Page 104 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

Her goons stand over us, not interfering, just making sure this goes her way.

“So, are you coming with me? Or am I giving you a makeover to go with all those new clothes Ren bought you?” Olivia pants as if she’s enjoying herself.

On the floor, I crane my head back and have a straight view under the bed, where Harper is staring back at me with wide, terrified eyes. I can’t leave her, and I can’t take her.

“My daughter—”

Olivia’s expression flickers. She glances around the room, looking for her. For a second, it seems like she doesn’t know what to do either. Like maybe we’ll have to put my kidnapping on hold because I can’t find a babysitter on such short notice.

“Tell her to come here.”

“Fuck you; you tried to kill her once—”

“I—” her expression turns stony, but something storms in her eyes. “I did what I had to do! I didn’t know she already had a condition!” She makes it sound like someone else already gave her hell for it. I wonder if it was Elijah. “She was never in any real danger! I measured it all out! She was never going to die, I was never going to actually hurt the brat—”

My hand comes up and catches her on the jaw, a resounding slap that seems to echo off the big, black windows. We twist and tumble again across the floor, the blade swinging. It catches me a couple times in the stomach, so sharp and smooth that it barely stings. I feel it touch my skin without snagging, gliding like butter.

We roll again, twist around, biting and kicking and snapping. Suddenly, Harper does the one thing I had silently begged that she wouldn’t. She comes flying in as fast as she can, her anger overriding her fear like it always does.

“Get off her!” she yells, at the top of her little lungs.

I try to sling Olivia off me, roll her away from Harper. My girl comes in kicking and hitting, uselessly, but it helps. Olivia clutches the box cutter to her chest between us as she ducks away from the useless blows, until Harper sinks her teeth hard onto Olivia’s shoulder. Olivia yells and scrambles off me, but she doesn’t hurt her. Like even Olivia Basham, the poisonous, traitorous bitch, can’t override her instincts not to hit a child.

The men are scrambling to interfere and get between all of us, breaking up the mess. I take the chance to scramble to my feet and yank Harper behind me.

“Don’t make me involve her in this again!” Olivia yells, all three of them still between me and the only door. We’re both staggering, winded. My shirt sticks to my side. The cut’s shallow, harmless. But it’s the kind of cut that would end you if it went across the right spot on your throat.

My phone vibrates on the counter. I glance toward it, just barely able to make out Elijah’s name. I calculate my odds of getting to it.

“If you don’t want to hurt her, then prove it. Just leave—” I beg her.

“I’m not going anywhere without you. I didn’t have to hear your stupid name for three years just for it all to go down like this! Fuck that and fuck you.”

We stare at each other for a long moment.

“Leave!” Harper yells, trying to step past me. I don’t know where she’s gotten this temper from, but she’s fearless and angry, and if I wasn’t physically holding her back, she’d charge right at a woman holding a blade and two grown men.

“We both know what Dellucci is going to pay you isn’t worth this. If he pays you at all.”

She scoffs softly.

“You think I really care about the money? All I have ever done was protect this family, and I’m going to keep doing that. Even if Ren Caruso isn’t a part of it anymore.”

“You’re the one who isn’t a part of it anymore.”

She shakes her head, steps closer again, anger turning her face beet red. Harper launches Applesauce at her head, but misses. She stares down at Harper with cold steel in her eyes. She draws a deep, steadying breath.

“I already crossed lines I swore I never would. What’s one more?”

She nods to the men behind her, giving up her own fight to let them take over now that she’s had her fill. They march toward us again with a new determination, and this time I am sure, there will be no holds barred. Not even against Harper. I hold up my hands as they press in too close.

“Alright,” I say, “Okay. I’ll go. Willingly. But—let me drop Harper off at the house. Somewhere she’s familiar with. Somewhere safe.”

“No shot,” Olivia snarls.

“Ren’s not there, Olivia, please—”

I don’t know if anyoneisthere, but I like her odds more if she’s somewhere familiar.

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