Page 17 of Secret Baby for the Mafia Don

I always enjoy giving into my temper, so these kinds of “trainings” are actually a bit of relief to me.

When I arrived, however, my father was waiting for me. In fact, there was a whole group of men in a warehouse, waiting for me. He told me that there was a spy in the ranks, but that it would be all right because they had been identified.

I was glad about that and told my father it was good news. He smiled a bit sadly and told me to withhold judgment for now.

He led me into the warehouse where there was a man under guard, tied to a chair. The person was slumped over, clearly unconscious. Something about them seemed familiar, however.

I walked closer, reached out, and tipped the person’s head up into the light. I could still feel the roiling nausea that washed over me when I saw that the person tied to the chair was my youngest brother.

Gianni and I had always been close. We did nearly everything together as boys, but for the past few years, Gianni had been away at college.

I told my father there had to be a mistake, that Gianni would never betray us like this.

My father had smiled at me sadly and said that there was no mistake. He told me that Gianni had been caught talking to the Baldini family as well as our contacts here in Russia, trying to take the route into his own hands.

He went on to say that, as it turns out, it’s been going on for a while. Gianni has been leaking information for years.

He reminded me what has to be done with traitors, and handed me a pistol.

I pleaded with my father to let Gianni have a second chance. It was the only time I could think of that I had not done precisely what he asked of me. I never begged, I never pleaded, I never asked for anything for myself.

As I was begging for his lenience, Gianni came to. Seeing me standing there looking down at him, a gun in my hand, he started to plead with me to spare his life, desperate to find a way out of the mess he had gotten into.

“I can’t do it,” I told my father, tears flowing down my cheeks. “Don’t make me do it.”

“Please,” Gianni begged. “Please don’t do this, Elio.”

“Do you want to take over the business, Elio?” my father asked me.

“Yes,” I had said.

“Then you have no choice. Even when your betrayer is your family, you have to act decisively.”

I would never forget my younger brother’s desperate dark eyes, staring up into mine as he pleaded with me to save his life.

I still remembered my shaking fingers as I clenched them around the heavy gun, raised it to his head, and closed my eyes as I killed him.

I was sick for hours afterward, as if my body was trying to exorcise the demon that made it possible for me to kill my own little brother for the sake of business.

I had climbed onto the plane a few hours later to go back home, weak and pale, heaped with my father’s praise.

The first thing I did was drive to Kate’s house. There was nothing that anyone else could do for me now. I had crossed a line into a level of brutality that kills the soul.

The only thing that was left to me was seeking some small bit of warmth in the arms of my soon-to-be wife.

“Are you okay?” she asked me as I gently touched her body. I felt like the only part of my body that was alive were the tips of my fingers as they stole the warmth from her naked body.

“Yes,” I lied, pressing her back against the mattress. “I just need you.”

I can still see a question in her eyes, but I look away. I cannot tell her all the terrible things that I have done. No one could love me after hearing about my training sessions and the things that I have been asked to do.

I try to make myself be gentle, to treat the moment kindly, to be a good person in just this one aspect of my life. But I find myself growing increasingly unkind, gripping her skin tightly, hurting her on purpose. Taking out my sadness and rage of who I have become on her beautiful, tender body.

Kate rises to the challenge of my onslaught, something dangerously like joy in her eyes in response to each slap, each pinch, each bite of my teeth.

I have never been this rough with her, despite imagining getting to do so while I jerked off in the shower.

I hear her moan loudly as I bite her breast so hard I am scared that I have drawn blood. I lift her off the mattress and spin her around, shoving her forward as I bend her over the bed.

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