WARPED VANITY ( BL)

CHAPTER 27

Venice and Paris were Vegas. Dark eyes, thick black hair.

  For everyone in the Outfit they’d always be theerapanyakul, always the result of something horrid, born out of something shameful, something dark. But for me they were the most beautiful creation I could imagine. They were utter perfection. Twins like Samuel and me. They would lift each other up, make each other stronger like Samuel and I had done when we were younger and still did. It would be us against the world. It couldn’t be any other way.

  Samuel stayed with me in the hospital after the birth while Mom went home for a few hours of sleep after twenty hours at my side during labor. Samuel’s eyes were kind and loving as they looked down at me, but these tender emotions vanished as soon as he turned toward my children sleeping in their cradle. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, but my children reminded him of something he and everyone else were desperate to forget.

  And how could he not be reminded when my twins looked like vegas?

  My heart ached fiercely when I looked at them, throbbing with a longing I’d tried to bury with the memories of vegas, but vegas wasn’t a man that could be forgotten.

  Not easily, not quickly, not ever.

  Two days after giving birth, Mom and Samuel carried my twins into the house because I still had trouble lifting anything heavier than a glass of water. The family had come together for the occasion, but I knew it wasn’t to celebrate. Dad and Dante probably needed to discuss how to keep my children a secret. The Underbosses knew. They had to for the sake of the Outfit. Danilo did, but I hadn’t talked to him since the day Sofia had been promised to him.

  Samuel held my arm while his other carried the baby carrier. Walking the stairs was more than a little uncomfortable, and I was glad when I finally arrived inside our house.

  Valentina came toward me and hugged me gently. She and Dante were still trying for child number three, but so far it wasn’t working. She peered down at my babies with a soft smile. “They are beautiful, Serafina.”

  “They are,” I agreed.

  Sam and Dad exchanged a look, and it felt like a stab in the heart because when they looked at my children they saw the black hair and dark eyes and nothing more. They saw theerapanyakul's . They saw shame and guilt. Would they ever allow my babies to be more than the greatest failure in the history of the Outfit?

  Sofia rushed down the staircase followed by Anna. Leonas showed less enthusiasm than the girls as he sauntered down the steps, rolling his eyes.

  Sofia stopped beside me and Samuel, looking down at paris sleeping soundly in the carrier. I’d noticed that Samuel had insisted on carrying Paris, not Venice, but I tried not to put too much meaning into it. Sofia hadn’t been allowed in the hospital because we didn’t want to draw too much attention to us, and her eyes were wide in surprise.

  “Wow,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen hair that black.”

  She’d never seen Vegas.

  Anna nodded as she lightly brushed a finger over Venice’s head. His eyes peeled open and as always when they did, my breath lodged in my throat. Dark eyes. Vegas eyes. Even at two days old, my boy was his father.

  Dad averted his eyes, brows pulling tight, and looked at Dante with an expression that tore me cleanly in half.

  Valentina squeezed my shoulder and leaned in. “It takes time, pete. Give them time. One day they will see your babies as what they are: only yours.”

  I nodded, but deep down I knew Paris and Venice would never only be mine because they were also Vegas , and nothing could change that. And I didn’t want it to.