Page 49 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

“The longer you wait, the worse it gets,” I whisper to him, the zipper lowering.

His teeth graze his bottom lip, a frustrated sigh rumbling in his chest.

Nico puts one hand up by my head, his thumb closing over my ear. He takes the shot—I don’t see it, but I hear the last bottle explode with a brittle snap.

Damn.

I push away from Nico, but he pulls me right back in. His mouth goes to mine, our bodies pressed close. I try to push away.

“Nico—”

“Don’t make threats you can’t make good on.”

We stand in the moment, the wind whipping at my hair, tossing strands across my eyes. Slowly, I lean up to kiss him. Our mouths meet as I deepen the kiss, spurring it on, demanding more than Nico expected. He’s trying to match my pace when I get his lower lip between my teeth and give him a soft, sharp nip.

He hisses, surprise flashing in his eyes as he reels back and scrubs his hand against the wound. A smile touches the corner of his lip as he tongues the bloodied cut.

“I missed that.”

Those words fly as sure as one of Nico’s bullets, cracking my heart into a thousand shards. I blink at him, dazed by how easily the phrase flies past my defenses.

“What?”

His voice isn’t dark and husky, isn’t laced with smug innuendo. He’s being genuine as he says, “This. This feels more like you. The girl I met in that fighting ring, who stole my car and picked fights she couldn’t win. I’m not letting her go again.”

I study the tops of our shoes, the wind whipping the words out of my mouth.

“Sometimes, you don’t have a choice,” I tell him, with a tight smile. “Or you do have a choice, and you just won’t make it.”

He lets me pull away from him, but his eyes are locked on me, magnetic and feral as I call him out. I hear his sigh as I turn my back on him.

We walk off the tension, though I still taste it in the air between us as clearly as the smoke from the shotgun.

Nico distracts us by bringing out a short-barrel rifle from the metal case. I bet a gun like that is illegal for more than just being in Nico’s possession. He puts a few shots into the dirt in front of us, showing me how it works. He talks me into shooting it just a little. The rifle stock pressed into my shoulder makes me shiver, and the frame is heavier than I expected it would be.

This time, he isn’t all over me. He stands back, and I realize he’s looking at me—taking in the whole picture. I squeeze the trigger, a spray of bullets kicking up dirt. It’s so sickeningly easy.

I could have never imagined comfortably being in a room with this weapon, much less holding it on my shoulder, my finger dancing on the trigger. No one else would have ever dragged me along to do this. It makes the sharp ringing in my ears and the pounding in my skull worth it.

“What do you think?” he asks me when I run out the clip.

“I think I’ve already shot the only man I ever intend to shoot.”

“Good news for me,” Nico gloats lowly, slipping the gun out of my hand.

“Don’t get excited. Stabbing you still isn’t off the table.”

“With what?” To my surprise, Nico flips my knife out of his pocket again. He’s kept it this whole time, carrying it around with him. “You any good with this?” he asks.

“I can peel an apple. Give it back.”

“What would you do, if I started coming at you with this?” he asks, taking slow steps toward me as he drops the gun into the grass.

“I’d probably stand here and wait for you to hand it over, since it belongs to me.”

“You never learned to shoot, you got no self-defense lessons. Marcel really plans to keep you in that house forever, doesn’t he? Like nothing could ever happen to you, just because you’re his little sister. He shouldn’t have brought you into our world if he wasn’t going to prepare you for it.”

“And that’s what you’re doing?” I ask.

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