SWNOVELS Mila: The Godfather: Part 1 – Chapter 14
RIAGAN
“I saw a shooting star and thought of you.” – R
“Idid not know that, Mila. Tell me more.” I hate listening to other people speak. It is mainly due to the fact that most of the time, they have nothing useful or of substance to say. Nothing that interests me in any way, aside from business and money.
But this girl could easily talk about literal shit all day, and I would listen patiently and ask for more.
I also lied to her. I said I wouldn’t lie to her, but some lies are justified.
Little white lies, they’re called.
I did it regardless, just so I could listen to her voice and watch as her face lit up while she talked about things she loves. Of course, I know what the clover means to my people. I also know what it means to the Irish clan.
The three-leaf clover was used to explain the holy trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It also represents faith, hope, and love.
In my world, the three-leaf clover represents power, money, and chaos.
A fourth leaf is where we get the luck from.
I don’t tell her any of that. Instead, I listen to her explanation of the plant.
While she talks, I look at her.
Fucking insanely gorgeous.
That would be the only fair way to describe her.
And I felt that didn’t do her any justice.
There was the slightest hint of exoticness in her features, in her sun-kissed skin, golden mane of curly, waist-length hair, and in her light blue eyes. Eyes that in the sunlight, looked more green than blue. Her jaw is small, her nose was small too and straight, her lips full, her brows a bit darker than her hair.
Just… too fucking pretty.
It wasn’t even fair to the rest of the world.
The Parisi princess was a cute kid back when I first saw her, but the woman before me is drop-dead gorgeous without even trying. A skill most women don’t possess.
And her voice.
Although soft, it was just as pretty as the rest of her too. Sultry, one might say. That one being me, who definitely thought it was sultry as fuck.
This girl.
This girl who looks like sunshine in a bottle is a walking contradiction.
She’s dressed in a floral white dress that makes her look like a princess straight out of a fairytale. Making her look as if she fell into a time portal that sucked her out of the fifties and dropped her straight into today. I always went for the prom queen type of woman with big tits and fake everything. The complete opposite of this girl. In truth, women were just quick fucks to me. Nothing serious. Just a body I could get lost in and escape the gruesome shit I deal with daily even if it’s only for a few hours, but then I met this girl, and with just one smile, I was forgetting my own damn name. I was breaking all the rules. “Riagan.” I smile wide when she says my name. Fuck me, but I love the way she says it. Riagan, not Rian. She calls me the name my mother gave me at birth. “Did you know the clover plant is a member of the pea family?”
“No, I didn’t.” It’s true. My knowledge of the plant only goes so far. She gets this adorable look on her face that says she can’t fathom the idea of me not knowing that. “Did you know that for every 10,000 three-leaf clovers there is one lucky four-leaf clover?” I offer a fun fact of my own. Am I trying to impress her? I am, and I couldn’t give one single fuck if it makes me seem lame. It’s worth it.
I watch in fascination as her mouth parts and her eyes meet mine for a brief second before she goes back to looking at my cheek. “That fact I missed.”
I hold in the laugh bubbling in my chest. She’s not only adorable but funny as hell and she doesn’t even realize it.
“Now you know.” I lean back in the seat, cracking my neck as I do. Fuck I hate flying. I kill, lie, and cheat for a living, and I’m afraid of flying. The beauty sitting a few feet from me is the perfect distraction, though. “Might I ask why you like plants so much?” Most women enjoy jewelry, money, and status, yet this girl likes simple things. Like plants. She knows way too much about them.
Mila leans back on her seat and stretches her legs, getting comfortable. The look on her face makes me wish I hadn’t asked the question at all. She’s no longer beaming with excitement. “You don’t have to tell me, sweetheart.”
She sighs but doesn’t look my way. Instead, she looks down at her hands, which are now placed between her legs. “It’s okay,” she whispers, and I hate it. What the fuck happened inside that hellish home that made her afraid of being who she is? That cunt Parisi is lucky his daughter made him disappear, and I can’t get my hands on him. I would gut him like a fucking fish before I pissed on his corpse. Fathers are supposed to care for and protect their daughters. They’re supposed to be the one safe person they can always turn to without hesitation, but that fucker was their nightmare, and there is no doubt in my mind that he is the reason why this young girl has demons in her eyes when she thinks no one is looking. “Did you know that loneliness is an all-too-common feeling experienced by a staggering number of people?”
“Are you lonely, Mila?” I speak up, but I don’t think she hears me until I see her lips pull up in a sad smile.
“Not so much anymore, but I was very lonely at one point. Then I learned about plants and how they help more than just the planet.” The sadness in her eyes is gone. Thank fuck because I can’t stand tears. “Most people like the way plants look in their homes and offices. Their aesthetic. For me, plants gave me something to take care of. When I spend time around plants, I feel deeply connected to them, which to me, is necessary to combat loneliness. It also gave me a purpose.” Mila takes a deep breath and continues. “I find it… difficult to connect with other people, but not plants. They’re easy to love and care for.” When she puts it like that, I couldn’t agree more. Humans are rotten, but plants, and even animals, are easier to care for. To love. I stay quiet, enjoying her talking and sharing with me something she loves even if she doesn’t realize that is exactly what she is doing. She’s giving me pieces of herself and I’m starving for more. “Do you have a favorite plant? A flower?” she asks so sweetly I can actually feel my heart skip a beat.
Leaning forward, I’m so close I can smell her. Sweet. So sweet. She smells of a mix between coconut and vanilla. Mouthwatering. When I get close enough that I can feel her breath on my skin, I open my mouth to answer her question, but before I can get a word out we are interrupted. At this moment, I feel like throwing the person, who, with their sudden interruption made Mila retreat into herself and look back towards the window, off the plane.
“Would you like something to drink, sir? Or can I offer you something to eat” The flight attendant, Imogen asks.
I don’t miss her flirtatious tone and sexual innuendo. I don’t fuck where I eat. My employees know this. So where does this woman get off, acting as if I would even consider touching her with a ten-inch pole. She’s an attractive woman, yes, but she is not ’the woman.’ Plus, she’s pissing me the fuck off when she’s deliberately ignoring my guest.
Turning my face, I address the girl currently looking out the window and tapping her chest simultaneously. Why does she do that? I wonder. Does her chest hurt? “Mila.” I try my damnedest to sound less freighting and more gentle when I speak to her. She reminds me of a baby deer. Incredibly adorable, yet very vulnerable. Mila turns her face, and I have to take a moment to find my breath. This girl has ruined me for all women. “Yes?”
“Would you like anything to drink? Are you hungry?”
She cautiously looks at Imogen, then her gaze returns to me. “Water is fine.” The second the words leave her mouth, a subtle low growl comes from her. Her stomach. Heat creeps up her neck and tints her cheek a pretty shade of pink.
I smile when she ducks her head in embarrassment. Fuck, adorable. I’m so fucked.
Without looking away from her, I order. “She will have a grilled chicken sandwich. No lettuce and no tomatoes. A side of Mac and cheese and an order of waffle fries. A coke for her and a glass of whiskey for me.” When I’m done, both women are staring at me with faces of disbelief. One is looking at me, somewhat embarrassed, and the one I care for is looking at me as if I’ve read her mind, and now she’s freaked the fuck out. Yeah, perhaps I’m pushing, but fuck it, she’s hungry. When Imogen doesn’t move, I turn to regard her with a frosty and indifferent look. I’m not a piece of shit. I don’t mistreat women, but this one thought she was being slick, and that shit doesn’t bid well with me. “Go on. My guest is hungry.”
Imogen’s face contorts into an angry scowl, but she has the good sense to keep her trap shut. I gesture for her to hurry, which pisses her off more.
Before she leaves in the direction she came from, she’s stopped by the sweetest voice. “Excuse me.” Both Imogen and I turn to Mila. “Do you know the death rate for airplanes?” I can’t help but smile when Mila directs her question at the flight attendant without looking away from the window.
The flight attendant glares at her, then simultaneously rolls her eyes up to her eyebrows. Before she says anything that might get her ass thrown off this plane, I give her a warning glare. One that says ’say a word to upset my guess, and it will be the last words you speak.” I told the woman. “Leave us,” I add.
“She doesn’t like her job very much does she?” The littlest Parisi finally looks away from the window and looks my way. She looks at my lips, to be precise. A smirk tips the corner of her mouth.
“What makes you think that?” I ask, enjoying her eyes on me too damn much. She might not look me in the eyes, but fuck, does her gaze burn my skin, and the most endearing thing about it is that she has no idea how much she affects me. None.
“I can sense… attitude,” she mumbles.
“Has nothing to do with her job, sweetheart. I pay her well and she gets to travel the world.”
“Then I don’t understand what her dilemma is.” Her brows furrow as she most likely thinks of what could have possibly made the flight attendant act so rude towards her.
“Some people are just petty, butterfly.” I shrug. “Petty, rude, and boring, and that’s reason enough to pretend they don’t exist.” I don’t tell her that the reason Imogen was rude to her was due to the fact that she can’t compare. Her rudeness was driven by jealousy. Plain and simple.
“Butterfly? Why did you call me that? That is not my name. My name is—”
Holding back a chuckle, I say. “I know your name. I called you butterfly because you remind me of them. Pretty, delicate, and rare.”
Her eyes turn a brighter shade of turquoise, and the corner of her mouth slowly lifts. “My father used to call me retard, so I guess calling me a bug is a step up.”
The moment the awful word slips from her mouth, a need to turn this plane around and pay her father a little visit is taking over my senses. That motherfucker Parisi has always been and will always be a cunt, even to the day he takes his last breath. “Don’t say that shit.” I try to refrain from chastising her.
“You know I am autistic, correct?”
I shrug. Of course, I know.
It means nothing to me.
I watch her watching me back with a frown on her face and her eyes moving at a rapid pace. I don’t need to be a mind reader to understand she’s trying to gauge my reaction to her confession.
“Because of my disability, I will miss subtle clues. You will need to explain things directly to me.” I hear her.
I look only at her. “Whatever you need, Mila,” I tell her, unbothered.
She nods. “Thank you.” she smiles, then says. “I like it. Butterfly. Sweetheart, too.” she clarifies.
“I like it too, Mila.” I like it way too much. More than a man like me should.
“I’m not weak, nor am I stupid.” She whispers shily, surprising me with the sudden change. “Most people find out about my disability and look at me differently as if I am lacking somehow. They’re wrong. I am very smart, and I might say smarter than most, and my disability does not define me. It’s called Asperger’s Syndrome or autism spectrum disorder, and it is a part of me, yes, but it’s not everything. I’m more than a disability.”
She is.
She’s kind when she’s known only harshness and cruelty.
She is brilliant and talented as fuck.
I don’t see her differently, and I never will. I never have.
I nod, looking at her while she looks down at her hands. “I know.”
“I’m tough.” She mumbles so softly I almost miss it.
“You are.”
“I can take care of myself and my people.” She speaks a bit louder now.
“I know you can.” But now I’m here, and I’ll take care of you. I want to say, but I swallow the words, not wanting to reveal all my truths early and spook her.
Her eyes try to focus on my face for a second longer than last time, and even though I had her eyes for less than a minute trained on mine, I could feel her gaze burning my soul. Those beautiful eyes of hers will surely be the death of me because one look from her years ago burned itself in my memory. Just one look, and she made herself my business.
“My assessment of you from before is incorrect.” She says while tapping her chin three times and looking anywhere but my face.
I suppress the need to laugh because I don’t want to make her feel like I didn’t take her seriously. I lean back in my seat and ask with a straight face. “How so?”
“Well, back at the alley, I thought you were a villain who came to hurt me…” Her words sound childlike, and it angers me how such a tenderhearted heart could ever be treated the way she was. Grinding my teeth, I suppress the need to tell her how I really feel about her scum of a family, but instead, I remain quiet, allowing her to continue. “But you haven’t hurt me, and I don’t believe you will.” A breath I didn’t think I was holding escapes me when she says it. Good. At least she doesn’t fear me. In this world, there are plenty of things a girl like her should fear, but not me. Never me, and from this moment on, if I have anything to say about it, she will never fear anything again. Because even when I wasn’t with her, I was present. In many ways. She just doesn’t realize it. She will. “I think you’re a little bit of both.” Her softly spoken words interrupt my thoughts.
Taking out my zippo, I play with the metal lid. “Both?”
She nods enthusiastically as her wild curls jump up and down around her face. “The villain and the hero.” She beams before leaning back on her seat, holding tightly to her seatbelt.
She thought of me as a villain and now as a hero, too.
Something in my chest moves.
There’s pressure, and I have to try hard to catch my breath because her trust in a man like me is admirable, even after the life she’s had. And yet, she saw me murder a man and still sees heroic qualities in me. No one has ever looked at me like she has in just a day.
See me the way this sweet girl has.
Except for two people.
My parents.
So right here, right now, I vow to myself that I will treasure her trust and even in my darkest moment, I will hold on to it. Because a man like me knows a girl like her is too fucking good to be true.
She should have been the last woman I was interested in. Mila is sheltered and kindhearted. She sees light in the darkness. Goodness in the hopeless.
Her skin is perfectly intact, and mine is not only inked but scarred from the sins I’ve committed throughout my life.
I enjoy the sound of my gun going off right before I claim a life, and she gets triggered by it.
This hold she has on me is inexplicable, though maybe that was what I liked best about her.
But there was just something about Mila.
It doesn’t help that she is a knockout.
And she doesn’t even know it. I’d never met a beautiful woman who wasn’t at least somewhat aware of their attractiveness.
The light moved higher, taking in the ends of her curly blond hair that was fanned outward around her face.
Fuck.
And what a face.
Full, somewhat oversized lips, prominent cheekbones, a straight nose, somewhat natural brows – which was refreshing. Actually, as a whole, she seemed to have almost no makeup on, save for a little pink to her lips which I think is the natural hue of her lips. Gorgeous.
That night when I first met her, I left the Volpe mansion and tried to push the image of the girl with sad eyes out of my mind, but I couldn’t. I failed. I wondered if she was okay. If she was being mistreated in any way. At first, it was just innocent, until years later, when the lines I drew started to blur, and I couldn’t stop seeing her. Those damn butterflies in her hair. Those unfocused, pained, light blue eyes looking up at me. And it suddenly became my fucking business.
Yeah… women like Mila don’t end up with men like me, but fuck it, if I’m not going to give it all I got.
Twenty minutes later, Imogen arrives with our food and with a new attitude. Then, I spent the rest of the flight nursing a glass of whiskey while Mila stuffs her face and shares a dozen or more scientific facts she learned just this morning.
Without a doubt, I can say these four hours with her were some of my best in a long time. If not the best.
Before, I didn’t quite understand my infatuation with the youngest Parisi. I thought it was only pity.
Until I understood what it really was.
What is different about her from the ones who came before.
Mila Areya Parisi feels like home.
She is home.