Page 57 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

“Well, that complicates things then, doesn’t it?” she snips.

When I don’t follow, that sharp gaze lands on me again. It runs up and down my body, making me feel small and childish.

“Complicateswhat?” I ask.

“How you’re going to explain the baby.”

“What?”

Her voice croons low and quick, her eyes fixed on the people out in the yard, anticipating any one of them coming back up to us. “You might not be showing in the middle yet, Ava, but a woman’s breasts and hips—those can tell the truth before the belly does. And a woman my age knows the signs when she sees them.”

“Well, your vision’s been going for a long time,” I say, struggling to keep my voice down. I can feel how pale I must be, all the blood rushed out of my cheeks. “I’m not—” I lower my voice sharply. “I’m not pregnant, Cecilia.”

“If there’s no chance of that, why are you whispering?”

My mortified silence blisters between us.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to say, what I’m supposed to evenfeel. Over and over, Nico threatened me with his baby. Over and over, I let him take that gamble, knowingly playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun.

I got into fights, and I didn’t get hurt.

I sped down the highway, and I didn’t crash.

Every bad thing I tempted swerved me, over and over.

I glance down at my flat belly, wondering if my luck finally ran out. If I finally got that ruin I’d been begging for all along. The crowd starts to come back toward the house.

“If something needs to be done about this,” she says quickly, “you come straight to me. Tell no one else. You’ll be given cash and the name of a family physician who will be discreet. Do you understand?”

My throat works feebly.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because I am the closest chance you have of a secret like that being taken to the grave.”

Our conversation is interrupted. Salvatore, Tessa, and Marcel come back up the steps. I hear them talking to me, trying to get my attention, no doubt trying to get a read on how I must be feeling about Thaddeus and his little stunt with the car. Right now, I don’t feel anything about it. I can barely pretend to know what they’re talking about.

I begin to walk away, my knees wobbling on the stairs as I head down them.

“Ava?” Marcel calls after me. “Where are you going?”

I dangle the keys on my finger.

“To take it for a spin.”

I long to speed down the road, reckless and wild even with tears in my eyes. My emotions roil. They lash out at Cecilia, thinking how stupid she must be, some nosy old woman with nothing better to do than pretend she knows everyone else’s business.

But another, tinier voice keeps my foot off the gas pedal:

She could be right.

Universe three, Ava zero?

I refuse to think about it. I point the car toward the nearest convenience store and drive, trying desperately to shut my brain off, drowning it out with the radio station I can barely navigate through the unfamiliar panels on the car.

Cecilia is probably just trying to scare me, my brain insists over the upbeat cheer of some mid-2000s pop song. I curl one hand around my breast, squeezing and weighing it against my palm. It could be a million things. A different bra, the cut of my shirt. Maybe I’ve put on weight since I’ve been eating more. I lost so much after Vinny, there was barely anything left.

That makes sense. Cecilia is just used to seeing me underfed and scrawny now, and I’m finally getting better.

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