Page 103 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

“You have my word.”

With Salvatore’s gun at my back and a half dozen more pointed at me, I am marched out of the apartment and into my brother’s custody.

The hidden cells were built into the underground wine cellar when the house was first being constructed. From its very first blueprint, everyone knew what this place would be, the lineages and conflicts it would see. The place comes with all the old-school mobster hospitality: dirt floors and grimy wrought iron bars. There’s no light down here in the depths—it all comes from the stairwell, and it doesn’t reach far enough to do anything for me. I am left alone, and that one bleary bulb extinguishes on their way out. It’s coffin dark down here, the kind of darkness your eyes don’t adjust to. I run my hand over the walls and feel the grooves of fingernails that once scratched at these walls. Old enemies, long gone now.

And here I am, in the same pathetic category as them.

I was a don.

That all feels far away now, like something that happened to somebody else. A story I heard once, just vivid enough that I could almost picture it. Memory lane and I don’t go back very far. I don’t care much about what happened before the night that Ava St. Clair locked eyes with me and stole a french fry off my plate. From right then, it wasn’t a game anymore. I trace back every step, wondering if I would have done any of it differently. If there was any different way it could have happened.

I guess if I knew I was running on borrowed time, I would have been with her more.

Time is meaningless down here in the dark. Minutes and hours are indistinguishable from each other. Paranoia creeps into the shadows. Maybe this is how he’s going to kill me. Maybe it’s already been a day. Maybe two. Salvatore could just let me rot down here forever, his word be damned, because it’s the one fate I’d hate the most: wasting away in the dark.

If he brought me water, I wonder if I could resist drinking it and prolonging all this.

Finally, footsteps click on the stairwell. The dim, distant light turns on, like a mirage in the distance. The wine rack creaks and slides back. Tessa Mori comes down into the cellar, breaking up hours of monotony. I can tell by those quick, angry high heels. Hell, even I feel a little bad. The woman already saved me once.

Salvatore comes in behind her.

“How is he?” I ask, as they stop in front of me.

I don’t really care, but it answers another question, my real question:how is she?

“More stable, but just as unconscious,” Salvatore says.

So no answers, then. Oh well. It sounds like Marcel is going to make it, and that will have to be enough. I pull myself to my feet. I figure I might as well die upright if I have the choice. Facing it and all that. A lot of people in our business don’t get to see it coming.

I stand in front of Salvatore.

“So, where’s it going to happen, Sal?” I ask. “Down here? You know it’s a bitch dragging a body up that staircase. But I guess you don’t have to do that yourself.”

Salvatore’s silence crackles like a fire. Even in the dark, I can read the tension on his face, feel the anger bristling in the air.

“I gave you my word, Nico. I’m not going to keep you imprisoned through the night.” His silence blisters, bitter and conflicted as he finally growls, “But I’m not going to shoot you, either.”

My expectations skip. What else is there?

“When we were kids, there wasn’t a day that went by that you didn’t remind me about our mother. How you blamed me for losing her. And I guess you’ll keep blaming me for it until you die. But I’m not what you ever said I was, Nico. I’m not someone who murders my own close kin. And that’s not going to change today, not because of you. Not unless I know you deserve it. I’ll hand out justice, but I won’t stoop to murder my own bloodline. Tessa has convinced me that, no matter how bad it looks, this still isn’t justice. Not yet.”

I glance at her dark eyes and angry expression. The girl isn’t happy with me. She isn’t saving me. This isn’t her sweeping in again and calming everyone down from an overreaction. These are just her principles, and I can tell she isn’t any happier about this than Salvatore is.

“Then what, you want me to hang around until he—”

“No,” Salvatore intercepts. “I want exactly the opposite. I’m sending you to Chicago, Nico. We could use a man like you in that chapter of the business. You’re going to stay there and work for the family. And if anyone sees you on this property—hell, if anyone sees you in New York again—you’ll be killed on sight. No more trials, no more explanations. I’ve handed out more chances to you than I’ve ever given anyone else, and this is the last one.”

Chicago.

I can’t.

I glance at Tessa, who knows—she knows I can’t. Ava is here, and if she’s here, then…

“It’s your only offer, Nico.”

She sounds tired. I wonder how long she and Sal have been discussing this, if they’ve gone back and forth over it all day, until she wore him down to this decision. At first, I try to reason it out. At least if I’m far away in some other place, I’m not dead. Ava won’t have to mourn me in that way. Then I remember Ava isn’t going to be mourning me at all. Marcel made sure of that. She’s probably more upset that they’re not putting a bullet in me. Maybe she’ll come to Chicago and do it herself. I’d like that.

“Alright,” I finally force myself to agree, as if this is a negotiation. As if I have another choice. The bars slide back. For the second time, I am let out of prison, but this time, I’m not going home. I’m going into exile.

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