Page 108 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

I veer sharply into the street, pointing the car towardhome.

“No. Find Sal until I get there. Scream, Ava. Just start screaming, wake up the whole neighborhood if you have to—”

“I can’t do that,” she sobs. “Nico, I can’t, I—”

Before I can ask why she can’t, Ava lets out a pitched, breathy yelp. I hear rustling and running, wind whipping against the phone speaker. The sound of voices comes in muffled, faint audio slipping through in bits and pieces.

“Ava!” I call for her. Something thumps on the other end of the line. Her voice gets farther away, fading, while the phone staysstationary and the line quiet. They’re distant now. There’s a man’s far-off voice, the crunch of footsteps, leaves or grass.

Ava dropped her phone.

My heart pounds, my vision red, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. I’ve never really seen what this car can do before outside of a closed track, but tonight, I find out. I cut through the streets, through traffic, pushing the limits of what the roads will even allow, veering recklessly toward home and stopping for nothing. The kind of driving that will even make a New Yorker glance twice and say, “What the fuck is that moron doing?” which is a real badge of honor in this city.

I weave through red lights and barrel down turning lanes, hugging the tight shoulder of the road at over a hundred miles per hour.

This is a death sentence. Setting foot on that property again will be the last thing I do. For all I know, it’s another ploy—Marcel’s last move on the board. The final checkmate to send me somewhere that I can’t come back from.

It doesn’t matter. I just have to get to her.

The call stays connected, the numbers ticking up in silence.

I pass over the bridge, so damn close now. The speedometer dial flickers on the dash, up into the red. A dozen speed cameras light up the night overhead, like paparazzi.

The engine revs furiously as I line up on the private road to the house, tires spinning until they hit traction. I slam on the gas, rocketing the car up toward the gate as fast as I can accelerate.The guard has no time to react. The nose of the car crashes through the first gate, knocking the whole thing wide open. The gate rends and sparks as I barrel through it and take it down with an ugly scream of metal-on-metal. I lose speed, but I break through.

The front of the car is mangled, but the engine is built into the rear, and she’s still going strong down the dark street. Shouts rise up behind me and I slam on the gas again. One more gate. Just one between me and her and that bastard. Bullets ping off the back of the car. The back windshield cracks open. I keep my eyes ahead, ignoring the rain of rapid-fire bullets peppering the air around me.

I duck low as I reach the second gate, another barrage of bullets flying in from the guard posted up there, ripping the windshield to pieces. I keep my foot on the gas pedal. The car shudders sharply, but it takes the barrier down. Twisted metal gets caught up under the wheels and in the grill. I drag the goddamn thing across the yard with a shower of white-hot sparks. I get as close as I can to the back of the house before the wheels lock up.

I leap out of the car, engine still running, one headlight still burning and casting light across the yard.

“Ava!”

I run, gun in hand.

She doesn’t call back, but I see her half illuminated in the headlights—alive. She bows her head, her hair now some ghostly color that matches how pale she is in this moment. She stares down at the white ring of flowers at her feet—the tiny memorial planted where Vincent Mori was shot and killed. A few feet away,in the bubbling water fountain, Thaddeus Mori slumps over into the fountain basin, face down in the water and bent at the waist. He isn’t moving. In the glint of the light, the water ripples red.

Ava shakes from head to toe, breathing hard, her arms wrapped tight around her middle. I was too late. Too far away.Goddammit. I march right to her and pull her into my arms. She collapses against my chest, as if waiting for me was the only thing keeping her on her feet. She wasn’t making so much as a sound until now, but she suddenly sobs heavy and hard into my chest.

“I got you. I got you, baby. Let me look at you,” I urge her, kissing the top of her head and trying to ease her back. “Let me see.”

But she clings to me, sobbing, speaking against my chest so that I can barely hear her.

“You’re here,” she sobs. “You’re actually here.”

“Did you really think I’d ever fucking leave you?” I ask her. “I’m strong, Ava, but I’m not that strong.” She cries harder as I clutch her in my arms, holding her tight and kissing her temple over and over. “I should have been here sooner. I should have…”

There are a lot ofshould haves, and right now, I’m ignoring another one.

“I need you to listen to me,” I try again, trying to ease Ava back. We don’t have a lot of time. “Let me see what the fuck he did. Let me look.” She could be stabbed for all I know, bleeding out right here in my arms. She’s been holding her stomach the whole time. I finally manage to kneel in front of her and look her over, pulling her shaking hands aside and off her belly. I expect tosee blood, at least some kind of wound, but there’s nothing—not even a cut in her dress.

She clutches her belly again, puts her hands right back where they were, as if she can’t stop guarding it. I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong, what he did, when the truth comes shaking out of Ava’s lips.

“Nico, I’m pregnant,” she finally sobs.

The confession rattles me. I can barely think through the rush of instincts, emotions, the twist of blinding protective rage that bubbles up inside of me as my eyes drop from her blood-spattered, tear-stained face to the soft, subtle swell of her belly. Stunned, I press my hand to her stomach, and she lets me, her hands shaking as they move aside to let me feel.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. He wouldn’t raise it, and I didn’t know how Marcel would react, or if Sal would let me keep it, and I know you don’t want it, and I just—I just—”

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