Page 1 of My Solemn Vow (The Mafia Arrangement #1)

VALOR

LIFE AT HOME

Parenting advice is bullshit ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent, the self-help books are great for target practice.

No matter how prepared you are or how much reading you do, nothing can accurately depict the complexities of raising a daughter as a single dad.

Or maybe I just got lucky. It’s the only explanation for the seven-year-old, who is probably the more stable one of the two of us.

Kerrianne dances around the big-box store’s school supply aisle, and I have the heart-aching realization that my little girl is growing up faster than I’m ready to admit.

We’ve barely started our shopping trip, and I can tell Kerrianne is more excited about the second grade than I am. In a little over two weeks, I lose the joy of spending almost every day with her, and it’s as if a sharp knife is jammed into my chest.

Practically at the end of the aisle away from me, Kerrianne spins her skirt in a big swoop.

“What do we need first, Dad?” She stops spinning to look at me .

“Alright.” I start at the top and skim the list. “We need four different folders.”

While Kerrianne peruses, I step a bit toward the far side of the aisle. Sean, her personal bodyguard and one of my best men, is standing partially out of sight at the other end. As I knew he would be, but I couldn’t help double-checking.

I do what I can to give Kerrianne the freedom of a day out with her dad. But even in a big-box store full of other people, there are no safety guarantees.

My bodyguard and private driver, Jack, is a few aisles over, pretending to browse greeting cards or some shit like that.

“Why don’t they have any tortoise folders?” Kerrianne sighs and her shoulders slump. “They’ve got dolphins, dogs, and cats but no tortoises or turtles.”

“Well, it’s probably because a tortoise isn’t a very common house pet and not a common pet at all for school children?” I don’t bother lying.

Kerrianne has been obsessed with tortoises since I brought her to the fancy fish store.

We went looking for a betta as a family pet but walked out with a tortoise.

The four-pound, seven-inch Russian tortoise, who is roughly the same age as me, named Captain, is most certainly not traditional.

Not my first choice of pets by a long shot.

Instead of a manageable twenty-gallon fish tank, I got a construction project to build the perfect indoor enclosure, a gardening project for summer roaming space, a tortoise that eats a wider variety of vegetables than my daughter, and a very happy pup. What can I say? I’m that dad.

“Let’s get dinosaurs too.” Kerrianne comes back with three folders — two different colors of T. rex and one with a variety of them mixed in with volcanoes and palm trees.

“One more, little raptor.” I correct her, showing her that she only picked out three.

She wrinkles her nose but goes back to the folder selections. Kerrianne surprises me when she chooses a brightly colored folder with pink fluffy kittens.

“You want the kitten one?” I question before I think better of it. I try not to judge her choices and encourage my daughter’s uniqueness, but this is out of character.

She makes a face. “Yeah, maybe another girl will have the same one and we can be friends.”

Her nerves about the first day are expected.

I didn’t want to change schools, but when the one she went to for kindergarten and first grade wouldn’t undergo necessary security upgrades, I made the hard choice to switch.

The new school is equally far from home but more willing to accept change.

Her nerves don’t stop her excitement though.

When I offered a trip to get school supplies or to the water park, this is what she wanted to do.

“Ten glue sticks.” I squint at the paper; how much gluing is there really?

I judge but comply with the list. Clearly the teacher knows what the students need.

Kerrianne counts them out and brings them to where I stand with the cart. We go through the list, and she picks a variety of pink, blue, and black items.

My phone rings while we’re on our way to check out. I groan when I recognize the quiet ringtone.

“Uh-oh.” Kerrianne looks at me with a pout, having learned that ringtone too by now. “Can’t you tell work you’re busy?”

“I’ll see what they want. Maybe it isn’t very important and I can play hooky with you.” I run my hand over the top of her head, taming a flyaway, before pulling the phone out of my pocket.

My father’s ‘business line’ is on the screen.

He and I decided that if it’s work related, he’ll always call me from this number, and I’ll lie and say it’s not his fault that I’m leaving her.

Someday, she’ll figure out that, as I’m the next alpha of our pack, Grandpa’s been giving me orders all along.

Much like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy, it’s a little white lie to keep some of the magic in her world.

.. And to stop Grandpa from looking like an asshole for taking her dad away from her sometimes.

“Yes?” I answer, trying to exaggerate my steadily growing annoyance. It’s not difficult. He knows what I’m doing today and interrupted anyway.

“I need your skills. I can put him in your basement if you’d like to finish the day with your daughter. But we need information. Italy and Russia are making plans, and this guy apparently knows what both of them are up to, but he’s less than enthusiastic about sharing,” Dad informs me.

Information extraction. It’s what I do, and I’m good at it, but in order to spend as much time as possible with Kerrianne, I built a secured section of the house, not on the official blueprints, so I can work while Kerrianne is at school or sleeping at night.

“Yes, I understand. I can accept the delivery, but it won’t be processed until later. Be sure to secure it properly before you depart.” I smile at Kerrianne and give her a thumbs-up.

She pumps her fist excitedly and tippy-taps on her feet.

“I’ll see to it.” Dad hangs up.

“Yay!” Kerrianne runs straight into me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Can we get ice cream before lunch?”

“What’s the rule for ice cream?” I tap my finger against my lips, pretending I’ve forgotten.

The groan she pushes out is accompanied by a pouty lip. “Green things before ice cream.”

“So, what does that say about ice cream before lunch?” I move the cart forward as the person in front of us finishes paying their bill.

“Fiiiine,” she huffs and stays close to my side while I unload the items from the cart.

My house is built like a fortress, equipped with state-of-the-art security. It’s a sanctuary away from the world and a place to raise my daughter.

The unfortunate people who are dragged here, against their will, don’t get to see all the amenities it has to offer.

Instead, they only see what’s sealed up behind the walls of my home gym, none the wiser that it’s underneath my family home.

They come, they talk, and then, when they’re no longer useful, they leave dead as a doornail through a very long, secret tunnel.

This man is no exception. He’s stuck in a custom chair I had crafted for maximum discomfort. Long nail-like spikes protrude into his body uncomfortably, between ribs and against shoulder blades.

Because my father called me before lunch, this human has been sitting in my basement for eight hours while I had a father-daughter date with my pup.

We ate lunch at an expensive restaurant, went to a handcrafted ice cream store, played with Captain, watched a movie, ate steak macaroni and cheese laced with hidden vegetables for dinner, and read no less than three bedtime stories before she finally went to sleep.

That’s a long time to sit in an uncomfortable chair screaming for your life. The acrid smells of fear and piss have me flicking on the ventilation hood before I ensure the last of the room’s soundproofing.

I compartmentalize my life much like I compartmentalize my house. An electronic tablet rests on the table closest to the door, and I use it while ignoring my unfortunate visitor.

In a few quick clicks, I open the security feed to Kerrianne’s room .

“Who the fuck are you?!” The asshole strapped to the chair coughs while I click away on the tablet. He screams for help as if someone will hear him.

I set the alerts to go off if there’s sizable movement in Kerrianne’s bedroom, if something crosses the threshold to her room, or if someone approaches the front door. The last one is in the unlikely event that someone gets past the property’s roaming security guards, gatehouse, and massive fence.

The feed flicks back to her bedroom, and I steal one last look. She’s curled up, fast asleep in her jungle-themed room. Too precious.

The asshole screams again, pulling my attention off my little raptor, and I finally deal with the problem delivery my father left for me.

As I walk around the worktable and lean against it, I answer his question from three or four screams ago. “I’m the last person who will see you alive.”

It’s a bit dramatic, but it keeps the fear response high. Self-preservation can be a good tool to wield against someone.

“No.” He shakes, and the color drains from his face while I smile and cross my arms over my chest.

I cock my head and examine him. I’ve never known how to respond when they argue with me about their inevitable death. Just because they don’t want it to be true doesn’t mean it isn’t.

Though I’ve found that offering them one last choice is amusing. “We can make this quick. You tell me everything you know, and the worst of your suffering will be the hours of sitting in that chair in your own piss.”

“Let me go!” He struggles, even though it’s no use.

No one escapes the chair. Far tougher humans and other shifters have tried.

“Or we can do this the hard way. I extract a variety of?—”

Three beeps from the tablet behind me demand my attention .