Page 57 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

My knees tremble as his fingers slide knowingly against my clit, my hands gripping his suit and my legs shaking under me as they almost buckle.Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.With one tiny twitch of his fingertips, Ren shows me just how much power he has over me. He gives a soft, harmless pinch to my clit that makes me gasp and chases off the heat.

“Be a good girl for me, for this, and I’ll take care of you, Nadia. But not until then.”

***

I’ve been to my fair share of mob meetings. They’re never what you’d think. When the wives and kids are invited, it’s all old stories and jokes and double meanings. To an outsider, you’d never know what you were looking at unless you had an eye for concealed carrying. The extra waitstaff lined up across the room as if anticipating more customers to a private dinner? Not actually waitstaff.

I get a tiny rush from walking next to Ren, head held high. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be a player in the game and not just a pawn, rushing across the board from pieces far more powerful than itself.

Ren has rented out a private rooftop dining hall for just the six of us, a single table washed in glossy light. Salvatore Mori—I presume—is already seated as we arrive, one arm stretched over the back of his wife’s chair. He stands and becomes every bit as looming and powerful as his reputation. Ren shakes his hand as though the slightest gesture of goodwill is beneath him, but Salvatore brushes by it without so much as a flinch. He feeds me one of those little lines about how our families knew each other from back in the day.Such-and-suchwassuch-and-such’sbusiness partner, blah blah blah. Mafia sentiment doesn’t mean much to me these days, but I smile and play the part, anyway.

Everything depends on this.

He shakes my hand—a cold, brisk shake—before I’m introduced to his wife.

Either Tessa Mori’s skin routine is off the charts or she and I are about the same age. If I had to guess, Salvatore has at least a decade on us. Maybe that’s why I feel like Ren and I are, somehow, the bad kids on the block, dragged before the neighborhood watch committee to answer for a dented car or a busted-out window. Their infant daughter babbles in a highchair, and although you’re not supposed to assume, Tessa is visibly pregnant again. She has the start of the belly and the natural glow. Her handshake lingers, a gentle, warm squeeze that matches her eyes.

“You’re going to ruin my streak,” I say, taking one look at the baby girl who might be a little over a year old. “I’ve been so good about avoiding baby fever.”

Tessa smiles.

“I tried that and—well, you can see how well that’s going. This is Emma,” she says, then puts a hand on her belly. “And I’d introduce this one, but we’re still fighting over a name. And who’s this?”

I introduce Harper. She has a hundred curious questions about Tessa Mori’s little girl, looking at the baby with the same fascination as she looked at the animals in the zoo. She giggles when the baby makes noises and reaches out a little hand for her.

“She’s adorable,” I say, and I mean it. I never really got to enjoy Harper being that little. I was always too worried, always wanting her to get bigger, get stronger. Terrified of what the next day might bring.

Tessa sighs, “She has to be cute because Salvatore is already doing his best to turn her into a brat.”

I feel my smile tighten.

“Somehow, I knowexactlywhat you mean.”

We settle in, a natural divide splitting the table into halves. Ren and Salvatore discuss the “Family,” while Tessa and I discuss ourfamilies. The cold tension on one half of the table thaws to warm laughter on our side.

I thought Ren might only be cold toward me, that I just brought that out in him. But he settles in across from Salvatore with no smile, his shoulders tight and posture tense, like a wire close to snapping. His does not switch into someone else; there’s not even a hint of that persuasive man he used to be. He used to be quite good at this, cunning and diplomatic and so charming, he could make your ears pink. He had everything he was supposed to have on the outside—to hide everything he was supposed to hide on the inside. That ruthlessness. That wild, proud anger. The predilection for murder.

Now, Ren carries his flaws on his sleeve the way a dog in a fighting pit carries its scars.

Luckily for me, Tessa is as warm as they come as far as mob wives are concerned. The Moris seem like decent people. Doesn’t mean anything. Anyone who can rise to the top in this lifestyle is going to seem, on the surface, like a good person. My father was largely regarded as a great man. A good father, a good husband, a good business partner, until he burned his rivals alive. His mistake was just being caught giving the order.

I don’t trust anything about them, not even Tessa’s sunny smile, just as I am sure that neither of them really trusts us.

“How old is she?” Tessa eventually asks about Harper. Just polite curiosity in the flow of conversation.

The number withers up on my tongue.

“Too old, too fast—” I try to brush the question aside. Harper is eager to jump in.

“I’m six!” she announces. And then, in case I had any chance of worming my way out of it, she adds, “almostseven.”

“Really?” Tessa says, obviously surprised. “That’s such a big girl number! So, you’re in, what, first grade?”

Harper nods, her smile bright.

“Yeah. And I have a new school, and we have homework now, and we go to lunch with all the big kids in like fifth grade—”

Harper carries on while the chill in my stomach creeps down my thighs and spreads down into my feet. It’s a slow, spreading numbness threatening to consume me, head to toe. I can’t bring myself to look at Ren. I stare at the empty table in front of me. I silently beg—pray—that Ren is not paying attention. That he and Sal are talking about something,anything, and our little chatter is going right over their heads.

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