Page 54 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

The phone rings once, twice. Anger swirls in my skull.

What if I lost her again—just like that? Over a stupid bet. A stupid doubt, needing to prove tomyself, that I could…

The ringing interrupts my swirling thoughts, heart pounding louder than the repetitive noise.

I stare at Harper, wondering if I just cost her everything over some silly little bet. Foolish pride. One of my countless weaknesses.

“Hello?” Nadia finally answers.

My shoulders slump. I didn’t know I had been tensing until it all unravels.

“You were right,” I say, the words tightly. “I didn’t last an hour. Where are you?”

***

Harper bounds around the zoo, laughing a mad scientist laugh. She runs full speed toward the giraffes in the distance. Nadia is right by my side. I march us along like soldiers, my grip tight on her arm.

“What happened?” she demands, not for the first time since we met back up.

“Nothing,” I lie. I don’t bother making it sound convincing. Usually, I’m good at lying. Right now, I don’t have it in me to swindle her. My thoughts are too short and narrow, fuse burning. I follow Harper at her breakneck speed.

“Harper,” I snap, when she gets too far for my liking. The girl turns, surprised. She’s never heard me talk to her like that before, and for a split second, guilt tastes like ashes in mymouth. But she obeys and comes bounding back, unfazed and parroting some song from one of the kiosks.

“Ren,” Nadia says, slowly, “you’re hurting me.”

I glance down. Her skin is white where my fingers are wrapped around her arm. My fingers ache as I slowly loosen my death grip on her. “Sorry,” I mutter. She asks something, but I don’t really hear it. I try to put out the rage in my head like a fire, but the anger just keeps finding more and more material to consume, burning brighter and hotter.

He didn’t just threaten me. He threatened all of us. Even her.

My eyes follow Harper. She holds Applesauce on her head, so he can get a better view of the giraffes in the enclosure. I stare into the pen without seeing anything in front of us.

I imagine how he would kill them. I imagine how I would kill him.

My thoughts spill, wet and red, through my skull, filling up my thoughts until they threaten to overflow.

Would Jon Dellucci be true to his word if I gave it all up? Is trading everything I have to my name the only way to spare them? I study Nadia’s face in profile, the way she smiles when she talks to Harper. She came to me to give her daughter a good life.

What if I can’t?

What kind of man would I be if I let her go back to havingnothing?

My thoughts are interrupted by Harper’s squeal, my head snapping up. She’s found a kiosk stall with stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling and walls of the booth. She points different stuffed animals out to us. Applesauce might have come from there, but I don’t see any like him.

She bounces from animal to animal, just as amazed by each one. The keepers announce a feeding time and show for a nearby exhibit. Nadia ushers Harper over so she can get a good view. I’m rooted to the spot, hypnotized before an audience of stuffed animals and branded merch offered by a bored teenager manning the desk.

Am I going to send Nadia and Harper back to a life where even getting her a single toy is a struggle?

I can’t.I can’t.

I buy one for her there on the spot. A tiger.

Nadia kneels with her hands on Harper’s shoulders, the two of them looking out at the enclosure. I hold the tiger out to her. “Here.”

Harper’s eyes go wide. She looks up at me in surprise instead of taking it off my hands. When she only gawks, I add, “He’s yours.”

“But I already have Applesauce.”

“Maybe Applesauce needs a friend.”

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