Page 40 of Vengeance

I pause before adding severely, “You wanted a pawn. I’ll be your pawn. But it’s going to be on my terms. It’s eitherthator you don’t get your fucking empireorvengeance.”

Sabino sits back in his chair and looks at me for a long time. So long that I think he’s going to throw all caution to the wind and order me killed regardless of everything he stands to lose from it.

Finally, he lets out a boisterous laugh and says, “Oh, you’re going to fit right in around here. Intelligent. Cunning. A way to get rid of the danger my daughter could be to our future while securing your own. Don’t get me wrong. I love Phae. I raised her as my own when her father decided she wasn’t worth his time. But she’s got too much of her mother in her. Tina didn’t understand the Fantoni way either.”

The laughter disappears from his face as he leans forward and says gravely, “There’s just one fucking problem. If Addy Bianchi is Adelena Fantoni, it means you’ve made three babies with her and haven’t made an honest woman out of her.”

“I’ll get right on that as soon as we’re done with your brother.”

“No. You want the help of the family, you respect the family and make an honest woman out of myniecefirst.”

“I don’t have any objections to that,” I reply, deciding that after all the taking I’ve done this meeting, I can give on that.

Besides, it’s going to take at least a month or so to get everything in place before I deal with Pray once and for all. The only one who’s going to have an issue with getting married is Dele. But she’s continued to deny my proposal for no reason other than being stubborn, and I’ve humored her for too long.

A little force on the matter won’t hurt her.

18

Dele

Years of fighting, espionage, being chased, and everything else that comes with being involved in the criminal underworld has trained my body to wake to full alertness. So when I open my eyes, I instantly catalog a few things.

The first is that I’m sore. My entire body, but my stomach and thighs in particular.

The second thing is that I have no clue where I am. The bed is comfortable, though, and someone took to the time to make sure I was propped up. I’m also attached to a blood pressure and heart monitor. The only thing to deduce from that is someone wants to keep me alive. But that’s not an assurance. Pray kept Phae alive and put her through hell still.

The third thing I notice is that wherever I am, I can’t remember what led to me being here. My last memory is Eileen rushing me into a car and then Viper showing up and leading us on a chase through New York City while I labored in the back seat. Everything after that is a—

My hand goes to my stomach. It’s still a little round, but it’s much more pudgy and soft than firm and hard like before. And I feel empty. Hollow. Don’t feel a foot nudging into my ribs, a head pressing down on my bladder, an arm moving or punch me.

My baby. Where’d she go?Whotook her?

First things first, I start to turn my head to look for and make my heavy arms move to feel for a weapon.

“Always ready for a fight,” I hear Viper say.

I turn my head into the direction I hear his voice coming from and see him sitting in the far left corner of the room near the door.

“Relax,” he says as he stands up to walk over to me. “Everything’s fine. We’re safe. For now.”

“For now?”

“There are some things that need to be cemented in place before my paranoia will allow me to believe we’re completely safe. But we’re safe enough. Safe from Stephen Pray.”

If Viper thinks we’re safe enough, that works for me. It allows me to relax on that end. But now that I’m assured that I don’t have to prep for a fight, I can refocus on the fact that I’m not pregnant and I don’t know where my baby is.

“Viper. Where’s—”

Viper holds up a hand to silence me and then walks to the far right corner of the room near the window where a basinet is. He reaches in and picks up the small bundle inside. She squirms, unhappy about being disturbed from her sleep but settles down quickly with a few gentle rocks of Viper’s hands. It’s a mesmerizing sight. Seeing hands that are usually so rough, hands that have murdered and killed, become so caring. He’s not even that gentle with me, and I’ve never asked or wanted him to. But for the baby in his hands, he can find the softness.

He walks over to me with her and sits next to me on my bed before placing the comfortably swaddled baby in my arms.

Already, she has a head full of straight dark hair. She’s still a little red from birth, though I can see some of the warm tan undertones from her father in her complexion, and her eyes are unquestionably blue. Not blue for now like Lady’s were when she was born. Blue like Leon’s were and stayed after he was born. Blue like her father’s.

The bonding. The intense feeling of protection and desire to die for her if needed. The desire and curiosity to get to know this little person and who she’ll grow up to be. All of it is instant, and the instantaneousness of it surprises me.

With Leon and Lady, it took weeks to feel any of that. Not that I wouldn’t have protected them or died for them. But as a thing I was just going to do. Everything I did for them was going through the motions of making sure they stayed alive and making sure we stayed hidden. It wasn’t until they started getting bigger and I started being able to discern their personalities and they did more than just eating, pooping, and sleeping all day that the bonding developed and fierce protective and motherly instinct arose. That I started to feel like I was actually their mother and not just pretending.

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