Joey: Chapter 1

“Good girl,” Max says with a smirk as my right foot connects with the pad. I’m grateful that my cheeks are already flushed from the workout because those words coming from his perfect mouth have me about to melt into a puddle.

I, Joey Moretti—a one hundred percent card-carrying feminist—would gladly drop to my knees and crawl to this man if he told me to.

“You’re not done yet.” He nudges me with the pad, waiting for me to kick him again. Because our workout isn’t even half over. He works almost as hard as I do in these training sessions—pushing me to my limits and making me faster and stronger every time.

I hit him with another roundhouse, and his grunt of approval causes warmth to pool in my center. I doubt I’d work even half as hard for any other trainer, but Maximo DiMarco isn’t just any trainer. He is the reason I get out of bed every morning. He’s one of the most feared men in the city, but to me, he is sweet and funny and kind. And the fact he has a body that looks like it was chiseled by the gods themselves, not to mention the most incredible dark brown eyes I’ve ever seen in my entire life, doesn’t hurt either. But he’s also my older brothers’ best friend, the right hand of the Cosa Nostra, and as off-limits to me as any man can be.

“You tired already?” He chuckles, tapping the side of my head.

“No,” I lie. My desire to make him proud overrides any pain or fatigue that I feel during his grueling workouts.

My brothers arranged for him to teach me some self-defense, and in return I get a little more freedom. I also get to drool over a shirtless, sweaty Max every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and those mornings are the highlight of my week.

“Harder, Joey. I know you got more than that,” he says, bouncing on his toes as he moves effortlessly around the ring—like he’s not the size of a mountain.

I lean back like he taught me, swivel my hip, and strike the pad with as much strength as I have left in me.

“That’s my girl,” he says, and my breath catches in my throat. Sometimes I wonder if he does this on purpose. I mean he must know I have a huge crush on him. It’s kind of a running joke with my two sisters-in-law. And my overprotective brothers tolerate it because they know without a doubt that Max would never cross that line. Which is a damn shame if you ask me.

“Okay, kid. You got two minutes to take a quick water break, and then we do a little conditioning.”

I groan. Conditioning is code for torture. Burpees and mountain climbers and all kinds of other insane exercises that Max makes me do at the end of my workout.

“You should enjoy this while you can. Your new trainer won’t take it so easy on you,” Max says with a laugh and hands me a bottle of water.

I blink at him. “New trainer?”

“Yeah. Didn’t Dante tell you?”

Dante is my older brother. The chosen one. Head of the Cosa Nostra and, along with our oldest brother, Lorenzo, a giant pain in my ass.

I frown. “No. I don’t need a new trainer.”

“Trust me. This one is way better than me.”

“Nobody is better than you,” I blurt, and my face flushes with heat at my admission.

“Joey.” He narrows his eyes before taking a gulp of his water. “You sure you can’t think of anyone who’d be better at teaching you self-defense than me?” He’s teasing me now, but I’m not in the mood for his games. All I can focus on is the fact that I’m losing him.

“No.”

“Your half sister is an MMA fighter,” he reminds me with a satisfied smile, as though that makes losing him easier somehow. “After her fight this weekend, she’s taking a little break. So she’s gonna train you instead. Dante said he was going to tell you.”

“He and Kat were a little busy last night.” My nose wrinkles at the memory. “They were practically dry humping in the kitchen after they came home from their date.”

Max rolls his eyes.

“Did he guilt trip Toni into doing this? ’Cause I know this house isn’t her favorite place to be.” I don’t know my half sister that well. She was born around the same time as Dante, to my father’s mistress at the time. She never lived with us, but she used to spend holidays here and she was nice to me. In fact, she used to braid my hair and come up with fun stories for me. But she moved to LA with her mom when I was four and she was thirteen, and I never saw much of her after that. Dante is the only one she’s really close to. She and Lorenzo never got along. It’s as though he finds her existence an insult to our mother’s memory, but it’s not Toni’s fault she was born.

“No, he didn’t guilt trip her. She offered her time. Now that your father’s no longer around, she’s much happier about being here. I think she’s been feeling kind of lonely since she left LA. Even her and Lorenzo are getting along a little better.”

“Hmm,” I mumble, looking down at the floor.

Max nudges my arm. “You’re gonna be trained by an MMA champ, Joey. You’ll be able to knock me on my ass by the time Toni is through with you.”

I sigh. “I guess.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

I look up at him, annoyed at the tears pricking at my eyes. I hate being vulnerable. But Max won’t judge me. He never does. “I’ll just miss you training me is all.”

“I’ll still be here all the damn time,” he says, bumping his arm against mine and making my insides melt like butter on hot toast.

“Yeah.”

“Now drink up because you got thirty seconds left before we start again. We leave everything in the gym, right?”

“We leave everything in the gym.” I repeat his favorite mantra as my heart breaks a little at the realization that soon he’ll be leaving me in the gym too.