Page 67 of Mafia Don's Secret Baby

Shutting me out of this was going too far.

“You just told me that there are things that are more important than this situation with us, and those things require both of our attention. You don’t want to talk? Fine. But we’re here to work together.”

I found my breathing unsteady with frustration. The sadness morphed into confusion.

He turned his back on me, and I opened my mouth to protest, but Matteo spoke first. “Tomorrow, be ready to take care of business. Nine AM sharp. Bring your gun.”

Before I could reply, he opened his office door and slammed it shut behind him.

I didn’t know what to expect. I had lied to his face for a month, and I’d withheld information for three years before that. I knew he wouldn’t get over the betrayal easily. I couldn’t expect him to forgive me at the drop of a hat.

Knowing how badly I’d hurt him did something to me that I couldn’t explain. I grieved what we could have been if I hadn’t lied about Callum.

I strode back into the kitchen and took in Callum, only half done with his pancake.

“Daddy in there?” Callum asked, pointing toward the office.

Daddy.

The parts of me that I’d been holding together finally collapsed, and tears welled in my eyes along with the shattering of my heart. “Yeah, baby. He’s working.”

I turned away before Callum could see my tears, and I forced myself to breathe evenly.

I’d done this.

I couldn’t decide if telling him the truth had been the right thing to do, especially when the aftermath felt so wrong.

I’d sworn myself to the Italian mafia because I knew I’d have Matteo, but maybe that wasn’t the case anymore.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lilianna Genovese

I rode in the backseat of a blacked-out sedan, Matteo’s leg brushing mine each time the car jostled us, but he didn’t glance over at me. He didn’t grab my thigh or make a seductive comment as he’d been doing for the past month.

Matteo had gone dark, focusing only on the task at hand.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked, leaning into the door as I looked over at him.

He spared me only a brief glance. “A pawn shop in Brooklyn.”

The cold shoulder sent another pang of sadness through my chest. “Are you ready to talk?”

When he didn’t reply, I fixed my gaze on the seat in front of me, trying to keep the tears at bay. I leaned further away from him. How was it possible that the connection we’d had three days ago had faded into this?

“I want things to be okay between us,” I whispered to him.

No reply.

It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it certainly increased the ache of sadness deep inside me. We soon pulled to the side of the road, and the driver gestured for us to get out of the car.

Matteo didn’t hesitate, so I didn’t either. I straightened my shoulders and untucked my shirt to hide the holster at my hip. I stepped from the car, and the moment I closed the door, the driver sped off, turning into the nearest underground garage. I followed on Matteo’s heels, eyeing his muscular back. I envisioned my hands wrapping around and clutching the muscles there, stroking them.

I shook off the thought, cementing my resolve.

I’d lost enough over the past month that this should have felt infinitesimal, yet I still longed for things to return to the way they’d been just before telling him the truth.

The door to the pawn shop chimed as Matteo pushed through it, and a wrinkled Native American woman with a hunched back hobbled forward, looking between us. She immediately reached for the door and flicked it locked, turning the “open” sign to “closed”. Her gnarled hands proved that she’d spent many years doing some sort of hard labor, and her hoarse voice as she spoke revealed something similar.

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