Page 47 of Mafia Don's Secret Twins

It’s just one word, but it feels like a bomb in my mind.

I shut my eyes. “Marisol didn’t want to tell them about me.”

“Perhaps.”

“Why the fuck would I go against what she said, and why the fuck do I want them to know who I am?”

“So they can know who’s going to save their mother.”

My eyes snap open and I stare at my brother. For a minute, all I can do is look at him.

What if I fuck it up?

The thought is too fucking scary to say out loud. I can’t. I don’t want to.

I don’t want the girls to rely on me when I don’t even know if I can fucking pull it off.

Disappointing them…

“You’re going to save her,” Marco says softly. “I know it, Dino.”

“I don’t.”

He sighs. “You’ve always believed so little of yourself.”

“The fuck?”

Marco looks me dead in the eye. “You’ve always thought poorly of yourself, Dino. Always had a chip on your shoulder that worked against your own fucking point. You’re a good man. You’ll be a good father. You’ll be a good husband. But you can’t do any of that shit without a wife, and you certainly can’t be the father to your children without her either. It would fucking kill you and you know it.”

“I…” my jaw snaps shut.

He has a point.

“I know that you’re sitting there listing all the ways you think you’re going to fuck this up. But Dino, I promise you that you won’t. You’re a much better man than you think you are, and while you don’t always have the best way of going about something, I know you. I know that when push comes to shove, you’re not going to shove wrong. You’re going to save her, if it’s the last thing you do.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “When did you become some fucking expert in me?”

“I’ve been your brother for your entire life, asshole. You think I haven’t spent enough time watching you be fully capable of all kinds of shit, then backing off of it because you thought you couldn’t do it?”

“You spent most of our lives trying to clean up my fucking messes,” I growl.

“Sure. You had a lot of them. But every single one of them, you could have fixed on your own.”

I glare at him, and he stands. “Enter the contest. I’ll give you a name. Promise your kids you’ll get their mom back.”

“No.”

“Then lose her forever,” he shrugs. “But you said you were going to get her.”

I seethe, staring at him. I don’t want to do what he’s saying, but deep inside me, I recognize why.

I am afraid to fuck it up.

I am afraid to promise my daughters that I’m going to get their mom back, and then fail at that.

I’m afraid that once I show up, Marisol won’t want me.

Or, even worse…

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