Page 19 of Wicked Rivals

The world was full of madmen, sick pedophiles, and lunatics running amuck in the city.

But she thought it safe enough to be on the couch in front of a window, practically lounging in the spotlight like she lived in fucking Mayberry.

No more waiting.

No one in that café could take me out.

I got out of the car and walked into Con Amore, using each step to focus on the rage simmering in my gut.

To rein it in.

My pulse pounded in my ears as I entered the building, and I flexed my clenched fists.

“All clear, boss,” Tony said into his phone. “She’s here.”

“Yes, I can see that,” I said behind him.

After glancing back at me over their shoulders, Tony and Bruce stepped out of my way.

The second Val saw me, her gorgeous eyes got wider, her pretty lips parted, and her face paled.

Fuck. Still so beautiful.

The boy wanted to step in front of her like a shield, but she yanked him back.

“Mama, who is that?” he asked, his voice calm and strong.

Either he didn’t scare easily, or he knew how to put on one hell of a brave face.

“What are you doing here?” Val asked.

Even through that breathless whisper, her voice still shook. She couldn’t pretend nearly as well as her son.

Despite the tightening grip I clenched around my entire being now, holding myself back from the worst of what I wanted to do, the anger in my voice slipped through on its own.

“I think you know what I'm doing here, Valerie.”

The boy snatched his arm away to get back in front of her.

“Mama?” he asked again.

She gasped and lunged after him, but he had already stepped beyond her reach. Or maybe she had finally given in to the futility of trying to withstand me.

The boy looked me up and down, his brow creasing with a single thin line that made me feel like I’d glanced in a mirror.

He had my mother’s golden curls and Val’s chin. Beyond that, everything else was mine. Our eyes were exactly the same, the shape, the blue so dark it appeared almost black.

I didn’t need to wait for DNA test results.

This kid was my son.

Everything I had sacrificed in my life, every solemn oath I swore to myself—all of it went out the window with that truth.

I didn't want children, not because I wouldn’t make a good father, but because any child of mine could never fully claim his future as his own.

And now the boy standing in front of me, so brave and stoic, no longer had the options his mother believed she’d protected for him. The world might have been his oyster, sure, but this child could never leave the sea.

Not now that someone had discovered him.

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