Page 13 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

Or are those breaths heavy for adifferentreason?

With her profile illuminated in the flashlight’s beam, I see those eyes. Cryptic and fearless, pupils dilated into two bright green rims. She glares at me out of the corner of her eyes, under those long lashes.

Finally, the guard slowly presses the radio button and mutters, “Let ’em through.” Before us, the wrought iron gate rolls back.

I let Ava go, and the car inches ahead slowly. I keep the gun on her in case someone decides to try anything clever, watching our angles as we ease our way up the road.

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” she says, as if coming to that conclusion for the first time all over again.

“I’m a man of principle, Ava. You don’t ask for permission to go where you rightfully belong. And you can drop the shocked, angry little charade—we both know you didn’t really mind.”

Those thick lips open and close, no words coming out. Her grip tightens on the steering wheel. “This is it,” she says firmly. “You saved me, and now you’ve used me and put me in danger again. We’re even now. Agreed?”

“Oh, so you’re making deals now?”

“Do you agree?” she repeats. She turns to look at me, not caring that it shifts the barrel from her temple to right between her eyes.

“…Sure, sweetheart.” I smile. “Call it even if you want.”

It doesn’t change anything. She can look at me like she’s done with me all she wants—but I’m not done with her.

The second gate stands open for us.

“See, now this is more like it, Ava. The real red-carpet treatment.”

I forgot a lot of things while I was locked up, but I never forgot this place. Even in the dark, I know its every window, the slope of the rising roofs high above our heads. Men are already on the front steps, bulky silhouettes outlined against the warm glow from the inside of the house.

The headlights fall over them and illuminate Salvatore Mori. My younger brother.

He’s flanked on either side by three men, each of them armed.

Without any consideration at all for the gun in my lap, Ava pops open her door.

We both get out of the car. For the first time in too long, I stand in the shadow of the house—and I feel right at home. My eyes are dragged from the sight down to Marcel, who breaks their choirboy formation and comes storming toward his little sister.

He pulls Ava in, takes one look at her busted lip, and then rounds on me like a wild dog.

“You son of a bitch!”

Salvatore tries to call him back, but Marcel doesn’t listen. The two of us march up to each other. I’m ready for it. Let him put those pretty-boy cheekbones right where I can smash them in.

Ava darts in between us.

“Stop it!” she yells furiously, pushing her brother back by his chest over and over again as we try to get to each other. “He saved me, Marcel! He saved me! Knock it off!”

“He put a gun to your head!”

“Is that such a bad thing if she wasreallyinto it?” I ask.

Marcel’s eyes flash with fury, but it’s Ava who rounds on me now, pushing me back too.

“Shut up,” she snarls at me, desperate to get the two of us apart. Probably because she knows if I get my hands on her brother, there won’t be anything left. Marcel is no wimp, but he’s far from a cage fighter. It’d be all too easy.

We’re both still trying to close in, single-minded, but he won’t push Ava out of the way.

“Get your little boyfriend under control, Sal,” I say, “before he gets himself hurt.”

Marcel glares at me, the anger pulsing in his neck. The silence dares him to do something, to make that move I see him thinking about.

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