Page 52 of Secret Baby for the Mafia Don

Yet, it was always there in front of me, this solution.

All along, if I had just removed myself from the equation, Elio would have been free to go after the Baldinis if he desired, to exact the revenge that he so badly wanted to take.

The realization is bitter, but undeniable. I feel a wash of incredible, numbing sadness come over me.

I don’t want to die. I want to live. But I want my son to live more.

“Kate.” The voice is Elio’s, and the softness in his tone is nearly my undoing.

My resolve wavers, and I readjust my grip on the knife. I look at him, my gaze blurry with unshed tears. There is something I have never seen in his eyes and it takes my distracted brain a moment to realize what it is.

The emotion shining out of Elio’s face is love.

My lips twist into the mockery of a smile and I nod a little in reply to the emotion that I have always wanted from Elio, but have never been able to receive.

How fitting and yet how ironic, that I should finally earn his love in this moment of terror and sadness. And yet, seeing the emotion shining from his dark eyes is making my heart quail at the thought of what I might have to do.

My brain scrabbles for other answers, for solutions that don’t include harming myself to save my son.

“I can just shoot her right now,” Luca says loudly, yanking his gun from the holster. He levels it at my head and I smile at him.

I think of the women who were burned as witches, falsely accused and yet resigned to their unjust deaths. I straighten my shoulders, looking him in the eye, and back slowly toward the door to Enzo’s office.

“Tell me that you won’t sign the deal,” I say to Elio, turning my gaze to his frantic eyes. “Promise me that you will let Mateo go back to Mexico where he will be safe.”

“Kate,” Elio chokes out, his tone a plea. “Kate put the knife down.”

I shake my head again, backing out the door and into the hall. I glance toward the playroom, where I still hear video game sounds.

I pray that my son is too absorbed in the game he is playing to notice this drama unfolding in the hallway. I step backward rapidly, moving away from the children.

The men in the office rush after me, jostling and pushing one another as they slip through the door. The sight would almost be funny if it weren’t for the nature of the moment.

I realize that I don’t actually know if I can take the action that I am promising to take. My mind scrambles again for other solutions.

I wanted Elio to promise me, to tell me he wouldn’t sign the deal and that he would come up with another solution for the mess that we are in. Part of me expected Luca to just shoot me as soon as I started making a fuss.

Now that none of those things have happened, I’m at a loss as to what I should do.

I stumble up against a hard surface, sucking in a breath as the sharp blade bites into my skin again.

I glance behind me and see that I am leaning up against the partial wall of the stairwell at the front of the house. The graceful curves of the stairs angle down into the echoing lobby where I picked up the flowers that Elio sent to me, to win me back.

My heart is a solid point of pain in my chest. I realize I can’t do this.

I don’t want to die.

I love Elio, I love my son.

I want to get the chance to love my life again. It’s been years since I was happy and last night with Elio showed me the possibility that I could be happy again.

I realize that I have been staring down at the shiny marble floor for a long moment, grappling with what I want, realizing that I truly was bluffing with these dangerous men who want to control the fate of myself and my son.

I look up and gasp when I see that Elio is very close to me now, his dark eyes boring into me, imploring me.

“Give me the knife, amore,” he says to me, his hands outstretched as if he will grab me back from the railing.

I feel tears sliding down my face. They are cold and I think that is strange. Shouldn’t they be warm? I lean back away from him, not sure what to do next, wishing that there was a better option for me, for my child, for the man that I have loved since I was a young girl.

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