Until we see you again.
Prologue
2019~
I didn’t like Momma’s new boyfriend, but she said I had to be nice to him.
I didn’t want to be nice to him. I didn’t want to play with him at all.
I knew if Michael was here, he wouldn’t make me play with him, but Michael was gone. He was gone a lot. He said he had a job, but I didn’t know what his job was. He did buy me pretty dolls sometimes when he was home. I liked that.
I wished he was home now.
Momma said her new boyfriend’s name was Robert, but if I was nice to him, he’d let me call him Bob. I didn’t want to call him anything. I didn’t like the way he looked at me. It gave me the creeps. One day, after Robert left to take Momma on a date, I told Michael that I didn’t like Robert. He said he’d make sure that Robert left me alone, and I believed him because Michael was a good big brother.
Michael was big, though, and that’s why he had to work so much. When you get big you have to get a job so you can pay your bills. Michael also told everyone I was his sister even though we had different daddies. Michael’s last name was Morelli and mine was Gallo. He was ten years older than I was and that made him a grownup.
Momma’s scream made me run out of my room. She sounded scared and I knew Robert must be hitting her like he likes to do sometimes. But when I ran into the living room, I didn’t see Robert hitting Momma.
No.
I saw four big guys wearing fancy clothes. They looked like important guys. They looked like they had good jobs. I wondered if Michael worked with them.
I looked around and saw Momma sitting on the couch, and she had her arms wrapped around her legs like she was cold. I was scared, but she was crying. “Momma?”
One of the big guys walked over to me, and he bent down, so I could see his face. He had eyes the color of the sun. They were pretty eyes.
He smiled and I thought he looked nice. “Mia? Is your name Mia?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I answered. “My name is Mia and I have a brother named Michael.”
“That’s good, honey,” he said. “I’m friends with your brother Michael.”
I was right. These men worked with Michael. “Do you guys work with him?”
The man kept smiling. “You could say that.”
I looked over at the other men in the room. “Is he with you?”
The nice guy shook his head. “No, honey, he’s not. But he asked us if we could come over and pick you up.”
That confused me. “Pick me up for what?”
The man didn’t answer. “How old are you, Mia?”
“I’m eight. I’ll be nine in two months,” I told him.
“Mia, have you ever heard of your mother’s cousin, Jeanie?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Well, Michael is over at Jeanie’s house, and he’s getting a room ready for you so you can go stay with him. Would you like that?”
I looked over at Momma crying on the couch. “Wh…what about…what about Momma?”
“Your Momma is sick, honey,” he said. “We’re going to take her to the doctor, so she can get better. Would you like that?”
“Really?” I hoped he wasn’t lying. I’d like Momma to get better if she was sick.
“Yes, but she’s very sick,” he said again. “So, it’s going to take a long time for her to get better. But Michael and your cousin, Jeanie, are going to take care of you while she gets better.”
I grabbed his face and pulled him closer. I didn’t want the other men to hear. “Does that mean there won’t be stranger-danger anymore?”
His voice sounded funny, but he kept smiling. “I promise, Mia. There won’t be any stranger-danger at all. There will always be someone looking out for you.”
“What about Robert?” I asked him. “Won’t he get mad at Momma if I’m not here to play with him?”
The man grabbed my shoulders and said, “Don’t you worry about Robert, honey. I’m going to make sure he never gets mad at anyone ever again.”
Chapter 1
Nico – (Twelve Years Later)~
College was bullshit.
I mean, I got the point of it all, but it was a pain in the ass following Mia all over the campus. It wasn’t like grade school or high school where her hours were set. Here, she made her own schedule every semester and it was a pain in the fucking ass. That being said, I’d still follow the girl anywhere, given the choice.
However, I didn’t have a choice.
I’d been following Mia Gallo’s every step since I was 14-years-old, and it was my fulltime job as part of the Benetti Family crew.
When I was fourteen, Massimo had died of cancer and left all us latchkey kids to have to fend for ourselves. It wasn’t that my parents were bad people, but Nico and Stella Rossi were poor and worked back-breaking hours, leaving me alone a lot. Like most of the kids in the neighborhood, Massimo had fed and clothed me when necessary. He also hid me from the cops a time or two.
Within a month or so of his death, Luca Benetti had swept the neighborhood, looking for any kids that needed extra help now that Massimo was gone. He had assigned someone to look over us, but it hadn’t been the same.
There’d been only one Massimo.
The first time I met Luca Benetti, I had almost pissed my ill-fitting pants. He had come to take care of Massimo’s personal matter, like his house, car, and stuff, and he had found me quietly crying in the back room that Massimo, sometimes, let me sleep in.
I remember looking up into those black eyes of his and thinking he was Satan come to kill me. I’m not sure why I had thought that, but Luca Benetti had that
