Page 51 of Secret Baby for the Mafia Don

She shuts her eyes for a moment, the anguish on her face stark and painful to look at. “Fine. Do your deal without the new documentation to protect my son. It doesn’t matter anyway. In the eyes of the law, Marco is Mateo’s father. If I die, the law will ensure that he goes to live with Marco, so it’s all the same in the end.”

“You bitch!” Luca screams, lunging around the desk to try and grab Kate. I shoulder him away, grappling with him to get his gun. We slam into the edge of the desk and carom off it to slam into the tidy bookshelves against the wall. I don’t even feel the weight of the books that leap from the shelves and tumble down over us.

I am distantly aware of Enzo moving in to protect his brother and I intensify my efforts to get a hold of the gun.

Luca is making inhuman noises, trying to break my hold on him, but he has clearly misjudged me. Many men have done that, thinking that my slender limbs will not be strong.

Many men have died due to this miscalculation.

I feel my fingers come into contact with the gun, and I stretch farther, the tendons in my arm screaming with pain, as Enzo and Luca try to wrestle against me. I just need another moment and I know that I can get a hold of the gun and turn the tide of this interaction in my favor.

Suddenly, Kate’s voice rings out across the room and we all freeze.

“Stop it!” she shouts, her voice sharp, high, almost musical.

I look over my shoulder, refusing to let go of Luca, who is still struggling like a worm on a hook.

My heart goes cold as I take in the sight of Kate, poised in the frame of the open doorway. She has an ornate silver knife pressed to her throat.

My brain takes a moment to register that it is a letter opener. It must have been on the desk all along. I curse myself for this sloppy oversight as Kate squares her shoulders and presses the blade more firmly against her skin.

A thin runnel of blood slips down the long column of her throat, and she swallows visibly before she says, “Stop right now, or I will cut my throat.”

Chapter Twenty

Kate

My heart is beating so fast, that I am scared that I will bleed out right in the doorway, just from one small cut.

I don’t even feel the burn of the laceration. I didn’t intend to cut myself, but my hands were shaking so badly that the sharp knife must have nicked my skin.

I stare at the cluster of men in the room with me, feeling like I can’t breathe.

“Don’t sign the deal, Elio,” I demand, my voice hard. I pray that he will understand.

I pray that he will see that this is the only way to ensure that our son is not hunted down and killed by these men in the future.

This is the only leverage that I have to protect my child and I don’t care who I hurt so long as Mateo is safe.

I believe Elio will try to take care of Mateo, but my child has lived behind locked doors for all of his life. If something happens to me and I die, I cannot allow him to be given to Elio just so he can be shut away in a cage yet again.

I know that these men will never let me go; Elio will never let me go, not even if it’s best for Mateo. No matter how much I love Elio, I do not love him more than my own son.

I refuse to acknowledge the fact that he threatened to hurt me if I tried to take Mateo from him. It does not surprise me, but I don’t care.

If any of these men kill me while I am saving my child, I don’t care. Deep down, I always knew that it would come to this. That I would have to bargain with my own life to save the life of my child.

Now that I have reached the crossroads, I knew I would inevitably have to traverse, it’s almost a relief.

“Kate,” Enzo says to me, stepping away from Elio and Luca. “Kate, this isn’t necessary. We won’t harm Mateo so long as Elio signs the deal.”

I shake my head and hiss when the sharp blade jabs me again. I feel a new trail of blood slide down my skin, but I ignore it. “The clause that Elio added, you will not honor it. You won’t honor anything about this deal. None of you will hold to it, even if you sign that contract. You will all go to war, and my son will be caught in the middle of it all. Solely due to his bloodline. None of you care about your children or your wives. You only care about winning.” I spit the last word out of my mouth like poison, my heart turning bitterly in my chest.

“If I die right now,” I say firmly, knowing that I am right, “Marco will get custody of Mateo. He will no longer be useful to any of you, and I will be dead. Elio will be free to do what he has always wanted to do; kill you both without concern for the welfare of his son, or his fiancée. I am worth more to Elio dead than alive.”

My vision blurs for a moment as I clutch the small knife in my sweaty palm.

Even when the Baldinis first brought me here, I never imagined that I would have to threaten to claim my own life to save my child. I was afraid of Luca or Enzo harming me, but it had never occurred to me that I would die by my own hand.

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