Page 17 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

(But God, another part of me whispers, can he not see that she looks just like him? Every now and then, she will say something just so, or laugh a certain way, and I’ll hear him in her, and my heart crumbles all over again. She’d never even met him before, and she is still so much of him.)

“And that apartment in Queens—that’s how you’ve been living since?”

“For a year. Almost two.”

I feel a flare of indignation at the suggestion, but only because we had lived in far worse than a cramped apartment with bad wiring and no view.

When his silence lingers too long, it starts to get under my skin, as bad as an accusation. As if he’s just standing there, judging all my choices, having no idea everything that my girl and I have been through over the years: always running, always looking over my shoulder, forced to question every decision.Because of him.

“What?” I finally demand. “What do you want to say? Do you have some opinion about how I’m raising my daughter? Because I’ve done everything for her. And I know it’s not much, it’s not great—but it’s what I could do.”

“You took mob money from Dellucci. You’re lucky you’re both still alive.”

“I took it for her! My daughter was sick, and we had nothing. What was I supposed to do, Ren? The state and family charities took care of most of her medical debt, so that was never my problem. But landlords and grocery stores and electric companies and the IRS—they don’t care how sick your kid is, or how much time you have to take off and can’t work. When it’s time to pay, it’s time to pay. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t hold down a job while calling out for weeks at a time to care for her. And God forbid, I maketoomuch money and lose my qualification for assistance! And I was doing all that, knowing damn well you were on my heels, making me break lease after lease, bouncing between dingy apartments and women’s shelters!”

“Then you should have faced me, instead of running.”

I almost laugh. The words are so shocking that they border on nonsense.

The man had just killed my parents, my brother. And he thinks I shouldn’t have run from him? He’s a madman. Our conversation is interrupted by the front door opening, both of us hearing it. Ren walks away without another word, leaving me there seething.

I’m brought a couple of changes of clothes by a woman named Olivia. I recognize her voice as the one I talked to on the phone last night, the one who answered instead of him. She’s as beautiful as I pictured her when I heard her talk: bleached hair and thick dark lashes, built like a Barbie doll with lip fillers and all.

“So, you’re Nadia,” she says, as if she has heard too much about me. And by that tone—she is not impressed.

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

She arches a plucked eyebrow.

“Should it?” she asks.

She doesn’t smile at me even once as she hangs up the clothes. Her perfectly styled nails and textured burgundy suit put my rumpled appearance to shame. I can tell she’s judging the state of my appearance.

“Mr. Caruso had me bring these. I’d put them on if I were you.” She glances toward my chest, where my nipples stand out against the white fabric, and smiles a cougar’s smile: all threat.

I wonder for the second time if she’s dating Ren. Assuming the shell of a man he is now is capable of something likedating. Maybe she’s just fucking him. It makes me want to scream at her either way, to tell her all about how what she ended up with is nothing compared to what I had. That I had Ren Caruso at his best, that he was so good and so perfect and so charming and that I feelsorryfor her.

And then I have the worst thought—maybe heislike that for her. Maybe I’m the only one who brings out the monster in him. My hand massages the place on my neck where his fingers clenched last night.

Fuck, I deserve for her to look at me like I’m pathetic. Because I am.

I thank her for bringing me my clothes because I’m an adult, and even if Olivia is a catty, judgmental bitch, I don’t have to meether on her level. I’ve suffered through enough toddler tantrums to learn that.

The clothes I’m brought make me do a double-take. The price tags have been removed, but I don’t need to see them to know—to feel the quality under my hands and recognize the luxury-brand names.

My head spins.

“Pick one of those,” Olivia says, setting down more bags of toiletries and makeup by the door, “He wants you ready in an hour.”

“Ready for what?” I ask.

Olivia shuts the door in my face.

***

If I’m going to bepunished, whatever the hell that means, I’m going to face it with as much dignity as I can muster. I shower, style my hair, and slide into a new outfit that somehow fits like a glove. The mirror becomes a window into the past as I stare at myself, pinning glittering earring studs into my ears as the finishing touch.

Last night, I thought I didn’t recognize myself, soaked to the bone and scared stiff.

---