Page 71 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

He sighs, annoyed.

“And why am I going to do that?” he asks.

“Because I’m keeping your secret about your stripper girlfriend—” he tries to argue that she isn’t, but I talk over him, “So you’re going to keep my secret about my stripper friend.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” he asks, dumbfounded.

I shrug. “You know what they say, Elijah. You can take the girl out of the mafia, but you can’t take the mafia out of the girl.”

I feel his sigh of resignation in my soul.

***

I can’t bring Sincere back with us, not with Harper in the house. It’s bad enough that she has all these mafia types prowling around the house to influence her. I can’t bring Sincere, in her current state, into her life.

I think I might have to put her up in a hotel for a few days, if it comes to that. But with Elijah’s connections (and credit score) we find an apartment for Sincere. A loft. Natural raw brick. A decent view. A little dolling up, and it’ll even be cozy. With Elijah’s arm twisted behind his back, maybe he can even get her proper identification, some bullshit credentials. A new start. I’m buzzing with the thought, excited for her. She’ll have a place of her very own, and a monthly allowance as I get her on her feet. She’ll be able to start over the right way. The way that I never really got to.

But it takes hours to fish around to find someone who will bite on such a short-notice deal, especially in New York, where renters are largely regarded like an infestation by landlords. As the sun sinks lower in the sky, a nervous knot draws tight in mystomach. No word from Luna. I can’t shake the feeling that at any moment, Sincere could vanish into the night. That I could bethiscloseto saving her—and I could still lose her.

I wander in the property manager’s footsteps, humming and nodding impatiently through the sales pitch that neither of us have the time or patience for. Elijah has paid a considerable fee to bypass the background checks and just get handed the keys the same day.

If the property manager smells something fishy, the smell of crisp, freshly printed dollar bills puts him off the trail.

“Think of it this way,” I say, as Elijah tosses me the keys with an annoyed huff, “this will all be good practice for when you smuggle Cali out of Marlow’s place.”

He might be grown now, but the boy still blushes like a teenager sometimes. He forces me along through the hallways and tells me, sternly, to stop talking about it. I resist the urge to tell him that it’s cute when he’s shy.

The sun should still be high in the sky, but it’s a dreary overcast day, the sky sitting low above the city. It feels so late, but it isn’t. For all my worrying, we’ve made good time.

“I want to be home when Harper gets there, get her squared away for the afternoon, and then we can go pick my friend up and get her settled in—”

“I still can’t believe you blackmailed me,” Elijah complains again.

“Oh, please. If you were the one blackmailing me, would it even make the top five list of bad things you’ve done this week?” I ask.

He considers it, sucking on his cheek.

“…Yeah, fair.”

I’m brainstorming everything that we’ll need to do. I’ll have to find sobriety programs for Sincere. Maybe a security system to see who she’s bringing in and out of her apartment—just at first, just in case. My hands feel clammy, my nerves shot. And somehow Marlow just has to never find out what happened to her or that I was involved at all.

One step at a time. One step at a time. And each step brings me a tiny bit closer—

I walk through the doorway of Ren’s apartment and am struck dumb.

My wedding dress hangs on the banister railing. Like a ghost, hovering just an inch off the floor. I stare at it, uncomprehending. Elijah steps in after me, looking at the dress with just as much confusion as I am.

“Nadia…” he says, in a low warning tone.

I have no explanation.

“There you are,” Olivia says, as if I’ve been hiding somehow. When she sees us both arrive together, her unhappy eyebrows drop yet another inch. She doesn’t comment with anything but her expression. “Your dress arrived, Nadia. You need to try it on, make sure it fits.”

“I will.”

“Mr. Caruso wants it done now.”

“What’s the rush?” Elijah asks on my behalf. She gives him a look.

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