Page 41 of Mafia Baby

I know I feel too close to her. I know that she’s become too essential to my emotional well-being. I know that should scare me, but for some reason, it just doesn’t. I’m tired of being lonely, and I think she is as well.

“I’ll miss you,” she says in a small voice. She’s looking at her hands that are on her belly as if she’s trying to decide whether or not to say something.

“I think we should go to Atlantic City together,” I tell her, voicing my plan out loud. Her eyes shoot up to meet mine, a flush in her cheeks. She grins at me.

“Really?” she says eagerly.

I find myself grinning back. “Yes, really. But you will have to use a fake name and we will need to be careful about who you talk to. Your family is quite influential, and many people could recognize you, even outside of Chicago.”

She nods. “Makes sense,” she says. She fingers her long, brown hair contemplatively. “Maybe I could dye my hair. Or cut it.”

I feel a moment of panic grip me. “No!” I exclaim before I can think about what I’m about to say.

She glances over at me with her brows lifted, then chuckles. “Okay, okay,” she says soothingly. “If you like my hair that much, it can stay.”

I sigh in relief. I didn’t realize how much I loved her long, shiny hair until she said she might change it or cut it off.

I like the feeling of it slipping over my skin when we’re making love, or sifting through my fingers when I’m fucking her from behind. It would make me upset if she chopped it off or changed it.

“Can I help you with your…project…while we’re there?” she asks me next.

I start to say no right away, then pause. She is a very charming person, and very pretty.

Would it be possible that she might be able to help me to track down the contact that I need to get out of the way to ensure our mutual safety?

“Out with it,” she says to me firmly, rotating a little so that she can see me more clearly. If she could put her hands on her hips and tap her foot right now, I’m sure that she would.

I release a long breath, then say, “I’ve found out that the person I’m looking for goes by ‘The Cobra’ on the streets. He’s gotten control of a bunch of key trade routes for drugs. Some of those trade routes depend upon the kind of…transportation…that your father’s business offers to clients. My stepfather is worried about this person because he has already been in contact to let Vince know that if he steps one foot out of line, he won’t be allowed to keep selling product in Chicago. When Vince checked up on whether or not this Cobra person was real, he was told by all of his sources not to mess around.”

Gianna is frowning as she thinks about what I’ve said. “I didn’t know my family was helping with that kind of business.” She makes a little moue of distaste. “I don’t know how I feel about that, honestly. I thought we just had a shipping company for products that people would buy in stores or something. I feel stupid that I never really asked more about where our family’s money comes from.”

I lift a shoulder negligently. “Why would you have asked that? You were shipped away to go to school and you barely had any contact with your family for years. Before that, you were just a small child.”

She nods once, then bites her lip. “Okay, so we need to find this Cobra guy so that you can get rid of him, right?”

I smile at her a little. She sounds so matter-of-fact about the idea of me killing someone I don’t even know.

Maybe she’s going to fit right into my life after all.

“That’s right. The trouble is, I have no idea how to find him. No one seems to know where he lives or what he looks like. That’s very unusual.”

“Like this person is the Banksy of drug dealers,” she says with a laugh.

I join her merriment for a moment, then sober up again. “I don’t like how scared Vince is of this guy. Especially since he hasn’t ever met with him in person or anything. It’s not like Vince to run scared. It makes me think that Vince has gotten in a little too deep with the whole drug sales scene and maybe made a few moves that he shouldn’t have. The thing is, his business is small potatoes compared to lots of other mafia groups out there. Most of the reasons that Vince even matters to the people in our line of work is because I’m so good at what I do. So it’s weird that he wouldn’t have already sent me to kill The Cobra for him.”

She’s eyeing me without speaking. I wonder what’s going on in her pretty little brain. Finally, she says, “How many people have you killed?”

I look back at her, wishing she hadn’t asked that question. When I’m with her, I get to pretend that I’m just a normal guy. I don’t have to be the Reaper. She may playfully call me that while I fuck her brains out, but really I can just be Dom.

If I tell her how many people I’ve killed in the name of “work”, it will change things between us for good.

“Are you sure that you really want to know that?” I ask her.

She nods at me. “I think it’s only fair if I know the truth, don’t you?” I see her hand pressing against her belly again.

“Okay,” I finally relent. “I only keep track of the number of people that I’ve been hired to kill. The rest are usually secondary casualties related to being attacked by other mafia groups or people who blundered into me while I was working. I’ve removed one hundred people who were causing Vince and myself trouble or threatening our business operations.

She’s quiet for a moment, her gaze turned down at the hand resting on her belly. “Did they all deserve to die?” she asks.

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