Page 41 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

I scoff. “One credit card wasn’t enough—”

“It’s not about money.”

“Everything is about money.”

“Oh, please. We both know that isn’t true,” she says. She slides down to the end of the bed, sitting on her knees. The posture makes my blood run a little hot, eyes drawn to the hem of her nightgown as it runs up her thighs. I look away before I can get distracted.

“Then what is it about?”

“Respect. If I’m going to be your wife, then I need to be respected, Ren.”

I turn sharply.

“Someone disrespected you?” I ask, my thoughts turning red and I suddenly become hyperaware of the weight of the gun holstered on my hip.

“Why is my Uncle Marlow still alive?” Nadia asks. The woman loves her non sequiturs.

“…Why does that matter? Are you just craving a funeral?”

“Maybe. Everyone else I share blood with you killed. Why not Marlow?”

I study her face in the silence, looking for a tell. I don’t find one.

“Tell me what he did, and maybe I’ll reconsider.”

“Answer my question first,” she demands. “Why didn’t you kill him, Ren?”

Where the hell has Nadia been today that she came back with these kinds of questions? What did she do that sparked this? I swallow my annoyance long enough to consider telling her the truth.

Before we had sex, I had no problem talking about the past. Taking big handfuls of salt and rubbing it into all the old wounds still festering between us. But now—

I lick away the emotion on my teeth, pretending it doesn’t taste likeshame.

“Marlow helped me hunt down your family.”

Whatever Nadia expected, it clearly wasn’t that. Her face pinches, like the truth is too large to swallow. “What…?” she breathes.

“He’s a predictable man. He’d put his own skin before anyone else’s, so I spared him on the condition that he give up yourfamily. An easy trade, as far as he was concerned. You were the only one he couldn’t find.”

She falls silent, runs her hands over her face. I wonder if those are tears she’s rubbing away. And then I wonder why it hurts me, when I think they might be.

“Nadia,” I say, annoyed that she won’t justspeak.

Instead, she laughs. A broken sound as she finally looks at me again, something wet and angry glimmering in her eyes. “So, he fucking played you.” Her voice verges on manic.

“No. I offered him a handsome reward for you. If he’d known, he would have—”

“Oh, notnearlyas handsome as the reward he got for keeping me away from you, I’m sure. I hid out with Marlow for months, Ren. At his club. The day I turned 18, he made me transfer everything I had over to him. Why do you think I have nothing, Ren? Why do you think I didn’t cash in everything my parents left me? I could have been long gone. Marlow took everything from me. Fuck,” she breaks briefly, her voice warbling with an anger so intense, it verges on weeping, “Apparently, he took a hell of a lot more than just some goddamn money!”

My vision narrows. I didn’t know her family’s finances, didn’t know what she would or wouldn’t be able to access. It had never mattered, and I never put it together.

I stood smelling the stench of that club and bartered with Marlow, face to face. A gun pressed against his heart. Was she down there then, right there under my feet—so close—as he lied to my face?

I breathe out a low hiss, trying to calm down before I go do something I’ll regret.

“I want him dead,” she says, like she’s giving an order.

“Nadia—”

---