Page 89 of Mafia Don's Secret Twins

“The hell I can’t,” he snarls.

“Dino. Seriously. Think about it,” I whisper.

He stops, looking at me.

“If you try to pull me out of here right now, my dad is going to know exactly who it is. And your little pseudonym isn’t going to do anything to hide you. He’s going to know that it was Dino De Luca who pretended to be Dino Drakos. It’s going to be obvious. Then, he’s going to scour the globe with whoever he decides wins this competition, and he’s going to find you. He’s going to find me,” my lip trembles.

Dino’s eyes widen, watching the wobble in my lip.

I take a breath. “And he’s going to find the girls. He doesn’t care about his grandchildren, for reasons that I can’t figure out. But this might be the time that he finally does, Dino.”

“He wouldn’t hurt them. He can’t…”

“My dad once killed an entire village because they wouldn’t let him store his supplies there,” I whisper. Tears are gathering in my eyes now as I remember the untold number of atrocities I’ve seen my dad commit.

And I’m sure I haven’t even scraped the surface.

“He would hurt the girls. He would kill all of the Rossi family. He would hunt down everyone related to you until he found us.”

“Marisol…”

“He would kill my children, Dino,” I whisper.

He looks at me.

“Our children,” he says.

The wordoursounds painful. Full of longing.

Full of something I can’t quite put my finger on.

“He would hurt them, Dino. I can’t let that happen.”

“I can protect you.”

“For what? So that we can live on the run for our entire lives? SO that the girls will never know peace?”

“What peace are they gonna’ fuckin’ have here? You think that if that fuckin’ Russian wins, he’ll let you live with the girls?”

“No. Of course not. I’m not betting on the Russian.”

“Then who…”

His eyes narrow to slits when he figures it out. “Moretti.”

“He promised that I could have the girls with me. That he would protect me.”

“That fucking rat bastard is not going to have my fucking family,” he snarls.

“He’s not, Dino, but I’m not your family.”

Dino freezes.

I take a deep breath. “We don’t know each other. I don’t even know you, Bernadino Drakos,” I say in a whisper so small, it’s barely audible.

Dino looks like he’s going to explode.

“We aren’t anything to each other, Dino. We had sex. One time. Years ago…”

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