Page 43 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

Everything in the mob works as long as it is allowed to work. As long as the ugly parts of our business are kept discreet, money circulates into the right pockets, and the cops are kept out of it by bribery, distraction, or force. But it’s a system, and if one part of the system starts to fester, like an infected limb, it will be cut off.

I clench my hand again.

I wish Olivia was right. I wish I had lost sight. If I had, then I wouldn’t have to see the way this all ends.

14

Nadia

Nothing works out the way I think it will. Never.

I thought I’d die handing myself over to Ren Caruso; I’m still alive. I thought Ren would kill Marlow for me; he won’t even discuss the possibility. Hell, he hasn’t even looked me in the eye since I brought it up. Every time I think I have a sure thing, it goes up in smoke.

I knew Marlow was a piece of shit. He always was, so my view of him isn’t shattered. It’s just made worse. So, so much worse, until I want to cry with rage when I even think about it. I didn’t know he sold out my mom. His ownsister. Somehow, even the people I hate most find new ways to disgust me.

I wonder how much I would disgust them. I always felt guilty that I still had a soft spot for Ren. But I never really blamed him. I was disgusted with my father, too, when I learned what he did.

But I still wonder sometimes what they would think of me. How ashamed they would be.

Not wife material. Not mother material. Not daughter material.

Maybe I’m no good for anybody.

I keep scrolling back to that selfie with Sincere, looking into her gaunt but gorgeous face, and I want to dosomething. I want to help her. Maybegood friend materialis still within reach for me.

I assume Ren will continue avoiding me, but while Harper is at school, Ren has me dress for another day out together.

As usual, I’m not told where we’re going.

Visions of wedding dresses still swirl through my head. I wonder, maybe dread, what he has on his agenda this time. When Harper is around, everything is fine—usually. He behaves in front of her. Without her, our true selves come out, history and all. Volatile, unstable elements.

I meet him in the foyer where he and Olivia are talking. Her mouth twists into a sour pucker as she watches me come down the stairs. Ren holds out an arm for me, like a gentleman. In front of Olivia, I’m more than happy to slide my fingers around his arm and stand next to him.

“You’re leaving?” she says. It doesn’t sound much like a question.

“We’ll be back this afternoon,” he says. “Unless you think there’s something you won’t be able to handle?”

That doesn’t sound much like a question either.

She clutches the tablet in her hands, her face washed in unmasked tension that starts turning different colors, like the horse inThe Wizard of Oz.

“Of course, sir,” she says, through a tight jaw. “No problem.”

“If you run into any trouble…call Elijah.”

Her glare doesn’t leave me. I don’t know how I’m the problem when I’m basically just a dog being taken out for a walk.

Ren steers us out. His driver already has the car—a low-slung black one with equally black windows—waiting out front, idling on the side of the street. I am forced into the backseat of it. Ren sits next to me this time, props his arm up over my shoulders.

My heart thunders like horses running through a canyon. His close proximity and the smell of his cologne make my skin flush.

I close my eyes and try to block him out like I always do.

I am irrationally terrified that Ren will realize how I still feel for him. I don’t know why it matters. I’ve always carried that emotion like a badge of shame, hauling it around with me everywhere I went. But if I tell him, it’s just another thing he’ll have to use against me.

The street is busy when we get out, but I recognize it right away. A big gulp of nostalgia slides down my throat. We are just down the street from the academy I attended my junior and senioryears. It looks about the same, though some of the surrounding storefronts and institutions have changed. The architecture is classic, timeless, utterly indifferent to what happens to the people that churn in and out of that building through time.

My eyes sweep the street as the car abandons us here together, like a fickle time machine vanishing back into the slipstream and leaving us in the past.

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