Page 51 of Mafia Don's Secret Twins

Well, except to my girls and my mom, I guess.

Still, the idea that Dino would be interested in me for who I am is silly. It’s a fantasy that I’ve entertained for way too long.

He doesn’t know who I am.

I keep that information under lock and key, and I don’t know that I’ve ever really been my true self around anyone…

Except Dino, that one night.

“Okay. So,” my mother’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “This man who sounds alarmingly like your father, he is protecting the girls.”

“Well, he’s definitely at the house…”

“Marisol,” she admonishes. “You think the girls can just— what? Wait for me there?”

“Gia will take care of them,” I add confidently.

She sighs.

“We need to get you out of here, okay? So let’s pack, and…”

She waves her hand at me. “Your father was going to let me go when you came back. I had already scared him into it.”

“Mamá!”

She shrugs. “You just walked in and negotiated this! I couldn’t stop and pause you!”

Ugh. “At least Moretti will keep the worst of them away, I guess.”

Another one of her scathing looks. “That boy wants more than just to be your father’s guard dog. Or yours,” she adds.

“What does that mean?”

Putting her clothes into a bag, my mom throws me a look. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed, mi Corazón.”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She heaves a sigh, muttering in Spanish, then turns back to me. “Well, I think it will just have to stay that way then.”

“Stay what way?”

“Amor, I must go. I have someone waiting for me.”

I blink. “Who?”

“Don’t worry about that. But tell me how to find the girls, and I will find them.”

I go through the directions to the Rossi estate in New York. I also give her Gia’s contact information, which I memorized earlier, and my mom memorizes it as well.

Sometimes you learn certain things when you’re connected to this life.

Like how to memorize information before it disappears forever… or keep someone else from seeing it written down.

My mother confidently takes the information from me, then wraps me in a huge hug. “You didn’t have to bargain for me, mi corazón,” she whispers. “I would have been just fine.”

“Well I didn’t know that,” I grumble.

“After all this time, surely you know that your father and I will do many things to each other, but him coming close to hurting me is not one of them.”

---