A grin spread across Mia’s face. “You old romantic mob boss, you. So, you like the oldies?”
“My mother collected old records. She used to play them for me.” He cut himself off abruptly. This wasn’t the time to get nostalgic for the days when he’d been a young boy who lived for his father’s visits, and the nights he and his parents danced around the small apartment his father paid for to keep Nico and his mother close by. Those days were gone, buried the night his mother died when she tried to take him away from Vegas to start a new life—a life in which she could be someone’s wife and not just a mistress. Love wasn’t enough, she tried to explain only moments before they were hit by an oncoming car, and his world turned dark.
Mia reached over and squeezed his hand, a small gesture that conveyed both sympathy and understanding without demanding further explanation. He was grateful for her silence and for a few moments he just watched her scroll through her playlist.
Finally, she looked over and grinned. “I’m going to introduce you to something new.” She clicked on the screen. “Welcome to the modern world of feminist punk rock.”
Instantly, Nico’s ear was assault by noise. “What the fuck?”
“Give it a minute,” she said loudly. “It’s ‘Rebel Girl’ by Bikini Kill. It’s about female bonds.”
Nico didn’t know what a Mafia princess was doing listening to a song about female bonds, but he suspected she had never played it in her house when her father was within earshot. “It has a good beat,” he said, for lack of anything better to say about the music that was as far from Sinatra as music could get.
Mia laughed as she typed on the screen. “You’ll like the next one even better. It’s ‘Oh Bondage! Up Yours!’ by X-Ray Spex, about people who think girls should be seen and not heard and what women think about that.”
“Does all your music make a political statement?”
“I suppose it does,” she said. “I usually only share it with my close friends and the girls in my coding classes.”
He endured a few more punk anthems while Mia typed, and then he recognized a tune. “I know this one. That’s Gwen Stefani. So they aren’t all political.”
Mia gave him a mischievous look. “That opening riff is nothing short of iconic. She’s a punk queen. Her parodic takedown of misogynistic stereotypes is pure genius.”
Nico tapped his thumb on the desk in time to the rhythm. He couldn’t remember the last time he had just sat and listened to music. The family business had consumed every waking moment of his life. Although a lot of wiseguys chilled out in the club, or hit the strip joints or brothels looking for some female entertainment, Nico worked. His father had told him at an early age that nothing good in life came easy, that success came from dedication and focus, that a man could lead only by example, and that example had to be one of hard work and sacrifice. He was a practical man. A good boss. Nico wanted nothing more than to be like him.
Mia talked him through what she was doing, testing back doors in his system, trying to insert viruses, and break passwords. He enjoyed watching her work, the way she bit her lip when something wasn’t going her way and her utter focus on the screen. The businessman in him could see the advantage of having someone with her skill in his crew. Although his main business was real estate, there was money to be had online. But women were not part of the mob. And a woman could never be made.
“Looks good,” she said. “Secure against the usual kind of attacks. Maybe not against the FBI, especially if they hire someone like me. I actually submitted a proposal to work for them last year. They put out a tender for cybersecurity work, and I thought why not? I’m just as good as any of the hackers I know, if not better. But I never heard back so I guess they picked someone else.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “You were going to work for the FBI?”
“Sure. Just because my family is in the crime business doesn’t mean I have to be in it, too.”
Nico leaned back in his chair and stretched out his arm, brushing his fingers over the smooth skin of her shoulder. “You can’t get away from it. Once you know the lines can be crossed, you can’t go back. It becomes part of your DNA.”
She stared at him aghast. “You’re saying because I grew up in a Mafia family, I’ll wind up being a criminal, too?”
He couldn’t understand her anger when he was stating a simple fact. “I’m saying you’ll innately take risks normal people won’t. You won’t see the lines between lawful and unlawful as fixed and unbreakable. Instead, you’ll see them as fluid and malleable.” When her frown deepened, he gestured to the screen. “You stole a uniform, impersonated a waitress, and broke into my control room to do the penetration test.”