Page 29 of Accidentally Kidnapping the Mafia Boss
Stalking.
“I know many things, comes with the job.” I’m not telling her I’ve found out everything I can about her. I know her birthday, and her address. I know where she works, and I had one of my men hack into the CCTV so I can watch her. I know where she buys her coffee before her shifts at the hospital, and which books she downloads to read on her phone. Her age is just a filthy little side note. She’s too innocent for me, but I can’t bring myself to stop.
“You’re very young to be taking on your brother’s addiction.” Or to be a kingpin’s obsession.
She shrugs. “I’m the only one.”
Indeed. For me, too.
“What about your parents?” I ask, although I know the answer already.
“They’re dead, and I can’t just let him destroy his life, and mine.” She sounds miserable.
“Friends? Or family friends?” I’ve only been finding out about her for a week. I might have missed something.
She shakes her head. “My parents weren’t like that.”
“Why didn’t you ask someone else to help?” Me. She could have asked me.
“Don’t you get it? There’s no one.” Her voice breaks at the end of the sentence, and her body suddenly feels heavier against my chest, like the weight of her burden of carrying all this responsibility is more present in her than before.
“That sounds very lonely.”
She nods jerkily. Reluctant and proud, even now.
“You’ve had to be so strong.” I stroke her hair. “Dealing with this on your own. Bet it was hard.”
She gives a little squeak, as though she’s trying to say yes, but can’t fully get the word out.
“You’ve done so well.” I tighten my fingers, making her feel my hold on her, in a wordless message of “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
She curls into me, and I absorb it all. Her disappointment in her brother and her parents, all her loneliness. I keep stroking her hair and neck.
The act of being what she needs soothes me in a way I hadn’t expected. I like being her pillow as she lets out all the tension she’s been holding.
“Want to tell me about it?” I prompt. My cuffed hand creeps over hers and our fingers gradually interlace. No doubt she hasn’t noticed, but I’m aware of every fractional shift that leads to my big paw to be linked with her dainty, vulnerable little hand.
“There’s not much to tell,” she says between sniffs.
“When did you start looking after Noah?”
She shrugs. “I always have.”
The story comes out in patches and my heart breaks for the small girl that she was, taking on all the responsibilities of an adult.That’s what big sisters were for, she was told, and she still obviously believes that, even as she reveals how her parents were neglectful. How she had to fend for herself and her younger brother time after time. The occasion they were left home alone for two weeks at Christmas when Millie was eleven and Noah nine, and Millie couldn’t figure out how to use the oven, so they had cereal and sandwiches leaves me biting back that it’s a good thing they’re dead, otherwise I’d kill them myself.
“Cold food still makes me sick,” she jokes, and bile rises in my throat. I’ll cook for her every day. She’ll never eat anything cold with me.
They used Millie as an unpaid carer for her younger brother, and then, to cap it all, died in a plane crash when she was eighteen and about to leave for university and she was left as her brother’s guardian.
Resting fully on me now, she takes a deep, contented sigh and shifts. Her free hand touches my forearm. For a second it’s just accidental. Then it’s not. She’s stroking my arm hair, and tracing the pattern of my tattoos beneath.
“So you see, there’s only Noah and me,” she says, petting my forearm like it’s her emotional support animal. I think she might have forgotten it’s attached to me at all. Not a problem. I can be that for her. “And that’s why I need to return to London. I fucked up my little ‘intervention’.”
“You should have asked for help from me, pet.”
She huffs sceptically.
“Go on. Ask now,” I say gently.
