Page 99 of A Very Daddy Christmas

“You really don’t understand, do you?” he shakes his head slowly. “I need this deal to go through. I need that fucking building. And I need St. James and Hamilton to pick up their phones when I call them.”

“I get it. Your business partner from Texas will be miffed if you don’t—”

“He’ll fucking kill me. So, yeah, Cora, pardon me if I’m a little aggravated right now.”

“And killing me will get results?” I scoff, finally putting two and two together in this ensemble of desperate men who made piss-poor business decisions and got involved with the worst kind of people. They thought they were going to dig themselves out of trouble only to dig themselves deeper into an even bigger hole. “Orson and Hamilton are in your debt. You’re at the mercy of… I’ll go ahead and guess it’s some kind of dealer. Meanwhile, all I ever did was try to keep my father’s bakery going. And still, I’m the one you’re going to hurt. Really?”

In the blink of an eye, Denaro whips out a gun and points it at me.

Everything stops, including my breath. The parameters have suddenly changed, and I’m not sure what to do or say next. There’s a gun muzzle staring me right in the face, and my life hangs in the balance. My life and the life of my unborn child. I’m shaking like a leaf, my knees wobbling slightly.

“Please,” I mumble. “You don’t want to do this. Killing me won’t gain you anything.”

“If I end this right here, right now, there’ll be no one left to get in my way,” he retorts. “Your sister will be too distraught to want anything to do with the building.”

“You said you didn’t want any bloodshed,” I plead with him. “You said it was too tedious. The cleanup, the legal repercussions…”

Denaro takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. I can almost hear the wheels in his head spinning in a chaotic thought process. All it took was for Orson and George to fall off the face of the earth to cause this man to lose his footing altogether. He’s going back to the old-school Chicago ways of doing things.

“Please, Mr. Denaro. I didn’t do anything wrong. All I wanted was to save my father’s bakery, but I won’t place it above my own life. Please.” I am so close to crying, the tears pricking my eyes.

“There are a couple of lakes in the area,” he replies. “It could take weeks, even months before they find you. I’ll be sure to have the slug removed from your body before I dump it. It will be harder for them to connect me to your death that way.”

He removes the safety from his gun and cocks it.

There’s a bullet in the chamber itching for release.

My whole life flashes before my eyes.

Only moments ago, I was close to prying the plywood board off the bathroom window.

I have a sister worried sick about me, three men whom I love deeply, and a bakery I cherish being able to open every morning.

Convection ovens I enjoy turning on at the crack of dawn. The smell of fresh pastry dough and dried lavender. The bright green of chopped pistachios. The sweetness of honey drizzled over a still-hot vanilla cake. It’s all flashing and fading as I look at Denaro, as I watch his finger squeezing the trigger.

“It might be easier this way,” he tells himself. “It really might be easier.”

“Please. I’m pregnant!” I blurt out.

I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to tell him. Desperate and on the brink of literal death, his gun still very much pointed at my head. He freezes, his eyes widening as his attention refocuses on me.

This is my last resort.

32

Cora

“What?” Denaro whispers.

“I’m pregnant,” I tell him, inwardly praying it’s enough to get him to put the gun down. “I’m pregnant and I want my baby to live. Please, I won’t interfere with the sale. I’ll quit baking altogether, if that’s what it takes. I just want to live. My baby—”

“You’re lying,” he says.

“No, I swear. I’ll start showing soon. And… I don’t even know who the father is. It could be any one of them.”

“Any of them... oh my,” he scoffs, slightly amused by my predicament.

I take a step back, all the blood rushing to my head as I try to find a way out again. “Please,” I say once more. “I’m pregnant. Don’t hurt me.”

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