Page 73 of Secret Mafia Daddy

“Catarina,” I moan, her name on my lips over and over as I get close to the edge. She spasms around me and that’s all it takes. I groan low in my chest and come inside her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers when I pull out and lie beside her, and then she puts her head on my chest.

“I know you can feel my heart beating,” I tell her. “It beats for you, Catarina. You and Chelsea. So don’t ever leave me again, all right?”

My voice cracks near the end, and Catarina nuzzles up closer.

“Never again,” she promises.

I hope she means it, because I really will hunt her down.

30

CATARINA

Does Angelo really love me? Can all those pretty words he said be true? It doesn’t matter, though, in the end, because we still have to work something else out. I can’t be married to him, not like this. Not when he might get killed or we might get kidnapped again.

He takes off his shirt after we make love, throwing it on the ground, and I see the red, healing wound on his belly.

I gasp, sitting up in just his T-shirt. “Angelo, what happened?”

He looks down at his stomach and then back up at me, quickly. “It’s okay,” he assures me. “I was stabbed, but—”

“You were stabbed but?” I say flatly. “You could have been killed, Angelo. Do you know what that would do to Chelsea? Do you know what that would do to me?” Her voice breaks.

“Catarina, please, listen to me,” he starts, but I cut him off.

“I can’t,” I say quickly, standing up and brushing down the T-shirt. “I can’t live like this whether you love me or not, because—”

“What do you mean, or nor?” he demands to know, standing in the bedroom doorway so that I can’t leave.

“I mean, you can't."

“I told you not to tell me how to feel,” he warns. ”I’m in love with you.”

“Don’t you see, Angelo?” I ask in a whisper. “I’m so scared that it’s not true. Besides, I could never ask you to choose. I won’t ask you that.”

He puts my hand on his chest and his heart beats fast against my hand.

“You feel it too, Catarina. And how can you doubt my love when it’s written all over my face when I look at you. We’re meant to be together.”

I take in a deep, shaking breath. “Even if we are, Angelo, I can’t keep putting Chelsea in danger. I just can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“You love this life, Angelo. You love being a wiseguy.”

He sets his jaw. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters, Angelo,” I cry. “You were stabbed. Me and Chelsea were taken!”

“I know that, Catarina. Don't you think I know that?” he growls. “Don’t you think I wish every day that I could kill those bastards twice?”

“Did you kill them?” I ask in a low voice.

“Of course I did,” he insists. “I killed every last one of them.”

I breathe in deeply. “Good.”

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