Page 59 of Secret Baby for the Mafia Don

Gabriel laughs again. “She’s been betting me for weeks that you’d become human once you realized that you loved Kate. Turns out she was right.”

I laugh in spite of the worry curling and looping around in my gut. “What do you have to do for her now that you lost the bet?”

“Oh, you don’t need to know the details of the bet,” he says and I can imagine him winking at me.

I chuckle. “Fair enough. Let’s hope that my newfound humanity doesn’t threaten the safety of our business.”

“I’d rather have my brother back,” Gabriel says, his tone serious.

It never occurred to me that Gabriel would feel that way.

The night that I killed our brother, I snuffed out my emotions so thoroughly that I didn’t even remember that I had destroyed that part of myself. I didn’t think about all the ways, that this change would have affected my family.

I shake my head gently and sigh.

“Love you, Elio,” Gabriel says to me and I smile, my heart feeling lighter in my chest.

“Look after things for a while longer, okay?” I say.

“You got it,” Gabriel says. “Give Kate our love when she wakes up.”

That word: when. My heart cries out, if, but I shove the wave of sadness away from me before it can cause me to unravel again.

When she wakes up, I assert to myself. She’s going to wake up. “I will,” I manage to say before I disconnect the call.

I gesture to my bodyguard and hurry through the door toward the Porsche waiting in front of the house.

I should take a safer car, but I want to feel the twitchy, difficult nature of the car at high speed, hear the road rumbling by beneath the tires and know that I am controlling my own destiny, holding the spark of my life in the palm of my hand.

When I arrive at the hospital, I drive up to the valet parking lot and jump out. I wave to one of the kids behind the parking desk, his eyes wide at the sight of the expensive car.

I chuckle when I think of my collection of expensive and rare cars in the garage at home. “Make sure you park someplace with enough room to open the doors,” I tell him, tossing him the keys and a hundred-dollar bill.

My head security guy jogs after me as I power walk toward the hospital’s front entrance. I feel bad for him for a moment, but I couldn’t slow my feet down even if I tried.

Every fiber of my being knows that Kate is close and the pressure to be close to her is overwhelming.

I tap my foot in the elevator as it slowly climbs to the ICU floor. I press myself through the opening in the doors before there is enough room for me to fit. I disregard my shoulder running into the door and I hustle toward Kate’s room.

I dodge a nurse who is looking at a tablet and she glances up at me in irritation before realizing who I am and then she hurries away.

I see my mother first and I notice that she looks completely and totally composed. She’s angled away from the door, talking to someone who I can’t see yet.

I realize that I have been holding my breath all of a sudden and I draw in a huge gulp of air so fast that I feel lightheaded for a moment.

“Did she wake up?” I ask, my voice rough with the hope that feels like sandpaper scraping against my heart.

“Not yet,” my mother says apologetically.

“Then why did you…” my voice dies in my throat as I catch sight of the person sitting next to my mother in the other lumpy hospital chair.

The woman rises to her feet, smoothing down her stylish skirt and smiling at me. I take in her dark eyes and the long, dark hair hanging down her slender back. I had never realized how much she looked like her brothers until this moment.

“Hello, Elio,” she says in a soft, musical voice.

I swallow hard, then manage to say, “Hello, Grazia.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

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