Page 65 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

“Even the baby knows my gift is better,” I say, low and private. I pass the keys to Ava. She snatches them, her face pink as the women around us silently judge our interaction. I feel the calculations running, the silent, knowing looks passing from one woman to the next.

But all they have is guesswork.

Ava and I are the only two people standing here who know the realwhy. Everyone else can only read the smoke signals I left in the sky declaring my burning, flash-fire feelings for Ava St. Clair. I stare at her, eye to eye, hoping she knows why. I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks, but she needs to know—no one else is allowed to dote on her like that.

Footsteps crunch in the gravel behind me. I brace, fully expecting my pissed-off brother to come tackle me to the ground like a goddamn linebacker for so much aslookingin his wife and child’s direction. I get it. If there is anything that Salvatore and I have in common, it’s that we are savage for the ones we love most. I wouldn’t trust me, either.

I know it’s going to be bad without turning around.

I break eye contact with Ava just enough to brace myself for what’s coming.

“It’s alright, Sal.”

Contessa’s voice snaps out and intercepts him.

Those angry footsteps slow. Salvatore slings me back a few feet. It rips the air right out of my lungs, my battered ribs catching in my chest as I keep my footing. I swallow the urge to vomit, forcing myself to keep upright and stoic, even when it takes a good twenty seconds to draw my first breath through the searing pain.

Salvatore’s eyes are black with rage.

“Do you really think I’d just murder them all on the front steps of our house?” I ask between breaths. “That I wouldn’t protect them, if I needed to? Like it or not, Sal, your family is my family, too—and between the two of us, I’m not the one with a history of killing our family members.”

Sometimes, even I don’t know why I say shit. Just to make it all worse.

In the world’s shittiest trade, our mother died giving birth to him. As a grown man, I know that’s not his fault. Hell, I knew it when we were kids, too, but damn did it feel good blaming him for it all those years. She didn’t deserve to die—not for him, anyway. He was never worth it. No matter how high he climbs in the world, no matter what he achieves, that will never change. Not for me.

His fist wraps into the collar of my shirt, pulling me close. I meet his gaze, unflinching and unafraid. I grin even when I’m about to eat a punch. At least that old wound still hasn’t healed for him. I hope it never does.

Before he can start swinging, a hand comes up and hooks into the bend of Salvatore’s arm. I expect it to be his bold little wife,maybeAva—but only if she wants to start beating me up herself. Instead, Cecilia reaches out and closes a hand around Salvatore’s elbow.

We’re both so surprised she would stop him, it actually works, the tension skipping like a scratched record.

“You forget your place, Cecilia,” Salvatore says, shaking off her hand.

She sniffs.

“Interrupting a don taking care of business is not my place, but stopping you two boys from fighting each other in the yard hasalwaysbeen. Just because you have one up on him now, Salvatore, doesn’t mean you need to take advantage of it. Even if he deserves it,” she says.

I lift an eyebrow at him, a silent dare for him to do something.

But he’s not easily goaded, not like I am.

Finally, Salvatore lets go with a furious breath. We back away from each other and let the tension bleed out, sapped out of the moment by Cecilia basically calling us overgrown kids. Just at the foot of the stairs, Marcel has been standing by all along, his hand tucked inside his jacket, just waiting for me to dosomething so that he can pull out that gun and shoot me. He doesn’t mask his disappointment when he straightens his suit again.

An awkward silence lingers.

“I appreciate that none of you have anything better to do than stand around and watch tow-truck drivers and other blue-collar people with real jobs work, but personally, I have things to do,” I say, clapping Sal on the arm as I walk by him.

“Is anyone going to explain the car?” I hear Marcel ask as I step through the group and cut into the house, feeling every gaze on my back. Ava’s burns the hottest of them all, trying to peel me to the bone. I turn around just enough to wink at her. That gorgeous face goes scarlet, her beautiful eyes darting away. She turns her back and refuses to look at me, but I see her reaction in the pink of her ears.

It’s all the thanks I need.

20

Ava

Do all secrets hurt like fire? I’ve never had a secret worth keeping before, and this one burns hot and constant, like a tiny star trapped inside my chest, trying to scorch its way through me. I still haven’t told Nico that I’m pregnant. I haven’t told anyone. I lie awake at night, running my hands over my belly and playing the conversation over and over again in my head, imagining all the awful ways it might go.

Before I can personally punish Nico for doing something so stupid and reckless as burning my car on the front lawn, Salvatore beats me to the punch. He gives Nico some grueling grunt work to do out in the city, the details of which I’m not privy to. All I know is that it keeps Nico busy and it keeps him away.

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