Page 115 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

“Daddy, look!” Harper says, urgently, scrambling to try and pick up the petals so he can see her do her walk. For him, she puts a spin on it.

While Ren applauds her, I skim through the gallery of pictures he’s handed me on his phone. Lush valleys and quaint, low cottages settled on hillsides.

“Spain? I’ve never been.”

“For the honeymoon,” he suggests.

I arch an eyebrow at him.

“Why there?”

“Because, as you said, we’ve never been. And…” a flicker of hesitation in his voice. “I have some other business there.”

“Really?” I grin at him, accusing and stunned at the same time. “You’re going to dobusinesson our honeymoon?”

Ren backs me up, towering over me until there’s barely any space left between us as he crowds me into the wall.

“I’m going to doyouon our honeymoon. Often, and for a long time until you will be grateful to get rid of me.”

He nuzzles against me, our noses touching. I grin right back.

“Do your worst.”

Truly, the past few weeks have felt like a honeymoon, now that I am becoming Ren’s actual, consenting,worthybride. I canstand to lose him for one night on our actual honeymoon, if the rest of our time spent together is like this.

***

While Ren’s life winds down, mine gets busier—

“Tell your husband you need his boot on someone’s neck,” Luna says, marching angrily through the strip club with me following her stride. One of the long-term patrons disagreed with the club’s new management policy. My management policy. Just another scumbag who can only learn lessons the hard way. He hails from the Marlow days, when a certain amount of loyalty to the place got you in the backroom with the dancer, and it wasn’t just lap dances they were paying for.

When he realized sex wasn’t for sale anymore, he left us a firmly worded review all over the floor. The bartender pushes a mop around the mess of alcohol and water, with broken bottles and glasses tossed into the trash.

Security wrangled him out. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but I have a feeling we’re quickly nearing the last. Once people catch on that Ren is fully in charge now, people are going to learn how to act real fucking quick.

“Ren’s already heard, and he’s going to handle it. Personally.”

I don’t know what Ren willdowith him. I just know the man won’t be back here again.

Outside of doing the odd request for me, Ren has stayed true to his plan. He never returned fully to the family business.He is still the don—in the sense of decision-making, respect, obligations, punishments—but Elijah is fully in charge of the financials and the mob roster, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if, one day, Ren just gave it all up and let Elijah take the reins. I think he’s grooming him for it.

But the club—my club—Ren takes a personal interest in that.

I fulfilled his promise and took over the strip club, the one piece of the pie that Ren carved out just for me instead of his brother. There’s still a lot of work to do. Fake IDs to forge, remodeling to be done, financials to consider. And allthiskind of thing, while the dust still settles. Endless, day-to-day drama that comes with managing a place like this.

I offered all the girls the chance to leave, enough money to make it home and settle in somewhere if they wanted. A few took the offer. The newest girls. Most didn’t. They’re willing to try it out, still holding onto the dream of the life they were sold by men who with no intention of giving it to them, and too entrenched in the family they’ve made of each other.

“If Ren kills him, get him stuffed,” Luna sniffs. “We hang him in the corner, make an example.”

“See, this is why I can’t just put you in charge of everything—” I fuss at her, her smile never faltering as she grins at me, totally unashamed. When Luna isn’t planning on human taxidermy, I try to work as best I can with her, rather than just have her working for me. She knows the ins and outs of this place, and she knows the girls, and frankly, Istillowe her. She was the one who realized things were going south that night, that Marlow knew I was trying to save Sincere. She sensed it like a bad storm, and she sent Sincere off with the money I left with her, enough toget her a room for just a couple nights to hide out in before the whole world imploded.

If it weren’t for Luna’s foresight, willing to risk herself and her girls for my sake—again—everything might have played out differently. I’ve finally come to accept that all I can do is do the best I can by her and the girls here. There will never be a time when we are even. There are some things you can’t repay, even with all the money in the world.

Her and Sincere and Cali—they’re part of my business, and my life, and soon my wedding. They’re an extension of my family, and all the protections that come with being a part of a family.

But I’mstillnot letting Luna stuff anybody and put them on display. For that, she’ll have to talk to my husband.

***

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