The Mafia’s Girlfriend (Mafia Romance #1)

Chapter 1

Luke

S tabbing pricks of pain came up along my jawline. Heat rose with the inflamed skin where I’d taken a hard right hook last night. The stinging sensation jarred me awake, and I groaned as I slapped at my alarm clock going off.

Another fucking day in paradise.

Lots of people considered Florida such a utopia. Paradise with beaches, sunshine, and good times galore. But for those of us working here with no hope of ever catching up with life? Paradise was a joke.

“Lucas?”

I sighed at the sound of my mother’s voice, reminded all at once of my reason why. Why I forced myself to get up and go to work at the Tropican after a mere five hours of sleep. Why I stayed committed to street fighting to supplement my wage from the security job I held at that ritzy resort.

Nina Sawyer was my motivation, and I refused to ever quit on her. My mother deserved so much more than misery.

“I’m up. I’m up.”

Swinging my legs over the bed counted as being upright, at least. I rested my elbows on my knees and dropped my head in my hands as I willed away the lure to sleep for just a few more minutes.

“The car’s not fixed yet,” she called out from the kitchen where she toughed out the chronic weakness she suffered while making me eggs and toast. “So you’ll need all that time to walk.”

“I know.” How could I forget? I was the one who had to pay the mechanics to fix the piece of shit. They wouldn’t consider finishing the job until I paid the last of the bill. That’d be waiting a while yet. Groceries were a necessity, even if they scarcely lined our cupboards. And Mom’s medications were even higher on the list of priorities. Walking never killed anyone, so with another deep breath of exhaustion, I pushed to my feet and got ready for the day, just another one of living the dream.

I found her sitting in her chair at the small table we owned. A frugal life wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, but I wished I could offer her more.

“Ouch.” She winced at the sight of the slightly swollen redness along my jaw.

I shrugged, taking a seat to eat as quickly as I could. She had a point about the walk taking me longer. After haggling with Tim, my supervisor, for more shifts, it’d be a dick move for me not to show up on time for them. “It’s not that bad,” I told her before I dug in to the simple breakfast.

“You always say that.” She didn’t lose the lines etched on her brow. This poor woman would never stop worrying about me. And I’d never cease my concern for her. We only had each other, after all.

“So do you.” I tipped my chin at the painkillers on the table. “It’s that bad already?” I asked of the joint pain that wracked her body. Asthma, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis had reduced her to a shell of a woman she was once. The trio of ailments worsened since her bout of chemo last year.

“It’s not that bad,” she agreed.

It was a shitty inside joke for us to have.

“I got paid a little extra,” I told her, changing the subject. The news of more money was always a blessing. It served as a distraction, too, reminding her that the end justified the means.

“Oh?” She raised her brows as she crossed her thin arms.

“Yeah. He got a few lucky hits in, but I delivered a good fight.” I smiled more now, recalling the triumph over last night’s opponent. It was more like early this morning, since I was out at the fighting ring until two. Moonlighting as a fighter earned me double what I pulled in at the Tropican. Victory always tasted sweet, and my record of never losing made me more likely to win.

If Jimmy ever allows it. My “manager” wouldn’t budge on letting me move up the ranks, even though I’d proven myself for years in the fighting circuits. I’d never failed to overcome the odds. Still, that asshole cautioned me to be patient. To wait. In other words, to sit back and not make as much as I could when I wanted to. If I had decent income from those fights, I wouldn’t be in the position to ask Tim for more shifts at the resort.

Speaking of... I needed those few extra minutes this morning to see what else I could request.

“I’ll see you later,” I told my mom after I set my plate in the sink.

“Be careful,” she said as I headed through the kitchen. I could get coffee at the staff breakroom. There wasn’t any sense letting it get cold as I walked. Pausing at the table, I leaned over to kiss the top of her head, wishing against all wishes that her life didn’t have to be so hard.

“You too,” I warned.

“Oh, like I’m going to get up to any trouble?” she teased back. Unable to stand for long and too weak to do much around the house, she wouldn’t get up at all, period.

I wouldn’t be a jerk and remind her of it, though. Sometimes, life boiled down to the motto of if you can’t cry, laugh . Poking fun at ourselves dulled the ache of misery, I supposed.

“I don’t know. Trouble’s your middle name, isn’t it?”

“More like yours, Lucas,” she replied fondly before I grabbed my phone from the charger on the counter and left.

Walking this early in the morning wasn’t a challenge. With the sun’s rise into the clear blue sky, the temperature would soar and the humidity would climb. Now, it was almost pleasant. Not many idiots clogged the roads yet, and I enjoyed the brief solace and peace. The routine of putting one foot in front of the other helped to smooth out the strained muscles from last night, too. By the time I reached the rear employee entrance at the Tropican, I was awake and mostly in the mood to start a long shift.

But not before asking to pick up a few more, especially when last night was the only fight I’d have this week.

“How’d last night go?” my coworker Randy asked as he headed to the entrance with me.

I held out my fist to bump his, and we walked inside. “Fine.”

“Doesn’t look fine.” He furrowed his brow, studying the right side of my face.

“The swelling will go down.”

“You win, though?”

I smirked, amused that he’d have such low faith in me. That hit wasn’t bad. It wasn’t like I had blood dripping anywhere. I still had all my teeth. No broken bones.

“’Course, you did.” He grinned, his perfect white teeth a sharp contrast to his dark skin. “You know, some days I envy you.”

“Bullshit.” I continued through the hallways that routed us around the smaller kitchen in this particular building. Tim’s office was nestled down in the basement layer of the simplest structure on the vast Tropican property. They didn’t need to make the staff area pretty. Only utilitarian. White cinderblock walls threatened claustrophobia the further we entered the bowels of our workplace.

“I envy the money, man.” Randy shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck.

My long-time friend wasn’t in any better socioeconomic shape than I was. Instead of paying for his mom’s medications, he was stuck paying off legal debt for his dad. And while I worried I’d never get caught up with the day-to-day expenses of the simplest needs for me and Mom, he stressed about providing for his wife and kids.

“Alyssa is pregnant again.”

I faced his profile, surprised. “What?”

He exhaled a tired breath as he nodded, but a glimmer of excitement showed in his eyes. This man loved his woman. He adored his kids. But...

“Isn’t King only a few months old?”

His happiness dimmed. He winced. “Yeah.”

“Shit, man. You’ve proven how fucking fertile you guys are.”

“She couldn’t stay on the birth control for long. It was making her sick and she was running out of milk. And breastfeeding is way fucking cheaper than formula, like Regina needed when she was a baby.”

“Ever hear of a condom?” I joked.

He shrugged. “Ran out of them. And even those are expensive.”

Everything was. “I bet having another kid is more expensive.”

Shooting me a dirty look, he pushed open another door for me to enter through first. “Oh, shut up.”

“Congrats, man. Seriously.” I patted his back. I’d never admit it out loud, but I envied him. Having a wife and kids sounded like a pipedream. Settling down in a “normal” life like that wasn’t happening anytime soon for me. “But, damn.”

“Yeah. Damn is right. Two babies in one year is going to break the bank.” He rubbed his hand over his face and sighed. “I’m going to ask Tim for more shifts.”

“Me too.”

He frowned at me. “Really?”

“The cost of my mom’s medications doubled since last month. And if I can’t pay off enough of her old bills, to be in line for that surgery for her, who the fuck knows how long the wait will be.” Last I checked, people needed kidneys to survive. She could only last so long with the dialysis regime she currently had.

“Can’t Jimmy get you more fights?” he asked as we stepped into Tim’s office. The older, balding man wasn’t seated at his desk, but he couldn’t be far. While Randy and I were here because we had to be, Tim practically lived in this office to escape his four teenaged daughters’ wrath at home. Not to mention his wife and mother-in-law who lived with them.

“Or better fights?” Randy asked, looking around and talking low so no one would overhear. Street fighting wasn’t legal, and he knew better than to out me around our boss.

I shook my head, pulling my phone out to show Randy the string of texts I had with Jimmy. Our current argument left us at a standstill, of me asking Jimmy precisely what Randy said. To request more and harder fights.

Jimmy’s reply never changed.

Jimmy: Not yet. You’re not ready yet.

Randy scoffed. “Not ready yet?”

I rolled my eyes. That answer peeved me too, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Unlike my ability to come here and ask Tim for more shifts, I couldn’t take charge of my fighting agenda. Jimmy represented me, and I had to follow his say-so.

“Does he think you can’t take on better fighters?” Randy shook his head.

“I don’t see how he’d get that in his head.” I hadn’t lost a single fight. Ever. “If he’d get me just a couple of matches with the next level up, I wouldn’t have to be here as much. I wouldn’t have to fight as often, either.”

A longer spell between nights in the ring would be nice. Hell, I could actually enjoy some time off to kick back and relax. I could finally celebrate my thirtieth birthday that happened two weeks ago. It’d been a long while since I hooked up with anyone—all I could afford to do because I sure as hell wasn’t in the position to have a wife and kids like my buddy here.

“Maybe he’s right to be cautious.”

I scowled at my friend. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours. But hell, some of those elite fighters might be the kinds of guys you can’t beat.” He shrugged. “It sounds like you’re impatient to ask for more trouble you might not be able to handle.”

A slow, wry grin curved my lips up.

Trouble was all I ever found in life. What was new there?

“I can handle anything that comes my way,” I told him, not cocky but confident.

“Sure you can.” He elbowed me. “We both can. And will. Because this kind of life will chew you up and spit you out if you can’t.”

I straightened, hearing Tim returning to his office. As I pushed my shoulders back and felt a residual twinge of sore muscles, I wondered if Randy was right—if I was already gnawed on and worn out.

Tim chuckled as he saw us. As he sat in his chair, he looked at us one at a time. “Let me guess. You’re here looking for more overtime?”

“Yes,” we replied in unison.

For now.

As soon as I had a break, I’d call Jimmy. Screw his vague concerns about me not being ready. It was time for me to demand better-paying fights so I could get ahead.