Page 10 of Abducted By the Mafia Don
“Yeah.” She nods easily.
“And your mother?”
“We think she died when I was a baby. She disappeared, and apparently that wasn’t like her.”
“I’m sorry.” I make a note to follow up and see if I can discover what happened.
“It’s always been me and Granny, so it’s been okay. I miss that I don’t have a father more, to be honest.” There’s longing in her blue eyes as they meet mine. “I would try to find him, if I could.”
I nod, in what I hope is a sympathetic way. She wants a father, would a Daddy do? I could manage that, but I’m not telling her she’s the daughter of Thaxted.
“You don’t know who he is?”
“No.” The sadness around her eyes deepens. “Unknown on the birth certificate.”
“Must be tough not to know your family.” As painful as it is to have lost mine, I can’t imagine the lonely gap not ever having them would leave.
She shrugs. “Granny says he was a waste of space.”
That we can agree on. And thankfully, Taggie doesn’t seem to know about Thaxted and his strategy of collecting his children at age twenty-one. That makes protecting her a little easier.
“The young men who attempted to assault you last night. Did you recognise them?” I check.
She shakes her head. “I’d never seen them before.” Her gaze flicks up to mine, and I wonder for a second if she’s going to add, “unlike you”. But she doesn’t. “I met them in the club, and one of them invited me to go to another bar with him.”
Jealous fury flares in me.
He made a move on my girl. Little shit deserved to die for what he did to Taggie, but I might have murdered him for thinking he could even look at something so beautiful.
“Who were they…?” she asks tentatively.
“They’re sons of Thaxted.”
She shrugs and gives me a blank look.
“He’s the kingpin of Thaxted in Essex. Part of the Essex cartel.”
That makes her draw in a breath, and I know by the flash of fear in her eyes that she understands my meaning.
London mafia bosses are feared and loved in equal measure. The Essex cartel? They’re just hated.
“So,” she pauses. “Why is he your enemy?”
She’s remarkably direct for a slight little thing. I do her the honour of responding in the same way.
“Because two years ago he killed my whole family in cold blood,” I say simply, but there’s nothing simple about it.
The Richmond mafia was a happy, corrupt family that argued and loved and cared for each other.
We weren’t unreasonable. We made huge amounts of money, my father was the sort of mafia don who knew every person who worked for him by name, and the shouting matches were as passionate as the Italian heritage on my mother’s side would have you believe.
The funeral brought the whole of Richmond to a standstill for two days as people came to pay their respects.
“This was retaliation?” She peeks at me from under her long lashes, her curls over her cheeks as though she’s trying to hide her thoughts, but I read them anyway.
“Yes,” I reply. “But I can see that you think perhaps after two years I don’t really care?”
“No!” she squawks, and it’s obviously a “yes”.
