Page 111 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

The unspokenwhy?lingers between us. Why give up the men that tried to help me?

“They’re not going to stop with me, Sal. Maybe they’d give it all up once I’m gone, or maybe they’d find some other way—I don’t really care. But they threatened the wrong person, and if I can’t finish it, you’re going to. Marcus, Zach, Allan, Elias.”

And God only knows what that will cause—the ripple effect of one traitor being snuffed out and spawning three in his wake. But that’s the business. The ugly hydra of betrayal that never stops regenerating, until whole branches of the family tree are pruned back.

“I know we’re past the point of deals, so just consider this a last wish—take care of her for me.” I face the barrel when Salvatore raises it, and I don’t flinch—I just try to look past it, toward her, one last look—but the ring of onlookers keeping me pointlessly pinned to the ground gets in the way.

“Sal!”

Marcel yells suddenly, coming across the yard at a pained jog. Marcel’s voice stops Salvatore in his tracks, but Marcel doesn’t slow down to talk or explain once he reaches us. He comes right at me, taking me by the collar and punching me hard across the face, twice. The entourage of men falls back in surprise, getting out of the way as Marcel swings on me.

Somewhere in those milliseconds between the first and second hits, it registers—she told him what happened, and she told him why. I keep my hands down at my side, eating the hits like I’ve earned them. Marcel can still hit damn hard for a man who spent the last week bedridden—or maybe he’s just that pissed off, and there’s no medicine quite like rage.

He throws me down onto the grass, and I don’t fight it, letting him sling me around as much as he likes.

“Marcel?” Sal finally asks, when it seems like he isn’t going to hit me again. Marcel straightens his shirt and his sleeves, trying to shrug on that calm, indifferent demeanor like a coat that he’s grown out of.

“She’s pregnant,” he says tightly.

The barrel of the gun lowers, inch by inch. Salvatore and Marcel look at each other, trying to read each other’s expressions. A tense silence settles. Salvatore’s demeanor stays dark and annoyed, like this just another splinter I’ve wedged under his fingernails.

“And that’s why…?” Salvatore nods to the corpse.

“She told Thaddeus, and he…” The distaste curls under his tongue as he refuses to say it. He doesn’t need to. All the little pieces have fallen into place for them.

And for a single moment, I think maybe I’ve been spared again, that I have defied the odds for the dozenth time in a row, when Salvatore passes the gun to Marcel instead. My mouth quirks, a dry, bitter irony sickening my stomach. Maybe I should have let him bleed out.

“It’s your sister,” Salvatore tells him, “your position he’s been after, and your life he almost took.” Marcel and I both glance at each other, knowing the truth that we both know I haven’t confessed to anyone. “So it’s up to you. You decide what to do with him. All I’ve done is make the wrong fucking choice.”

Marcel and I stare each other down as he makes up his mind, trying to think it through. I watch his expression bounce endlessly between what he wants to do to me, and what heshoulddo to me. If he keeps going like this, I think he might just punch me again.

I know he wants me dead. He probably should, and it was only Tessa’s mercy that spared me from him once. It should be the easiest decision in the world, what he wants right there in his grasp. But the seconds tick on and on, crickets singing in the dead of night.

“My only priority is Ava,” he finally says, “and it always has been. I always thought I had done everything exactly right. That we had a good relationship, that I had toed the line between guardian and brotherjustright.” His smile turns dry and bitter. “And we still ended up here. In the middle of all this secrecy and shady deals and arranged marriages. I knew you were obsessedwith her. At first, I thought it was just another ploy. And then…I realized you were genuine. It wasn’t some act, you were actually just that fucking insane. You really felt something for her. I just never imagined that she…” he sighs, as if it hurts him just to admit, “…that she would feel anything for you. That she’d…” He doesn’t want to picture it, forcing his way past the words.

“I need Ava to be able to trust me again. If I kill you here and now, she never will. And the stress of that…she might lose more than just you, if she hasn’t already.”

My stomach sickens at the thought, but I force myself to listen to the furious roar of denial in my head. That can’t happen, after all this. I want to wrap the girl in bubble wrap, hide her away from everyone and everything, where it’s just us and none of the bullshit that always follows me around.

He turns to Sal.

“I suggest we have a formal trial of the family, but only after the baby is born. Until then, Nico can be on a probationary period, while I make up my mind on how I am going to vote in that trial. And under no circumstances is Ava to know about it.”

“I won’t tell her,” I rasp immediately, my heart pounding. “I swear.”

Salvatore nods to Marcel’s wishes.

Marcel steps forward and offers a hand to help me up. I reach up and take it.

It feels like a trap, all this frantic optimism pumping through my veins, this hope, how I’ve been running out my last life for sogoddamn long. I always thought I was more of a dog person, but I’m starting to think I’ve got nine lives.

Immediately, I look to Ava. She sits on the ground and sobs into her hands. But she glances up, sees me coming toward her, and she claws her way to her feet and comes running. I meet her halfway, hoisting her up into my arms. She kisses me deeply, desperately, and when she can’t kiss me anymore through the tears, she buries her head against my neck and just lets me wrap her up in my arms and hold her.

“You’re okay?” she asks.

“I’m okay, baby. I’m okay. I’m right here.”

“They didn’t—?”

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