Page 29 of Mafia Heir's Broken Vows

She shakes her head, avoiding my gaze. "Nothing. I just need?—"

"No," I interrupt, my voice harder now. "Don't feed me lies. I can feel it. Something's changed. It is not nothing."

The silence between us is full of unspoken truths and lies. She backs away slightly, retreating into herself.

"I can't do this right now," she murmurs, turning away. I watch her go, fury and frustration simmering beneath my skin. There's no way to make this right if I can't fully understand what is wrong.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I have at least a dozen missed calls from my father—and messages from Enzo telling me to call my father. My time is running out. If I don't answer him soon, he'll show up here and make his point in person.

Serafina hoversoutside the bedroom door, where Leo sleeps. She stands there for an agonizingly long moment, hand hovering over the doorknob as if opening it might wake him or break her.

She finally slips inside, closing the door quietly behind her.

I exhale slowly with my fists clenched at my sides.

She's holding something back.

I can't protect them if I don't know what's coming.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I dial Enzo.

"Double security on Serafina and Leo. No one gets near them without my say-so. And Enzo—dig into Marco's movements. I want to know if he takes a piss, or what he has for lunch. He does nothing without me knowing about it."

"Understood, boss."

I hang up, my jaw is tight. I need answers. Marco doesn't make idle threats, and if he's creeping into our territory, I need to know what he's up to before it's too late.

Morning brings no comfort.Another sleepless night is simply over. I find Serafina in the kitchen, standing motionless over a full cup of coffee. She hasn't touched it. Leo is on the floor, playing with his toy cars—zooming them around on the patterned tiles as if it is a racetrack.

"You didn't sleep," I say. It's not a question. She looks like shit, beautiful, sexy, gorgeous, tired shit.

She doesn't look up. "Neither did you." I doubt I look any better, I feel rough as fuck.

I step closer, lowering my voice. "Talk to me, Serafina." I plead with her again, I hate the way things are between us. I can't talk to my father if I haven't set things right with her first.

She grips the edge of the counter and then puts her coffee down. "I can't."

"Can't, or won't?"

She turns slowly, her eyes glassy, guarded. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me," I say, mimicking her words to me in a similar argument.

She hesitates, fear flashes across her face for a second. But then the walls are back into place, blocking me out.

"I need to focus on Leo. He needs his mother." She says still avoiding actually talking to me.

"Marco got to you, didn't he?" I demand. That's the only explanation I can cook up in my head, she went from warm to stone cold like a switch went off in her head.

She quickly looks away. That moment of hesitation confirms everything.

"Damn it, Serafina." I growl, "How?"

"He got in here the other night. He found me outside on the terrace." She says as if nothing is alarming about my enemy showing up on my terrace in the dead of night.

"In my fucking house? And you didn't tell me, call me—fucking alert the security. What the fuck is wrong with you?" I am fuming. "You have to tell me what he said. What did he want?"

She shakes her head, looking at Leo where he's playing. He knew Leo was inside. He would have used the boy as leverage to stop her from alerting me. I would have done the same thing—I know all his dirty fucking tricks. No wonder she's been acting like a guard dog around our son. There was a killer on the property and my security didn't see him come or go. Heads are going to roll. How did they allow this to happen?

---