Page 89 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

Is she really alright with this? She can’t be.

My feet pace, prowling restlessly.

“You will make it worse, Nico—just as you’ve done every step of the way.”

I should have known she’s been paying attention. She always did. She goes on, bewildered,

“What are you trying to achieve, child? Every time you try to get between Ava and Thaddeus, it only pushes them closer together. All you’ve done is hasten their marriage and make Salvatore more suspicious of you. I take a lot of pride in knowing what’s happening in this family, but when I look at you, Nico—quite frankly, I have no idea what you’re doing. What you’re trying toaccomplish.”

“I’m protecting what’s mine,” I answer her.

“Which is what?” she prompts, needling me, her stare like a laser grilling through my skin. “Your interests? Your position in the family? Your legacy? Or the girl?”

I ignore the question and throw one back at her. “Why the fuck do you care, Cecilia?”

“It’s my duty to care.”

“Not anymore.”

“Is that what it is?” she asks wryly. “You’ve simply outgrown me? I suppose that’s why you never wrote back to any of my letters.”

My heart cracks as Cecilia takes a tiny, refined chisel against the stone. I look away, the uncomfortable well of emotion not something I know how to deal with.

“I read them. Hell, I kept them, and all their nitpicking. I just didn’t know what to say. Figured you were disappointed enough in how it all went down. Last thing you needed was to see how bad my handwriting had gotten, too.”

She smiles wryly.

“Those awful hieroglyphs you called letters.”

I scoff slightly at the memory as we share a look, nostalgic and bitter for the time gone, and how little is left, and how fucked up it all is. We fall silent as Thaddeus Mori strides by us again. He eyes me out of the corner of his vision, and I swear I see the slightest smirk tug at the corner of his wax museum face. Cecilia’s cold hand closes around my wrist and holds me in place.

“Nico,” she implores me.

Thaddeus strides back and forth again, throughmyhouse, gloating as I do nothing but watch. Holding back my anger is like trying to hold back the force of the wind, unable to get a grip on it. Cecilia’s feeble little grip around my wrist, even her tight clamp around my heart, neither of those are going to be enough of a leash.

“Fuck this,” I whisper, starting to push away and hunt him down.

“Are you in love with her?”

The question comes out of left field, so fast, I can’t defend against it. The feeble old lady damn near knocks the breath out of me with just a few syllables. I turn to look at her, the answer hovering somewhere between my chest and my brain. It doesn’t matter if I don’t say it. She reads the answer in my face, the way it flickers, unable to give an answer—which only leaves the truth.

I am.

Her expression falls, pained.

“Dear God,” she mutters bitterly. “I thought you would have learned something—”

“What does it matter to you?” I interrupt.

“It means everything to me, you foolish boy. I watched this weakness of yours put you behind bars once. I thought you getting out, you might actually use this second chance for something.” I pace away, as if the distance will make the wordsless true, make them miss their mark, but it doesn’t help. Each one lands like a bullet. “But here you are, barely two months out and right back to your old ways. Don’t you see that this is what Salvatorewants? To bait you into attacking a member of the family and give him a reason to get rid of you for good? Don’t play into his game, boy. I raised you to know better than that.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been a disappointment to you.”

She sighs.

“Nico...” she says, so softly I can barely hear it, “this time, you’re not going to end up behind bars. You’ll end up in a grave. If you can’t act for your own sake, then act for mine. I attended your sentencing. Don’t make me attend your funeral, too.”

I stare down that yawning hallway, watching the man at the end of it the way a hunter watches a deer, with his finger curled around the trigger. The kill shot lingers, right there in plain sight. But slowly, that hunter lifts the barrel of the gun. He uncurls his finger. He watches the deer meander by, heading toward the edge of the clearing.

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