into fashion design and merchandising. I love sewing, something I’ve really missed while being away from Brooklyn.

Why can’t I have a tight-knit friendship? Someone to confide in, to laugh with, and to do fun, girlie things with?

Why can’t I find true love? A guy who looks at me like I light up his entire universe just the way Matteo looks at Heaven? Someone who never loses a chance to tell me how much he loves me, just like Papa did with Mama before they died?

Why, why, why?

I’ve never realized, before I hopped on that flight out of JFK International Airport, how much I crave normalcy, happiness, and purpose.

My purpose has never been my own, not since I was a thirteen-year-old orphan.

My purpose has always been the means for someone else to achieve his purpose.

I don’t want that life anymore.

I’m not going to be defined by someone else’s choices.

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