Every Mafia's Favorite Girl novel Chapter 43

Chapter 43: "I Want More"

Surprise flickered across Aren’s features.

"What do you want to hear?"

Caio hesitated, choosing his words carefully.

"Were you... trained from a very young age?"

Even before she answered, his mind had already constructed its own explanation.

She was eighteen years old, yet her combat ability bordered on monstrous. Not to mention reflexes sharpened beyond human instinct.

She had to come from something truly horrific. Perhaps some clandestine military program or mercenary operation that took children and molded them into weapons before they were old enough to understand what death meant.

The thought alone made his stomach twist.

To his complete shock, Aren brightened immediately at the question.

"Yes!" she said cheerfully. "I was raised at the headquarters of the organization I worked for. The Operative Head said he found me in a cot in a ruined village."

Caio stared at her.

Something inside his chest tightened at her words.

"You..." his voice roughened. "You’ve been living with mercenaries since you were... a baby?"

Aren nodded earnestly.

"Yes. The Operative Head took me in, and then my brothers raised me."

Caio frowned.

"Your brothers?"

"Ah! My squad, like I told you!"

The smile that spread across her face was so open and genuine that it nearly disoriented him.

"My brothers taught me how to fight, how to kill, and how to use weapons," she went on proudly. "And there were the aunties in the medic department who patched us up whenever we came back injured."

Her eyes practically glowed with every memory.

"The uncles in the workshop forged our blades and customized our gear. And the kitchen staff always snuck me extra rations whenever I finished difficult training blocks."

A soft laugh escaped her.

"The logistics officers used to let me ride in the equipment trucks, and the tactical planners would quiz me on maps using candies as markers."

Caio listened in complete silence.

Every word lodged somewhere deep beneath his skin.

She wasn’t traumatized while speaking about the people of her past.

She loved them.

Every person she mentioned lived inside her memories with such warmth and affection that it almost hurt to hear.

Then her voice softened.

The brightness faded.

"But sometimes," she whispered, "...some of them never returned from missions."

Her fingers continued moving against his wounds, though her focus had drifted somewhere far away.

"Afterward, I didn’t get to see them again. I wonder... lately I wonder if they go to other worlds too."

She looked down.

"Like me."

Silence settled heavily between them.

Caio looked at Aren and felt something inside himself crack in a way violence never could.

He wanted to pull her against him.

Wanted to wrap his arms around her waist and bury her against his chest. Wanted to smooth a hand through her hair until that distant sadness vanished from her expression.

He wanted to say something comforting.

Something gentle.

Something human.

But the words refused to come.

Instead, he sat frozen beneath the weight of an unfamiliar helplessness.

His fingers tightened against the silk sheets while frustration and emotion tangled together inside his chest.

At last, forcing himself to move, he reached up and gently pushed against her forearm, guiding her hand away from his face.

"You can leave now."

His voice came out quieter than intended.

Aren blinked at him in confusion, but he avoided her eyes completely, fixed instead on the floor.

"Get some rest," he added quietly. "You’ve had a long day. Just leave everything. I’ll take care of the rest of the wounds myself later."

Aren’s lips pulled into a disappointed pout.

She opened her mouth, ready to ask for permission to continue, but then she noticed the way he refused to look at her.

It was the same way he had avoided her gaze that night. Right here, on this very bed.

Understanding settled quietly across her face.

’He wants to be alone... again.’

Slowly, Aren rose from the bed.

"All right," she murmured.

She crossed the room and made her way toward the door. Just as her fingers brushed the handle, however, something made her pause.

Slowly, Aren turned back.

Caio still sat exactly where she had left him, shoulders tense beneath the dim bedroom lighting.

She clasped her hands behind her back, fingers twisting together nervously.

"Don Caio."

He looked up immediately.

"Do you still have nightmares these days?"

Caio froze.

For a split second, his carefully maintained composure cracked clean apart.

Because he still woke some nights unable to breathe.

Still heard screaming in the silence before sleep.

Still woke reaching for weapons that were no longer there.

But when he looked at Aren, at the genuine concern written so openly across her face, his voice softened despite himself.

"Not anymore."

A complete lie.

’Is she... blushing about it?’

’Could it be... she didn’t hate it?’

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