Page 117 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

We exchange looks, and I share a smile with him as he pulls me close and kisses me again. The priest sighs, a little off-put. These are not chaste, godly kisses to be exchanged in the house of the Lord. Hell, I don’t think Nico ever learned to kiss like that, like the Devil showed him how to treat a woman right.

The priest is too calm and resolved, probably from his own years of dealing with the Mori family. Maybe this isn’t even the first time he’s been held at gunpoint by one of them. He motions us up to the front of the altar.

“Do you have a witness?” the priest asks.

“Well Christ, father, is God always watching or is he not?”

“He is, but so is the state of New York, and they require at least one witness.”

And Nico is about to march out into the parking lot and flag down some poor pedestrian at gunpoint, but the father stops him and brings someone from the back office out to watch. A little old lady shuffles out in bright mauve and gaudy jewelry, looking giddy at being summoned to an impromptu wedding, and apologizing for not being in her Sunday best, while I’m standing here noticeably pregnant in just a floral print maxi skirt and white spaghetti straps.

“Well, usually this begins withdearly beloved,” the priest says, “but I suppose we can just go withMartha—you are brought here today to witness the…holy union…”

I bite down on a teary laugh at it all. My baby is going wild, and as the priest speaks, ad-libbing a little to lighten the mood, I bring Nico’s hand to my belly to let him feel. His expressionis intense and burning as his baby kicks against his hand, and all at once, looking at him here in the middle of our impromptu wedding vows, I am suddenly certain everything is going to work out just fine. For just a few moments, all my anxiety and gnawing doubts evaporate, and I breathe in the easy relief that a few little hiccups like health scares and mafia men and that looming hurdle of childbirth are not going to get in my way.

I’m going to be this man’s wife, and I’m going to give him a baby, and then maybe another, and then maybe another. I can see it all so clearly for this one, perfect second.

“I suppose you don’t have vows prepared?” the priest asks dryly.

“No, but I can riff,” Nico says, which makes me laugh through the tears I’m trying to wipe away.

“Ava,” he says, just gathering his thoughts—and him just saying my name makes me cry like an idiot, when he hasn’t even promised anything yet. He laughs and pulls me to him, lets me cry against his chest. This isn’t fair. It absolutely isn’t fair. Nicowoulddo this to me when my hormones are making me so emotional, when anything more emotionally charged than a greeting card makes me blubber like an idiot.

His words murmur low against the top of my head, his hand sprawled on my back. It feels like it’s just the two of us. “Every day for the past few months, I’ve thought of all the things I want to give you and promise you, and it’s a long, long list. Longer than either of these people have time for, I’m sure, so let me get the important parts out of the way.” His voice dips, his confession soft and low so that no one else can hear:

“My whole life, Ava, I was raised to do one thing—and when I was young, I thought that thing was run a business. I thought we justcalledit family, and we dressed it up in all these little bullshit traditions and tried to make it honorable, when deep down, we all knew it was just numbers in offshore accounts going up, and problems in cement shoes going down. Business with a side of bloodshed. But it’s not just business. It’s not about the numbers. Maybe I was raised to run a business, but I was born to have a family. It’s in my blood. That’s all I want, Ava. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I want it with you. I want to have something that’s just mine, that money can’t get me and can’t cost me. I want a family, Ava. Our family. And Salvatore, he can have the rest of them. Everything I want to protect and love for the rest of my life, it’s right here.”

It’s like Nico knew every word I wanted to hear, lying awake at night for months, dreaming and dreaming about something I thought would never come true, that Nico would want a family with me. That we could somehow put everything else behind us, and it could be just us and our baby, even if the rest of the world was ash.

“Do you, Nico Mori, take…”

The priest realizes he doesn’t even know my name, and kindly apologies as I give it to him. He clears his throat.

“Do you, Nico Mori, take Ava St. Clair to be your lawfully wedded wife?” he asks.

“I do,” he says, his eyes glimmering, standing too close, his voice so low and personal. “Itakeher.”

My heart pounds.

“And do you, Ava S—”

“I do,” I say immediately, just so I can jump into his arms and kiss him desperately. Nico and I might be the most unholy thing to ever happen under the roof of this cathedral.

The priest stands by, helpless, as we take the ceremony into our own hands.

36

Nico

Salvatore, Marcel, and I make up the world’s most unlikely support group.

We stand in a loose triangle around his office, and I can’t stop pacing toward the door, and then getting pulled back by an invisible leash. Sal offers me a cigar to take the nerves off. I turn it down. I know what this is about, and it’s not all congratulations and celebration.

Ava’s in labor.

Not the whole real,hee-hoo, push for me kind of labor. Not yet, and maybe not for a while. She’s off her due date by three days, and she’s been having these little pains all night. Even when she managed to nod off, I haven’t slept a wink, keeping my hand on her stomach and feeling her muscles gently harden ever sooften. When she stood up his morning, her belly hung low and ominous against her hips.

By breakfast, she was having earnest if infrequent contractions.

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