Page 11 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

We end up sitting on a bench, side by side, with a full view of the Brooklyn Bridge. The city is all lit up, its lights blazing across the water lapping only a few feet away.

Nico sits too close, even when I scoot right to the edge of the bench. His body heat runs up my side. He runs hot, just like his temper and his looks. The reflection of the city burns in his eyes like fire. I wonder what he must be feeling—in a cage for seven years, and then released back into allthis.

“You just don’t want to go home,” I accuse him, stealing one of his french fries.

“You know I’ve shanked men for less.”

I shrug and pop the fry into my mouth.

“Good thing I’m not a man.”

Nico tears through his food like he’s never tasted anything better than a greasy, overpriced burger. He probably hasn’t for a long time.

“So, was it worth it?” I ask him. “Prison and all that. Missing out on this for all those years?”

“It was worth it.”

“So you’d do it again?”

“In a heartbeat,” he says, no hesitation. I scoff at such a stupid answer.

“Yeah? The same way? Security cameras and all?”

Nico laughs darkly, his words soft and sure. “Security cameras aren’t what landed me in prison.”

I feel the wind for the first time tonight, the way it ripples across the water and carries the chill up the bank.

I always wondered if Salvatore’s hands were really tied like he said or if he chose to let his own brother rot in prison. Everyone has their theories. Typically, the family doesn’t just abandon its high-ranking members behind bars. But with Nico, the man who should have been untouchable, they said there was nothing to be done.

The evidence was too damning, the trial too clear-cut.

“Not like it fucking matters,” he says. “The past is always gonna be the past. All you can do is pick your future, pick what it is you want, and do anything to get it. And once you get your hands on it, you don’t let it go.”

The way he looks at me when he says that makes me shiver feverishly, indistinguishable from cold or hot.

We watch the boats drifting across the water even after we finish eating. I wonder how many times Marcel has tried to call while I’ve been stuck here. If he’s going to have people out looking for me in a panic. Guilt forms a tiny knot in my stomach.

“At what point is my debt repaid, Nico?” I ask into the listless silence.

“When I say it is.”

I roll my eyes, feeling the agonizing tick of every second.

“If this is some roundabout way of getting in my panties, you’re wasting your time...”

The man huffs out a laugh, his white teeth glinting in the night.

“Yeah? Is that what you’re sitting there wondering about? When I’m finally gonna spread you out on the hood of my car and get it over with?”

My imagination works too fast. It lets me imagine, for one blinding, hot second, what it would be like to have Nico make good on that threat. To be laid bare with my legs up, my arms pinned, his teeth on my skin. To bereallyat his mercy.

Or lack thereof.

I shouldn’t be able to feel that kind of longing for another man. Not after Vinny. Not for anyone, no matter how primal and biological. Nico is so close. My breaths feel shallow, as if there’s not enough air left in New York.

“I wouldn’t let you.”

“That’s cute.” He grins dangerously.

---