Page 40 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

She raises her hands, palms up. “No, but…”

“Let me make one thing clear, Olivia,” I say, her first name scraping over my teeth. She goes very still. “I haven’t lost sight of anything.”

I stand to leave, but Olivia squares her shoulders and begins to speak as if making an incantation, a chant, low and melodic, as she begins to list: “We never made it to Stockholm. This business with Dellucci is festering. Elijah has had to stand in for you more than once with people whowantto ally with you. If they can’t even get into a room with you, that might change their minds. And what about your territory? Leighton raised the rent on his tenants, and now people are complaining aboutyou,thinking that you signed off on it. It’s been a couple weeks and you’ve donenothing—”

None of that is important. Not to me, not right now.

“I will handle it,” I say, hardly hearing half of it. “All of it. In time.”

“…Elijah said you would be better once you had Nadia!” Olivia blurts. A brave tone for brave words, but she’s just as scared as she is angry. There’s a tremble in her hands. I can tell when she slides them into her pockets, which she never does. “That you wouldn’t be distracted anymore. But I think you’re worse with her here, and frankly, I don’t trust her!”

“I don’t pay you to have an opinion about Nadia—”

“I don’t,” she interrupts. “I don’t have an opinion about her. But I do have an opinion about you, and I’m worried, Mr. Caruso. I’m worried about where this leads.”

She steps closer, drawn further into the office as the last of the light turns red as evening falls. “I want to know if there’s anything that I can do to help. If there’s something you need, that I can give you, that she—she won’t. I have always said, if you need something, you just have to ask.”

I study her face, which is carefully blank and submissive.

“I need you to think more carefully the next time my wife’s name leaves your mouth.”

Her face turns ashy, then pink, then almost purple. I suppose I had neglected to mention to her that Nadia and I were getting married.

“You aren’t cleared to know everything I do, whether it pertains to Nadia or not. Tell Elijah we’ll visit Leighton tomorrow before dawn.”

She finally nods. It seems, for a moment, that she wants to say something else. But she doesn’t. She simply says, “Yes, sir,” and heads back downstairs.

I glance at my hand, tensing and untensing my fingers. Usually, a conversation like that would bring agony, a blazing, furious heat that builds right along with all my anger and frustration, spurring it on like gasoline on a fire.

The scar tissue doesn’t hurt. I open and close my hand and feel nothing. It hasn’t hurt since Nadia and I were together that night. The doctors always said it was phantom pain; I always said they were fucking morons. Sure, all the symptoms lined up. No medication could touch it. The severity seemed to come and go with my moods. Alcohol took the edge off, and with the right combination of drugs, I could forget for a little while—but it never really went away completely. And still, I refused to believe it was my own mind doing that to me. But now it’s just—gone.

My fingers are still stiff. They always will be. But I can clench my fist, and it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt at all.

***

I catch a late meal, scheduling a last-minute and impromptu dinner with Blackwell.

I pretend Olivia’s scolding had nothing to do with it, but maybe she’s right. Maybe I can’t spend the whole day pouring over the past and course-correcting the future. Not if I let the present rot and collapse around us all.

It lasts hours, devolves into just drinks. I always make sure my business partners are well taken care of when I take them out. The most expensive liquor or the finest wine, all on my dime, and served by a waiter who knows better than to let them see the bottom of the glass. Real negotiation doesn’t start until they’re pink in the face, and I’m on my third drink of a watered-down imitation.

I don’t care aboutfair. I only care about results.

But as I chew passionlessly through the courses, talking business acquisitions and the looming fate of political campaigning, my thoughts circle back to Nadia. They always circle to Nadia, like birds coming home to roost. I wonder where she took that card today. I picture her in a dress with a cut-out back and an hourglass shape. Diamonds studs in her ears, on her fingers. A carefree laugh on her lips. Maybe I saw her in something like that once. I’m not much for imagination, but I have memories in droves.

But it doesn’t matter what she buys. The cut or the color. The number of carats. It matters that my money put it on her. The dress, the jewelry. The smile.

I close the thought like closing a book. I know better than to think I make Nadia smile.

It’s late when I arrive home. The house is dark. Quiet. Everyone is gone for the night except the security personnel, still vigilant at this late hour. I head toward the bedroom, my footsteps soft as I try not to wake her. The mattress creaks anyway, and the bedside lamp turns on. My spine stiffens as I feel Nadia watching me from the bed as I undress, tugging the knot out of my tie. She should have been asleep a long time ago.

“Did I wake you up?” I ask.

“No. I was waiting for you.”

The girl’s every action is a wildcard. Physically, she’s been overly familiar with me, even affectionate, and it hits me like a dessert that’s overly sweet. Mentally, I’m not sure we’ve ever been farther apart. I have no idea what she’s playing at or to what end. I expected her to be…simpler, which is stupid because I didn’t fall in love with a simple woman.

“I have a favor to ask.”

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