Page 67 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

The two fighters dance around each other. The bets are being put in for the real upcoming match, while the two behind the bars seem like friends, chatting and laughing while they mime hitting each other.

Someone slips up behind me, standing too close. I expect it to be Nico, but the sensation is all wrong. The height, the smell, the heat. My instincts revolt. I turn and am met with a face of ink and color, with two mismatched eyes and a strange smile. My eyes bolt around his face, looking for something normal to land on.

“I recognize you,” he says, with a sharp smile.

“I can’t say the same.” I turn my head away from him. He doesn’t take the hint.

“Marcel’s sister, right?” He holds out a hand. “Angelo. I’m a friend of Nico’s.”

Relief washes over me, and we shake hands.

“I don’t suppose you know where he is, then?” I ask.

“Ah, old Nico’s a stray dog, but he always shows up eventually. Do you want a drink? Or maybe something else? Powder your nose?”

“No,” I say immediately.

“Well, if you change your mind, it’s on the house. Courtesy of the family, of course.”

Of course.

“You must be related to Salvatore to make that kind of offer.”

“Oh, proudly.” He grins. “I bet you didn’t know Moris had gutter trash in their bloodline, did you?” I don’t know how to answer, feeling uncomfortable. Is he making a joke about himself? But he has a point. Angelo doesn’t look anything like the Moris that I know. More like he fell out of a Hot Topic clearance rack a couple decades too late, or he had a death metal band that never made it out of the garage. I’m not one to judge books by their covers, but I’d be lying to myself if I said he didn’t give me the creeps.

I’m trying to piece together why Nico hangs out with him, what business he would have with someone covered in ugly face tattoos and body modifications, when I realize that Angelo and I probably have one common denominator—crazy. Nico is collecting the mentally unstable like they’re his own personal trading card collection.

It annoys me, and I try to focus on the fight again.

“Are you waiting for him?” Angelo pries, refusing to leave it alone.

“Something like that.”

“He’ll show before the next fight. He doesn’t usually miss it. Give it a few minutes and I think it’ll start,” he assures me. “If you need anything—well, speak of the devil.”

He nods to the entrance, where a familiar figure marches through the doorway. Nico walks into the room, and the breath politely steps out of my lungs. Nico isn’t in the cage tonight, but he is still in his element. He walks in with the surety of a man who owns this building, commanding the entire space. It stirs something in me, maybe because I’ve seen him walk into a bedroom with that same burning confidence. With the cage between Nico and me, he doesn’t see me. I get to watch him for a few seconds, unimpeded, how he is out in the world, when it’s not the two of us.

But he doesn’t enter alone.

A woman walks alongside him, following on his heels. She’s gorgeous, with flowing black hair and a magazine foldout body, her breasts barely squeezed into a low-cut white crop top. Shemarches alongside him, and my heart sinks as he puts his hand on her back as they cut through the room. I can’t get a good look, but the sight of her steals my breath and sends my thoughts swirling.

I never thought I was the jealous type. If anyone asked, I would have said no, of course I’m not. I’m trusting, probably gullible, too shy to make a fuss. At least, those are the things I used to believe about myself. But standing here now in the underground with my heart on fire, I realize I just never had anything to be jealousof. It feels like someone tried to light a match in my chest, an abrasive stripe singed inside me, dragging over it until it lit. The room feels blisteringly hot suddenly, humid even this deep underground, the air too thick to breathe.

The next fight starts while my thoughts are still reeling. The announcer’s booming voice christens the event Yancey vs. Summers as the fighters circle the ring. The speaker system blares with interference, drowning the room in an uncomfortable squeal. It mimics the screech in my head, like train brakes.

The pair crosses the room without noticing me.

The lights lower. I keep to the shadows, holding the distance between us as they walk side by side. Nico takes the woman through the staff door—the same doorway he took me through that first night, where he hid me away from the rest of the world and checked to see if I was injured. My chest feels tangled up, knotted, the pain both exquisite and horrible.

I look to the overhead booths. Are they going up there into the shady VIP areas? Will he put her in his lap, touch her through the fight, just the way he likes to put me on his lap and touch me?Does he use all those same little lines on her? Does she drown in his same gruff commanding charm and control? Does he kiss her like she’s the only girl in the whole universe?

I can’t think straight.

Maybe he is just playing me like a wind-up toy in his little war with Marcel, and I am obediently marching along.

And I’m carrying his baby.

Hell, maybe she is, too.

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