Page 119 of The Woman on the Jury

“Hey, Abby,” he said as we sat there and our ancient rescue mutt climbed off of her bed and made her way over to him, begging for his attention as she always did. She hardly cared that I existed, save for when I fed her.

We hadn’t chosen Abby.

In fact, I learned that no one in the Costa family actually ever chose their own pets.

On some random day without any warning whatsoever, you just had a knock on your door. And there was Brio. With some creature in his arms that he insisted was your new family member.

“No fucking way,” Cosimo said.

“She was fifteen minutes away from being killed, man,” Brio said to Cosimo’s raised brow look. I’d known him well enough at that time to know he was about to tell Brio to take that dog and leave.

Those words alone had me melting.

I mean, she was scraggly, arthritic, moody, afraid of the elevator, and had only half of her teeth left.

But she needed a home.

I’d never had a pet before.

My father had claimed he’d been allergic. Then I’d been in college and unable to have something even if I wanted to adopt.

“So you take her.”

“Got a house full,” Brio said, shaking his head as he reached down to release Abby’s leash. “You got none. House ain’t a home without a pet,” he declared as Abby walked over to Cosimo, sat her little fluffy butt down, and wiggled her tail so hard her whole body shook.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he said, exhaling hard. Like he already knew he’d lost the battle.

So then… we had a dog.

Cosimo joked sometimes that she was more like half a dog, but as much as he teased her, he loved that damn dog. I constantly came down to find him talking to her, petting her, sneaking her treats even though the vet told us to make sure to keep her weight down for her arthritis.

He’d even had his men build her a potty spot out on the balcony with grass in the summer and mulch in the winter, so she didn’t have to go in the “big, bad elevator” more than absolutely necessary.

“How do you think she’s going to handle the baby?” I asked.

“Well, she’s mostly deaf these days,” he said, reaching down to gently set her on his lap. “She probably won’t even notice he’s here,” he said.

“You’re probably right,” I agreed, scooting closer to Cosimo, feeling his arm go around me. “Can you believe in six weeks, we’re going to finally be able to hold him?” I asked as his hand went to my belly.

“I’m looking forward to shoving him in Silvano’s arms. Gotta make sure we got a camera handy for that,” he said, making my lips curve up.

I was still holding out hope that Silvano would find his person.

The same went for them all, honestly.

All these hard men. They needed a soft place to land.

It was honestly hard to believe at times how much Cosimo had changed since we’d gotten together.

Sure, he was still that cold, cocky prick when it came to work stuff. But he was soft and sweet with me. And I couldn’t wait to see him be that way with our baby.

Cosimo - 20 years

It sounded like a fucking brawl was going on in the penthouse.

It probably was.

I’d worked really fucking hard not to make the mistakes of my father.

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