Page 116 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

And just like that, Nico gently scoops me up into his arms with a yelp and leaves a flutter of paint swatches in his wake.

“Nico, what’s going on? Where am I being kidnapped to?” I ask.

“If I told you that, it wouldn’t be a kidnapping.”

“I don’t think you know the definition of kidnapping.”

Nico holds his smug silence and just kisses me instead of answering. I’ll take it, but the atmosphere is strange. Nico doesn’t seem like himself, haunted in some way. I’m “kidnapped” to the car. We take the route into the city and arrive at a stone building jutting horizontally into the sky, its gothic structure ominous and familiar. The church the Mori family have used for decades.

“Nico, what’s happening?” I ask, and then, desperate to lighten to the mood, I tease, “Are we getting right with God?”

“I’m getting right with somebody, but it isn’t God.”

I reach out and scrub a fleck of blood from his rugged jaw.

“Nico, what…?”

“Get out.”

And I trust Nico so much, so deeply, I don’t even question it when he pulls a gun from the inside of his jacket and steps out of the car with me.

“Nico, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me. It’s not good for the baby.”

“Come on,” he urges. He puts a hand on the small of my back and guides me along toward the church. The air is still and muted, dust swirling in an array of rainbow colors as the sunlight soaks into the stained-glass windows.

“Father,” Nico yells, his voice carrying through the empty church. I wince on instinct. A woman praying in the first pew turns and gives him a wide-eyed, furious look, but the sight of the gun in his hand makes her grab her purse and hurry through the nearest door.

“Nico, what the fuck?” I beg, whispering like we’re in a library while Nico yells.

A priest in dour black and a weather-worn expression steps out from the back of the church, but that look changes as he recognizes the man standing in front of him.

Nico leverages the gun on him and says, “Marry us.”

The priest and I share similar expressions, and his gaze drops to my pregnant belly with a dry twitch of his eyebrows.

My head hasn’t caught up with my racing heart as Nico drops to his knee in front of me, one hand still holding a gun on the man there at a sharp angle.

“Nico, what—”

“I know I’m supposed to ask,” he says, not apologetic. “I know that. And one day I will. One day. And if you say yes, I’ll give you the biggest wedding you’ve ever seen, and the most beautiful dress, and I’ll invite everyone we know and everyone we don’t, just so they can all see me make you mine. I swear on my life, I will give that to you, Ava. I’ll give you a wedding so big, every princess that’s ever lived would be jealous of you. But for now, this has to do. It has to. I need you to be a part of this family, protected by everything it has to offer. Even if you change your mind about all this, even if something happens to me—I want you to take my last name, Ava. Hell, I want you to take all of me, but for now—”

“Nico,” I whisper, and oh God something has him spooked, and there’s another dried patch of red in his beard as we stand here, the world shrinking in around me. My hands cup his cheeks, shaking, the emotion roiling in me. “Nico, yes—you know you don’t have to wait to ask—yes, always yes—”

He comes up off the ground to kiss me, pulling me against him with one arm, my belly a bulging little barrier between us. But he kneels down and kisses my belly too, as if pledging himself to the both of us. My heart soars, emotions flying a million milesa minute—faster and more thrilling than any competitive sports car could manage. I don’t care about a wedding, or that we are surrounded by rows of empty pews and a sweating priest. I’m getting married.Married.

I never thought I would. I had buried the dream with Vinny.

But our baby kicks and stirs in my belly, a constantthump thump thump, as if feeding off of my own sky-high feelings. If the poor thing feels the same rush and weightless feeling in my belly that I do, they probably think they’re skydiving.

Nico stands again, looking to the priest. I’m flustered and red in the face, and I give the poor man there at gunpoint a sympathetic glance, a silent apology for my man’s behavior, but God I don’t regret it. This is just like him, and I love him and every wild, impulsive, stupid decision that he makes.

The priest sighs. “Is the gun really necessary, Mr. Mori?”

“I didn’t have the time to make an appointment.”

“Well, your appointment is made. Now put itaway, please,” the priest says, tense under the pressure of the barrel being pointed center-mass. I reach out as well, lowering the gun slowly until Nico complies, until he’s sure that the priest is going to play along. Once it’s gone, the priest sighs. “I suppose I won’t be seeing you in confessional over this in the next couple of weeks,” he mutters, climbing to the altar for our strange, spur-of-the-moment, gunpoint union.

“I only confess to shit I feel guilty about. And marrying her, whatever it takes, isn’t one of them.”

---