Secret Baby For The Italian Mafia Don

Part 14

NICO POV:

My shoulder aches, the stiffness starting at my neck and tensing down into
my bicep. I feel it even when I curl my hand into a fist. Two days of hauling
heavy furniture wasn't the smartest play on the eve of a fight, but I've won
harder matches in worse conditions. Besides, tonight will be simple. Right
now, miles away, Ava St. Clair is sitting down to dinner with her husband-
to-be. Maybe he'll put one arm over the back of her chair, making
inoffensive small talk and sharing awkward, meaningless smiles. Maybe his
eyes will run over her body, inspect it the way he'd look at a new car he
was taking out for a test drive.
Thaddeus doesn't know that I'll come home, climb into the bed I made for
her, and fuck his future wife until we break in her new mattress.
If she'll let me.
Ava wants one thing, and it's for me to leave her brother alone.
The girl has me so fucked up, a part of me wishes that I could. That I could
wash my hands of it all, settle down with her, bring her into my arms, and
promise her that she's good enough. She's worth it.
But that's not my call.
My thoughts swim, dark and deadly. Tonight will be easy.
I shake out my arm, coming down the steps two at a time and descending
into the underground.
I pass through shadow of the doorway—and pain cracks along the back of
my skull, throwing stars in front of my eyes and sending me halfway to the
floor. My instincts roar to life, forcing me to get up through the instant, mad
haze, as half a dozen squeaking footsteps rush around me. It's immediate
chaos. I'm outnumbered, dazed, off my footing. My vision is doubled and
red as I come up swinging, only to take a pipe to the gut, bending me
double and putting my face right in range to take a hit across the cheekbone.
I fall against the wall, brought to one knee as a kick catches me in the ribs
and snaps all the air out of my lungs.
I'm rolled onto my back, staring up into a hazy orange light. I spit blood out
of my mouth. Someone gathers me by the collar, ready to punch me across
the face. I lurch upward, head-butting him hard. He stumbles back, cursing
and spitting. The rest of the mob jumps in to avenge him, and I'm
overwhelmed by another barrage of kicks and the swing of a pipe against
my ribs. I do what I can to protect my head, letting my body take the rest of
it.
When you're outnumbered, overwhelmed, your mind goes somewhere else.
The thinking part of you retreats, letting the animal take over and endure
pain that thousands of years of hard-won survival have conditioned it for. In
the first lull, I still try to drag myself up, working on that one, desperate
instinct to not go down without a fight.
A boot comes down on my chest, pushing me down and pinning me there.
The pain of broken ribs splinters through my chest and robs the air from my
lungs. A door shuts somewhere far off. Someone rips my head back and
says, "This is a warning."
I roll over and spit out the blood sliding down my throat. The cowards flee,
scuttling out like cockroaches exposed to light as footsteps approach.
The world swims in my vision. I fall back into a heap on the floor, trying to
catch my breath when every inhale feels like a knife in my side.
"What the fuck?"
I hear the words from the doorway, and black combat boots come into my
range of sight. I look up. Angel sways over me as I try to blink through the
haze. His face really isn't the first thing you want to see while trying to
figure out if you're concussed or not, and I grimace as he tries to help get
me on my feet. I push him away.
"Who the hell did this?"
I knock his hand away.
"Why don't you tell me?" I snarl between breaths, trying to speak around
the pain in my side. "I'll fucking kill them, I swear to God."
"Not from there, you won't."
I force myself to my feet, biting my groan down behind my teeth.
"What the fuck do they think, Angel?" I demand, furious, sending the drug-
carved man skittering backward in alarm. "Do they think I'm doing
nothing? I brought Sal an old connect of mine, made him a deal he couldn't
refuse. I've got drug routes to manage, a lead on a couple good debts that
we can run—two weeks, I could have all of your people getting a cut of the
laundry if we feed it through their businesses, I just need the goddamn
time!"
"I don't know shit about this, Nico! It's not like they ran it by me and got
my fucking permission!"
Laughter and voices rise from the locker rooms. Angel lowers his voice
cautiously as he goes on, in an angry whisper, "But they just might, if you
go crawling to them with those excuses. Cleaning cuts and skimming drug
profits is fucking chump change, Nico. You can't bring them table scraps
and tell them it's a fucking steak!" Our eyes meet, and I see his own
frustration there, glimmering in the back of his gaze. I grin to myself,
feeling so stupid for thinking Angel wasn't just as deeply invested as the
rest of them.
"I put my name on yours," he says. "My neck is in the same fucking noose.
You know what you promised us."
"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly give you a time frame, did I?" I ask.
"Do you know how much Brighton makes off this little ring down here,
after Sal takes his cut?" Angel asks, as if I wouldn't know the numbers.
"About two million a week," I hiss, as the pain coalesces into a single
throbbing through my whole body.
"Two million. The motherfucker isn't even Italian! He's some nobody that
got lucky on an old property and a good deal decades ago—we could move
the whole fucking operation fully into the family's hands," Angel continues.
"That' s the kind of innovation you promised us. Cutting out all these little
middlemen, all the extra fat that just weighs the family down."
It is exactly the kind of deal I can't make. Not right now.
Salvatore walks the big dogs and makes sure they're all behaving on their
tight, short leash: government, city council, police, the tax man. It would
take a position like Marcel's to change the day-to-day, shadowy business
decisions that keep the family machine running smoothly in the
background, the business calls that a don doesn't have time to bother
himself with.
But sometimes—not that any of these idiots would understand it—things
just work because they work. For decades, this ring has been operating
smoothly, in secrecy. No busts, no rival attacks. Just smooth, profitable
business, week after week. Only an idiot fries his golden goose for his
dinner, but I swallow that logic with another taste of blood.
"This shit can't happen overnight."
"Look, don't appeal to me, man. I'm not the one you need to convince, I'm
not the one sending people to jump you, alright? That's not me, and I don't
fuck with it. But I see where it's coming from. I mean, we offered you a
fucking arsenal, and if you're not gonna use it for our cause, then someone
is gonna use it against you. If something needs to be done about Marcel, I
say we skip the diplomacy and really handle business."
"You kill Marcel, Sal will pin it on me in five minutes flat. I'll be buried
before Marcel's body is cold. You can't go for Marcel, or nobody gets what
they want."
"Hey, I never said we off Marcel. I've got at least a little foresight, c'mon.
Give me that," he laughs, his hand on my back urging me toward the
bathroom where I can wash the blood off. "But the way we see it, the only
thing keeping Marcel in the business is his little sister's ring finger."
My blood runs cold, all the pain in my body vanishing in one breath.
"And it's no secret she's been out here running wild," Angel continues,
oblivious. "She's a tragedy going somewhere to happen, if you know what I
mean. So I say—"
The strangled sound he makes is the only thing that brings me back to the
moment, making me realize I've crossed the room and gotten my hand
around his throat, taken him off his feet and pinned him to the wall. The
white patches of his face turn scarlet, his bony hands scrambling at my grip
as he kicks like an insect.
"I've already got an angle on the sister," I say, the lie coming fast and
smooth through the rage in my throat. "Do not fuck with the progress I've
already made, or you will set us all back, and I'll skin you just to make the
world's ugliest art piece out of your worthless hide."
I drop Angel to the ground, where he rasps and heaves, trying to breathe
through his bruised throat. He reaches a hand up as if I might help him.
I step past it and leave him sprawled there on the ground.
"I want you to look at the books tonight," I tell him. "See which one of our
friends bet against me tonight."
Whoever makes a killing tonight, they're the ones who orchestrated this.
The one sending a message and raking in the profit along the way. I drag
myself forward one step at a time, marching numbly toward a fight I know I can't win.

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