Page 3 of Vengeance

What the hell did she mean by that?

I pick up the phone and dial Cres, my pretend, lesbian fiancée. She picks up immediately.

“What’s up?”

“See if you can get one of your girls in New York City and into Dele’s salon to check in on her. Report back what she finds out.”

I don’t give Cress the chance to argue with me about how hard it’s going to be to get anyone past the paranoia and intelligence of the Bianchi-Uccello family before I hang up on her.

2

Dele

Like every time I lay back on the bed while my doctor completes an ultrasound, I wait with bated breath. Shoulders tense. Body stiff. No matter how many times she tells me to relax and take a deep breath to release the tension and ease my nerves.

“Okay,” she says as she puts the ultrasound wand away and begins to wipe my swollen stomach.

“Okay?” I ask.

She smiles and says, “Everything’s just fine.”

It’s the same things she’s been telling me at every bi-weekly checkup, but I still let out a relieved sigh, and the tension I hold every time I have an appointment leaves me. For now.

She sees this and says, “I know you’re bracing yourself for something awful to happen. But at this point, it’s fine to start making concrete plans. You’re fine. The baby’s fine. And I’m only a call away and will give you all the care I know and have access to make sure you’re both fine. You don’t have to be so nervous.”

On some level I know that to be true. On some level I understand that I’m privileged to have the best prenatal and maternal care money can pay for. That using that care, I’ve been assured over and over again that my pregnancy is normal, uncomplicated, and shockingly low risk. That I’ve had no complications. No high-blood pressure. No bleeding. No UTIs. Just the normal aches and sickness that are expected.

But I’ve lived my entire life waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve lived my entire life fighting tooth and nail for everything I wanted and sometimes not getting it or having to settle for what I could take. So the idea that my pregnancy can be this easy. That in just two and a half short months, I’m going to have a baby. One that I gave birth to this time. It’s something I don’t quite believe. That I can’t let myself get worked up or excited about because I want it so bad, I don’t think I could take the disappointment if something went wrong.

This isn’t something that if it fails I get a do-over to try again later. It wasn’t supposed to be able to happen in the first place. So I doubt there’s any way that the miracle of genetics and biology that caused me to carry a pregnancy this long this time will ever come along again.

And that’s all without the mob war I’m heading against the most powerful mob boss in the country.

“She’s not going to listen,” Eileen says as she walks into the room, reserved as always and with her blonde hair thrown into her usual messy bun.

“I have to try,” my doctor says with a smile as she packs up her things while I stand up and let my dress fall back down to my thighs.

I walk with Eileen out the personal medical suite to head back to the main part of the Bianchi-Uccello estate.

“He’s fine,” she begins without any preamble. I don’t have to ask who “he” is.

“Staying out of trouble, I hope.”

Eileen scoffs. “You’d have better luck making a mountain give an inch.”

“So not slowing down on managing Pray’s lieutenants then.”

“Managing,” Eileen repeats. Then, “Yes. He told me to tell you not to show any weakness no matter how tired or stressed you are.”

“Was that before or after you passed my message for him not to get fucking killed managing these damn lieutenants?”

“Before.”

I give Eileen a piercing look. “You didn’t tell him about…”

I quickly run a hand over my stomach before dropping it to my side. At home, my pregnancy is no secret. But it’s better not to get in the habit of openly talking about it when I have to spend most of my time hiding it.

“I didn’t. Not like I need to. Addy Bianchi may be able to keep a pregnancy from the media, but she’s not going to be able to hide a baby.”

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