Page 90 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

I look down, trying so damn hard to bottle that rage up inside me. For her.

Thaddeus Mori comes down the hallway again, humming merrily to himself. He has a box clutched in his hands. A familiar stuffed animal peeks out from the top of it. Dusty and worn and well-loved, its button eyes boring into my soul. He walks by us with Ava’s most cherished possessions clutched in his mitts, and he takes them right out the front door, toward the trash.

I sigh under my breath.

“Cecilia,” I say, drawing her attention as our eyes meet. “Do me a favor, and tell the family I don’t want a single nice thing said about me at my funeral.”

She watches, resigned, as I march out of the house after him and slam the door behind me.

I’m going to destroy him.

I’m going to rip him limb from limb, break him bone by bone.

“Hey!” I yell across the yard, footsteps quick and furious. Thaddeus turns those mortified eyes to me. The color drains from his face as I chase him down, his feet skittering back like a man who just can’t get out of the way of an oncoming bus.

“That’s her shit! Get your fucking hands off it!”

“Nico—Nico,stop, you can’t—Salvatore—”

I knock Sal’s name right out of his mouth.

He drops the box as he reels, Vinny’s items spilling across the ground as he hits the lawn. He backs away from me, crawling backward, digging up grass and dirt as he scrambles away.

“This?” he screams, womanly and frightened, utterly confused as he gestures to the junk on the ground. “This is what you’re going to die over?”

The emotionless button eyes of a teddy bear stare up at me. It’s almost funny, in a way. Of all the shit I did, everything I was meant for in life, every obstacle I overcame against all the odds—this is what might end it for me. A box of stuffed animals and gift shop mugs.

I haul Thaddeus up by the collar.

He trembles, flinching, braced for the next hit.

“You’re goddamn right, Thaddeus. Salvatore could walk out that door and shoot me dead,” I say, staring him down. “And it’d be worth it. Ava loves these things, loves this memory of Vinny more than she could ever love me or you—”

My fist cracks against Thaddeus’ face, my blood singing.

“—and I’ll be dead before you take that from her.”

Finally,finally.

If I can’t have her for myself, there’s only one thing I can do—and that’s take Thaddeus out with me. His hand is right there, sprawled against the grass. The one he put onmywife. I crush it under my shoe. He howls, those thin bird bones snapping. His scream cuts short as I wrap my hand around his throat, crushing down. He writhes and kicks and hits me, trying to fight as he’s choked out under my grip. The muscles in my arms strain, my fingers a vise, crushing the life out of another man.

“Stop!” Contessa Mori says, coming down the steps two at a time.

“Sorry, princess,” I mutter, ignoring her, keeping my hold tight, waiting for his struggling to stop.

Killing a man like this—it takes so long. If you get them around the throat just right, they’ll pass out first, but I want him to suffer. I want him to feel the air turn to fire in his lungs, I want towatch the blood vessels in his eyes pop like bloody fireworks. He doesn’t get the luxury of being unconscious when I kill him.

“Nico, listen to me!” Contessa says, urgent, desperate, whispering furiously as she grabs my shoulder and tries to pull me off. “That’s enough! Stop it, stop! If you want to help Ava, thenstop!”

My fingers relax like a soldier given an order.

Thaddeus Mori draws a horrible, wheezing breath as he tries to right himself. He chokes and clutches his throat. Tessa looks him over, trying to see how damaged he is. Every vein on his neck is highlighted an ugly purple, his temple bulging. He finally swallows air, drawing himself to his shaking hands and knees. The life comes back into him, one rasping breath at a time.

When he finally manages words, he says:

“He—he tried to fuckingkillme!”

I ignore them both. I gather Ava’s things back into the box before they can get lost or broken in the chaos of whatever is about to happen to me.

---