Page 23 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

“I had a feeling this was a waste of time, but for the sake of my conscience, I had to try.” He takes another moment, staring at me hard. I wait for him to decide that he’s done with me, that it’s fruitless—because it is, and it has been from the very start. Themen lined up along either wall shift in place under the deafening silence.

“…Did you have a good reason, at least?” Sal finally asks.

It sets my teeth on edge.

For a brief moment, I picture Nadia. I see her in that white wedding dress from yesterday. I feel the throbbing pain strobing up my arm to the rhythm of my own heartbeat. I hear screams.

“I don’t have a good reason. Just a lot of bad ones.”

***

Nadia hasn’t spoken to me since I made her pick out the wedding dress. I’m not surprised. Today I sent her out shopping for her and her daughter to keep her busy, get her settled. While she’s still gone, I lie on the couch in my office and finallyrest.

For years, I’d lain awake at night, wondering where she was. Trying to picture it. The stars passed overhead while I worked the puzzle of how she was still slipping through my aching fingers like smoke. When I finally did sleep, I hunted Nadia in my dreams. Sometimes, I’d chase after her through the city streets—right on her heels, the girl just out of reach of my bare hands as she laughed and yelled and cried, “Catch me!” Other times, I hunted her like a deer through the woods, holding a rifle in my grip.

She wasn’t laughing then.

Six years, and I finally have her under my roof, and I still can’t fucking sleep. I pace the house at night. I stand on the thresholdof her bedroom door like a goddamn vampire, wanting to cross the barrier. But I don’t. I just stand and watch her sleep curled up around her daughter.

The sound of a child laughing pulls me from the first, feeble layer of dreams.

I peel open my eyes to the sight of two plastic, lopsided eyes looking back at me. I sit up with a lurch. Harper snatches away her stuffed animal with a giggle.

“What are you doing?” I grumble.When did they get back?

“Applesauce is a doctor. He was giving you a checkup to make sure you were still breathing!”

I lean back against the arm of the couch again, running a hand over my face.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Downstairs. She’s putting up a bunch of clothes. I got dresses and shirts and hair ties and new shoes and, uhm, some other stuff,” she prattles on, tripping over her own words in her rush to say it all. “Come look!”

She takes me by the hand, her fingers curling around the glove with a firm squeeze. Pain bolts through the tips of my fingers, up to my elbow. I yank my hand away with a hiss. She turns to look at me, startled, frozen as if she did something wrong. I grit my teeth.

“Not that one,” I force myself to say calmly, keeping the words even. I hold out my right hand, which she takes instead.

“What’s wrong with that one?” she asks, eyeing my hand as we walk side by side down the stairs.

“…It’s no good.”

She gasps. “Maybe Applesauce can fix it!”

I have my doubts.

I’m led down to the bedroom Nadia is using. I refuse to think of it asherbedroom. The only bedroom she belongs in is mine.

“Ren wants to see my clothes!” Harper announces as we enter.

Immediately, Nadia spins around to face me in the doorway. She crushes a receipt behind her back as she stares at me. Not nearly as slick as she thinks she is. “Why?” she asks, immediately, as if I’m trying to back her into a corner.

“I wasbroughtto see her clothes,” I correct, holding up our joined hands like it’s a shackle. Nadia watches me, her glare distrustful as I’m shown the closet and an impromptu showcase of their shopping haul.

“I’ve never had so many clothes before,” Harper says.

Nadia frowns, arms crossed and expression closed off.

“What’s this?” I ask, gesturing to the other half of the closet, where Nadia has hung up her own clothes.

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