Page 114 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

I once did everything I could to get Ava out of her bed, out of that room that she chained herself to. Stupid mistake. Now, I’d do anything to keep her in it. I want to spend the next five months wrapped around her in bed, never letting her leave. I know I can’t. It’d be just as bad as letting her roam wild.

But she’s taking it easy, as she promised, and the family rallies around her health.

While the girls relax in the pool, I meet with Salvatore on the patio to discuss Ava’s situation, and the wordsblood pressureare barely out of my mouth before Salvatore approves my demanding shopping list: a personal chef with a nutritionist background. A nurse that can monitor Ava’s health in the day-to-day. The best OB/GYN money can get, fully vetted.

It’s a lot to ask for. It’s not the budget that’s the problem for men like us, I could handle that with no problem, but it’s the logistics of it all. Approving new people to enter the house and doing exhaustive background checks isn’t easy and it all comes with a risk, but Salvatore allows it without so much as a blink. Then, he tells me to wait.

He brings me a box, heavy with books, and sets it on the ground next to our feet.

“The hell is that?” I ask, poking through it like a bargain bin. Everything from medical books to parenting guides are packed inside.

“Everything I read to try to get ready for it all. I don’t know if you want it, but it’s there if you do. Tessa vetted them, made sure none of them were bullshit before she’d let me read them. That they all had some merit, some…truth, I guess.”

“Did it help?”

He shrugs.

“Who knows? A lot of it feels like common sense, and somehow it all still feels…overwhelming. But maybe even if it only helped a little, even if it means I might do one thing right that I otherwise would have done wrong…that’s worth it. I don’t think we’re built for it like they are. I don’t think it comes naturally. You remember Dad.”

I hesitate.

“We might’ve had the same father, but we had very different dads.”

Sal looks surprised that I would say as much, but I know it’s true. I always did. My father was no saint, but he might as well have treated me like a prince for all the hell he gave Sal. That Sal even survived our father and his fucked-up hatred, that was a feat, and he was just a kid then. I never cared, and I never stopped it.

An awkwardness settles. Neither of us knows how to be genuine with each other, brought together by only this one same experience.

“I’m gonna quit the fights,” I tell him. “Is that going to cause a problem for you?”

“No,” he says, without flinching.

I know it will, and it almost pisses me off how accommodating he’s being with me. I’ve caused him hell. Nothing but it, and he just keeps…I glance down into the pool, where our girls are laughing themselves sick over something, Tessa chasing her lost bikini top across the water. I remind myself it’s not for me. It’s for her.

Even with Ava laughing in the sun, my thoughts run a mile a minute:

Did she put on enough sunscreen? Is the water too cold, the sun too hot? When was the last time we had the pool maintenanced, does anyone even know?

“Do you ever…” I hate the words, because they sound fucking pathetic, “do you ever get over the anxiety?”

The man didn’t read a dozen what-to-expect books because he wascalm.

“No,” he admits, “it just gets worth it. Once you have them in your arms, and you can hold them, it’s...I don’t know. Not easier, but better, I guess.” His voice lowers so even I can barely hear him. “Truth is, when you showed back up on our doorstep, I was half-tempted to throw the whole business in your lap and tell you to deal with it.”

“Never gave me that impression,” I say.

“That’s because I knew it was a stupid idea, come about for a stupid reason. You know, I have nightmares about the Feds kicking down the door of this place three, four nights a week? And it’s not the guns and the computers they drag out of the house. It’s not even me. That kind of anxiety? I don’t think that ever stops. Sometimes I look at all this and still wonder if some cookie-cutter suburban hell wouldn’t be better in its own way, living off 80k a year in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“Alright, now you’re just getting grim.”

Salvatore barks out a laugh. I don’t think we’ve ever made each other laugh before, not in the way brothers should. It feels weird at first, but maybe we’ll grow into it. Besides, I understand what he means.

Out across the city, some miles away, a handful of men are being killed, or hunted, or trying to go into hiding. The tension in the family buzzes like a beehive I’ve shaken up. No matter how many men I take out, no matter how many threads I snip, it will never besafefor me. Not really. That damage is done, and I imagine I will always have that fear in me, too, that one day my consequences might come and catch the wrong person in their crosshairs.

All I can do is protect her.

“Do whatever you have to, Nico,” Salvatore says, as he goes to leave. “You have my blessing.”

The actual meaning of those words doesn’t sink in until later.

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