“And I just want you to be safe,” Cynthia added after a moment.
Mac wanted to soothe whatever worries his mother had, but it was an impossible task. For one, because he was her son and she would worry about him regardless of what he was doing. He could be a damn surgeon, and she would still fret herself right into a panic over his welfare. And for two, because Mac couldn’t promise he would always be safe in his job.
He was a made man.
A Mafioso.
And that put a giant target on his back every single day of his life.
“I’m good, Ma,” he said quietly.
It was the best he could give her.
Cynthia seemed satisfied, at least for the moment. “I should thank you for dragging your sister over to visit me today. She’s always so busy.”
Something like that.
Mac didn’t bother to explain to his mother that Victoria had found herself a boyfriend, because frankly, he was still trying not to kill that boyfriend, as it was.
“She didn’t put up a fuss,” Mac chose to say.
“Tell me …”
“What?”
Cynthia stopped walking, letting Victoria go on ahead for quite a ways before she let the hold she had on Mac’s arm go, and turned to face him on the pathway.
“You know that you never have to lie to me, James, right?”
Mac smiled. “I know, Ma.”
“Good. Tell me, what time are you going to get Melina from jail tomorrow?”
He might as well have turned into a statue.
Cynthia didn’t bat an eye.
Mac had made every effort he could to hide where Melina had gone from his mother. Given Cynthia hadn’t met her more than once, and that hadn’t ended particularly well, due to an unexpected visit from Mac’s cocksucker of a father, he didn’t want his mother building bad opinions of the woman he loved.
Because he did love Melina.
Entirely.
Mac wanted his mother to love her, too.
So, he hid what happened, and made excuses.
“How did you know?” Mac asked.
Cynthia shrugged. “Picked up a paper one day and it happened to have an article in there, second page, with your face plastered across it. Hers, too.”
Mac cringed. “The sentencing?”
“It was a very sweet picture, James.”
He sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his face. Melina’s sentencing had been the one day Mac had been given permission from his boss to see her before she was carted off. Luca told him that he was to keep his head down, not draw attention to himself, and steer clear of any reporters.
Mac fucked that up in a big way by kissing Melina, getting their picture taken by the press, and then having it printed two days later with quite the headline.
Suspected Mobster Kisses Convicted Girlfriend Goodbye
At least they hadn’t called Melina a hooker in the headline.
Mac gave them that.
It was also the only reason why he hadn’t burned the fucking newspaper’s headquarters down to the goddamn ground.
He’d taken hell from Luca, which included a threat to skin Mac alive if he ever disobeyed his boss again.
Mac decided not to test Luca on that one.
“Well?” his mother asked, bringing him out of his thoughts.
“Around noon,” Mac said.
Cynthia nodded once. “Great. I will have a supper ready. I want to see her.”
“Ma—”
“This is not a discussion, James.”
Well, that was that. Mac supposed he could hold off on getting his girl alone and in private for at least an extra hour or two.
Maybe.
Melina looked up at the wall again and silently cursed. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d done that today. It was stupid, she knew. There hadn’t been a clock in her cell since she’d been imprisoned, and one was not about to magically appear because she wanted to count down the time until her sentence was finished.
“Shouldn’t be long now,” Erika said. She shuffled a pack of playing cards in her hands as she gave Melina a wide smile.
“Maybe. Maybe I still have a while,” Melina said, more nonchalantly than she felt.
Erika rolled her eyes. “Would it kill you to have some optimism for once in your life?”
“Yes.” And then Melina laughed.
“Ah, she does have a sense of humor. Too bad you’re just now deciding to share it.”
“Sometimes it’s best to leave some things to the imagination,” Melina said.
Sliding down from her top bunk, she stood and stretched, stealing a glance toward the steel-barred doors.
“Everything is going to be fine, you know,” Erika said quietly.
“Miss Eternal Optimism rears her head again. What do you know that I don’t, Erika?”
Putting down the deck of cards, Erika motioned for Melina to take a seat next to her on the small concrete slab in the center of their cell. Reluctantly, Melina did as the younger woman asked. Flipping a long twist over her shoulder, Erika pinned Melina with a deep stare.