Page 40 of Mafia Baby

A sudden thought occurs to me. “Diva,” I say carefully. “Can you keep this a secret for now?”

She frowns a little. “You don’t want the other girls to know?”

I shake my head. “It’s just that I’m afraid of losing my job, you know?” I say.

Her expression clears and she nods sagely. “Oh, yeah. Damn the man and all those rules about employing pregnant ladies. Although, I can’t imagine Dom firing you over that,” she reassures me.

If only she knew. But I just don’t want the girls to say something to Dom about the fact that I’m pregnant. It would be a terrible way for him to find out about the baby. “I guess not,” I say. I make myself look downtrodden. “It’s just…I just can’t afford to run into any trouble, you know?”

Diva laughs. “Oh, baby, don’t I know! All of us understand being careful about who knows our biz, so I get it. You can trust me to keep your secret safe.”

“Thank you,” I say to her with a watery smile before taking my vitamins. Thankfully, I seem to have graduated from the worst of the morning sickness routine, and the vitamins go down and stay down.

“Come on,” Diva says to me briskly, getting back into her favorite stretching routine. “You can still limber up with me. Might make delivering that special little package a lot easier when the time comes.”

I chuckle and go back to trying to stretch like Diva.

It feels good to have told someone about the baby, even if it was a risk.

Now, if I can just figure out when and how to tell the father, that would be great.

Chapter Fifteen

Dominic

I park my black SUV outside the apartment building that the dancers live in around ten p.m.

All of the girls should be at work, which means that Gianna can slip out to see me without us getting caught.

I’ve been busy for over a week investigating what is going on with the Bianchi family. I think I’ve tracked down their business partner that Vince is scared of, and I offered to take the man out when I went to Atlantic City to handle the other business Vince wanted attended to.

This seemed to make Vince happy, and the fact that I lied and said that I sent Gianna away also mollified him somewhat.

Hopefully, he will think that she decided to run away on her own, which is why the Bianchis are still looking for her. Hiding her at the apartment where my dancers live was a stroke of genius on my part. No one will think to look for her there.

“Hey, stranger,” I whisper to her as she slips into my car. She giggles.

“I missed you,” she says to me as I drive away. I head toward the other side of town. There’s a large park there and I have planned for us to spend some time there where we won’t be observed.

“I missed you more,” I say back, navigating a turn and looking in the rearview mirror to make sure we aren’t being tailed. That’s the last thing I would need.

“How are…things?” she says to me carefully. I’m proud of her for adjusting so rapidly to being cautious with her words. I think about the brash, bossy girl I met a few months ago.

It’s hard to imagine that girl and this version of Gianna being the same person.

She seems almost made for the type of life I lead, but that’s not really a surprise. She didn’t know that she was growing up surrounded by danger, at least not consciously, but she probably learned more than she realized during the early years of her life.

“I think I have a plan that will resolve both of our issues,” I say to her. I follow the signs for the park, turning off the main road.

“Good,” she says firmly. She has her hands pressed to her belly. She does that a lot lately. I wonder why, but then I’m distracted by a car running a stop sign. I slam on the brakes, and she gasps a little with surprise.

“Sorry,” I tell her, placing a hand on her shoulder before driving on.

“Are you leaving me here while you take care of things?” she asks me.

I sigh. “That’s probably for the best,” I say. “However, I don’t know how long I will have to be in Atlantic City.”

She eyes me sidelong as I drive to the back of the parking lot at the park and kill the engine. I look at her, so petite and pretty, her beautiful body hidden by her drab maid’s uniform.

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