Page 44 of Mafia Baby

“I hope your parents are being nice about the baby,” Diva says to me.

I told the girls that my mom had reached out to me, and I had admitted that I wanted to move back home. I hadn’t filled in many details and no one but Diva knew about my pregnancy.

Diva was worried that my parents wouldn’t take care of me properly and had begged me to stay with her. Part of me had wanted so much to do so.

“I hope so, too,” I say honestly. My parents would eventually find out about the baby for real, and I didn’t think that they would be nice at all. But that was a problem for another day.

“Oh!” Diva says. “Hold on. Be right back!”

I watch Diva’s round booty mince from the room. I collect my duffel bag, and rise to my feet. I followed after her into the living room. She is in the kitchen standing on her tiptoes. She reaches up into the cupboard and brings down one of the containers of vitamins. She holds them out to me.

“Make sure you take these every day, you hear?” she says to me.

“I will,” I vow.

“Okay. I need to get to work,” she says. “Remember, you can call me any time, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, my voice small.

I look at the time on my phone and realize that that I still have about a half hour to kill before Dom will pull up behind the apartments to get me. I wander back to my room and shut the door. I can’t face saying goodbye to Diva again.

I press my hands to my stomach which is still flat. “It’s all going to be okay, baby,” I whisper to the small life growing inside me. I hope that I’m actually right.

***

“You ready?” Dom asks me as I slide into the front seat and toss my bag into the backseat.

I heave a sigh. “Yeah,” I say as I buckle my seatbelt.

He pulls away from the curb, glancing in the rearview mirror from time to time. I feel nervous when I think about the fact that someone could be tailing us.

My life has become so dangerous practically overnight. It’s a strange adjustment to have to make. I realize now just how casual I was able to be about my safety up until this point.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to feel truly safe again.

“Did you remember to get those wigs for me?”

“Yes,” Dom says to me. He pulls a face. “I’m not sure that I will like any of them on you, though.”

I giggle. “I’m glad that you like my real hair so much. However, if we are planning on hiding me in plain sight, I’d better wear the wigs.”

He nods. “I hate that I’m having to bring you into this,” he says with regret in his voice. “But this is the first time that I have been on a job without any backup at all. Vince doesn’t want anything to do with this plan of mine, and I don’t have any significant connections in Atlantic City, either.”

“We make a good team,” I tell him, holding out my hand. He takes it with a smile.

“We do,” he agrees easily as he pulls onto the freeway.

I open my mouth to say something about the baby, then shut it. Then I say, “Dom, do you ever want to have kids?”

He glances at me, looking confused.

“I don’t really know, honestly,” he says to me. “I mean, I like kids, but I have a really dangerous life. I’m not sure if it’s fair to expose kids to this kind of thing, you know?”

I cringe inwardly. I’ve thought all the same things. I even considered getting an abortion to spare this child from Dom’s lifestyle, but I just couldn’t do it.

“Plus,” Dom says, “I didn’t have the best childhood. I’m not sure I would be fit to raise children properly.”

“Oh, I know you’d make an excellent father,” I say honestly. “You take care of everyone all the time. It’s just who you are.”

---