Page 13 of Secret Mafia Daddy

“You take me away from the city,” she says, pulling me out of my head. “I don’t want to be in this life anymore, but I can only get away from my stepfather if he thinks I’m protected. If we get married, I want it to be away from the city.”

That sparks something inside me. Pretty silver eyes, laughter, A talk about escaping the city, an unwanted life. All flashes, no real picture or image to hang on to, like a fast-moving slideshow.

“I already told you we were moving to Chicago, so that’s easy enough.”

“I won’t testify, but you don’t own me. I get to have my own life and I don’t have to be with you all of the time,” she says firmly.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I drawl, taking the exit where she tells me to.

We’re approaching a few huge mansions. This must be where her stepfather lives.

“And we eventually get divorced.”

“Clearly,” I say. I have no idea how any of this will play out, but that is something I want to keep on the table too, at least for now. No use having her think this is a forever kind of marriage. Though I am curious about her and there is this pull to her, I don’t know this girl. We might not even be compatible in the least and she might piss me off enough that I change my mind halfway through.

I won’t kill her, her little girl doesn’t deserve that, but I might be the one wanting her out of my house eventually. I have no illusions this has anything to do with love and I ultimately want what Nico and Dante have. The whole shebang.

“And then you let me go, right?”

“Naturally,” I say. I like her fire, I can’t deny that.

When I stop the car, I look at her for a moment longer. As the light hits her just right, the full memory hits me light a freight train.

Her gray eyes glinting up at me, full of lust and glassy with booze.

“Fuck me, Angelo,” she’d said. And boy, did I. That night had been one for the books. How had I not remembered before?

“Fuck me!” I exclaim. “I do know you, kitten.” She’d introduced herself as Cat and I’d called her kitten.

She squeezes her eyes tightly closed and then opens them again, sighing. “It was just that one night.”

I remember now, her nails dragging down my shoulders, the way she’d arched up beneath me.

“I’ll be damned,” I murmur, but she doesn’t say anything more. I can’t believe I forgot a woman like her, a woman who’d, by all rights, been exactly my type, and I can’t wait to get her back beneath me.

We arrive at the mansion and it’s a huge place, maybe bigger than Dante’s. I appreciate the architecture and the plant life as I walk toward the door.

She grabs my arm, ushers me over to the side door.

“I don’t want to wake him,” she says. We’ve already been buzzed in, but something tells me he has guys for that.

We walk into the side door and into the mansion and she walks up the staircase. I put my hands in my pockets, feeling slightly nervous. Kids usually like me, but what if this one doesn’t?

By the time I get upstairs, she’s already in the room, waking up the little kid.

“Where are we going, Mommy?” she asks in a little voice, and my heart skips a beat.

“On an adventure,” Catarina says in a hushed voice, and the little girl gasps, excited. I stand in the doorway, smiling a bit.

And then Catarina brings the little girl out, holding her in her arms and trying to hurry past me. I grab Catarina’s wrist, wanting to get a look at the little scamp.

When I first glimpse her face, I have to blink a few times. My eyes must be playing tricks on me.

This can’t be, can it? I must be hallucinating from exhaustion.

As I’m looking at her, the little girl yawns and looks at me, her brown eyes wide, and my heart stops in my chest.

6

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