SWNOVELS Mila: The Godfather: Part 1 – Chapter 38
MILA
“I found home in his arms. I found love.” – M
In a cold hallway of the Parisi mansion, a seven-year-old Mila hummed her favorite song as she colored the boring and plain white wall with her coloring markers, buzzing with excitement at the idea of giving the walls of their home color to not have it look so cold and empty all the time.
The little girl chose to paint a tiny mural as a gift to her family.
Pretty pictures made her heart happy, so she thought it would have the same effect on them as well.
On the walls, she drew every member of her family. Her parents, her sisters, her grandmother, and even some of the maids.
The little girl was good for her age. Incredibly talented and imaginative, which made a good combination for a tiny artist like herself.
She first drew her eldest sister, Arianna, holding her sister’s hands, looking strong and authoritative with a smirk on her beautiful face, and then she drew her middle sister, Kadra, wearing black clothes with a small smile on her face.
Mila spends most of her time when she’s not reading or painting, studying her sister’s expressions and actions in hopes of better understanding them. After a while, she caught on to the fact that her sisters only smiled for her. Not for their parents or for the other people who lived in their house.
Just her.
That is why whenever she draws her two sisters, she gives them smiles.
Not full-blown smiles but subtle ones.
The ones who show Mila how hard they try for her.
Real smiles.
Then she drew her parents.
She did not give them lots of color like she did her sisters because even at such a young age the little girl understands the truth of her parents.
They’re colorless.
Sad.
Angry.
Mean.
Absent.
She drew them regardless.
Wanting to include them in her drawing, even if they did not care one bit for her.
“Mila…” Someone breathes out.
“What have you done, stelina?” Another voice rings in the silence.
The little girl, startled and confused by her sisters’ tone of voice, drops her markers, making a mess on the floor.
She might not understand most emotions or situations, but she knows that tone all too well.
Shock.
Sadness.
Terror.
Mila, confused by their reaction, frowns, not understanding why they sound so sad. “I drew us! Look.” Mila smiles and points to the wall while both her sisters stand rooted in the same spot, frozen and afraid.
A moment of silence that makes the small girl anxious passes between them.
Mila wonders what she did wrong but is unable to come up with an answer.
Her brain starts working hard, searching for a reason as to why her sisters look as if they saw a ghost, but she comes up empty.
And then she understands. It all sinks in. Why did her sisters react in that manner instead of being happy or pleased with her drawing?
One moment, she’s staring at her sisters, wondering what is going on, and the next her father, Gabriele, appears behind them with an ugly and mean look on his face, the same look the evil villain in her favorite stories has before they do something terrible.
The same look her father has when he says ugly things and hits her. When he hits her sisters.
At that moment, she understands that not all people appreciate the small things in life.
Some people don’t have goodness or love in their hearts.
It all happens so fast that the little girl is barely able to register it all because, when things get loud and chaotic, she hides inside her safe haven.
Her mind.
Glass explodes all over when her father throws his drink on the floor beside her.
The noise of breaking glass hurts her ears more than the pieces of sharp glass hurt her skin.
Loud voices sound all around her.
Her father’s angry shouts and slurred words.
Her sister’s frightening screams as they both near the little girl, shielding her from their father’s wrath.
But not once does the little girl scream in pain, no.
Instead, she curls into her body like a tiny ball, rocking herself in tune with her favorite song.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are!
Even though her arms and thighs were bleeding with pieces of glass deep in her skin, the little girl never stopped singing.
Not once did she shed a tear, not until she realized her grave mistake.
Her sisters once again put themselves in the middle, trying to lessen her pain.
She was to blame is all she could think about at that moment.
The tears fell rapidly when she saw a struggling Arianna fighting her father’s arms as he took her away, kicking and screaming, and her sister Kadra not far behind, pleading for their father to punish her instead.
Mila wonders how could a pretty picture garner so much hatred?
Why does her existence make their father so angry?
Everything the youngest Parisi princess does makes him want to hurt her or her sisters.
After that horrible instance, Mila understood what she needed to do to keep her sisters safe.
She needed to disappear.
She needed to live as if she were invisible.
As if she were never born.
And so, she did.
Riagan
Leaning back in the patio’s lounge chair, I look up at the sky, taking a long drag of my cig. I’ve been trying to cut back on smoking since arriving on the islands.
I now only do it outside, and when I know Mila is nowhere nearby.
I’m not addicted, but I especially needed one tonight after that fucking kiss.
Her taste still lingers in my mouth. Not even the taste of nicotine could rid me of it.
The moment my lips touched hers, I felt the ground move from under me, and I started craving things I knew I was not ready for. The thoughts of all the filthy things I want to do to her beautiful body are keeping me up now, hence why I’m outside, in the middle of the night, smoking in the dark.
Thud.
A noise, as if something fell hard on the ground, sounds from upstairs. My mind instantly goes to the worst-case scenario.
Fuck.
Mila.
Throwing the cig to the ground, I stomp on it, putting it out before hurrying inside the house, taking the stairs two at a time on my way to her room.
Heart beating fast, I think of all the scenarios waiting for me once I open her door.
It’s just the two of us here with Kelly out back.
I’ve been standing guard all fucking night, like I do every night since we came here.
The entire state has the best security system money can buy, plus Kelly and I are armed and ready to eliminate any threat to her safety. I highly doubt someone was able to trespass, but you can never be too sure.
Not when the woman who’s taken hold of my every thought had a million-dollar hit on her head.
She could have fallen and hurt herself.
Opening her door, the first thing I notice is the light on. Of course, I know she sleeps with her night light. That’s not unusual. What has my heart beating a mile a minute is that her bed is neatly made, the sheets without a crease on them.
Also, the bed is fucking empty.
Stepping farther inside the room, my eyes move everywhere in search of her. Nothing. Fuck.
Having decided, I search the whole damn house for her, I turn toward her door and notice the walk-in closet’s door slightly open.
And I almost don’t hear it. The sound is so low I almost miss it. A whimper. As if a defenseless animal was in pain and frightened. That is how it sounded.
The feeling in my chest, the ache, only intensifies when I move towards the closet. I open the door wider and there she is.
Mila is lying on the carpeted floor with only a thin blanket covering her body. She cries in her sleep, and her body twitches as if it hurts.
I’ve seen a lot of tragic shit in my thirty-one years of life, and it almost never moves me, but this sight right here does.
It tears my heart in two.
There’s a frown on her face that makes it look like she’s in pain while stuck in a dream state.
She’s having a nightmare.
I notice how she’s touching the barely visible scars on her hands while she cries out for someone to not hurt them. Them? Frowning, I wonder if she means her sisters? Who else could’ve been?
Fuck that family.
Fuck anyone who failed to keep her safe.
Someone will answer for this. For her pain.
I won’t fucking sleep right again until I give back every single scar she has on her skin and the ones you can’t see because she hides them with her sweet smiles.
Having had enough of watching her suffer in her dream, I gently pick her up from the floor and bring her closer to my chest. Holding her securely in my arms, I leave the closet, move toward her bed and lie on it with a still-in-distress Mila in my arms.
I’ve never been a man who feels comfortable touching or consoling others. It isn’t in my nature, or so I thought, because with her, it comes easy.
Naturally.
“Shhhh.” I whisper while pushing her soft curls away from her face. She’s cold. Dammit.
I hug her closer and drape the covers over both of us.
I watch her, wondering what nightmare is haunting her mind—what she’s seeing and feeling. I worry about what demons could be brainwashing her. I watch her sleep, taking in every delicate detail of her face, the length of her eyelashes, how they rest on her cheeks like little feathers, and the way her lips part as she breathes. I want her in my bed like this every day, with the sun shining down on her golden curls like a halo. “I’m here, butterfly. I’ve always been here and always will be.” I rock her gently wishing I could wipe away all the shit that she’s seen. All the pain in her heart and all the memories are currently haunting her.
Women as pure and good as this one should only have beautiful dreams. Sweet memories.
Not nightmares.
Definitely not scars.
Hatred runs thick in my veins at this moment while I’m holding my girl, and I make another silent vow to find Gabriele Parisi, wherever the fuck he’s hiding at, and slash his skins, returning every fucking scar he gave to his youngest child.
And I’ll take down anyone who gets in my way.
The current Parisi boss included.