Secret Baby For The Italian Mafia Don

Part 15

AVA POV:

Sometimes, the tension at a family dinner is more filling than the main
course could ever be. I enjoy an evening of Thaddeus enduring long,
judgmental looks from my brother, and a series of interrogating questions
that would border on outright rude if they had come from anyone other than
Contessa Mori. Being the don's wife, she gets away with her pointed,
stabbing questions as long as she asks them with a bright and charming
smile. Without ever touching the knife on her napkin, Tessa dissects
Thaddeus like a cadaver. His past marriage, his schooling, his finances, his
political leanings.
Finally, Salvatore pushes the wine bottle toward Tessa and asks, "Do you
want to just start waterboarding him and save the time?"
Tessa smiles like it's a joke, though I don't think she rules out the
possibility.
Even Cecilia, who is usually the busybody of the table, is forced to take a
backseat to Tessa's merciless scrutiny. For some reason, though, the old
woman's gaze is on me, sharp and inspecting, and I can't shake the feeling
that she is staring into me.
I don't know why.
Maybe she senses what I do—that the man sitting next to me is not the
Thaddeus Mori who sat across from me at that first meeting. This version of
Thaddeus is charming, quick-witted, and he smiles at me so often, it almost
makes me uncomfortable—as if we already have a deep connection and a
hundred inside jokes. He tells the family the only thing I confessed to him
during our first dinner was that I liked long walks on the beach, and joke or
not, he's already looking forward to taking me to the Maldives so I can
enjoy some proper beaches.
This is the first I'm hearing about it.
Marcel stares at me over the table. We both know I've never been to a
beach, and that I don't have a passport.
Under Salvatore's watchful gaze, Thaddeus is on his best and most invested
behavior. The dinner goes shockingly well, and by the end of it, even Tessa
seems bitter that she couldn't unravel him. He asks me to walk him to the
door.
The rest of the family follows. Hands are shaken, smiles and polite words
exchanged. Marcel's grip is white-knuckled on the man's hand, even when
his smile is brilliant. We step out into the low afternoon light, purple
touching the edges of the treetops.
"Well, I think it's my turn to find a ride home," Thaddeus says. "Fair's fair."
"Isn't that your car?" I ask, gesturing to the glossy red BMW parked along
the circular driveway.
"No," Thaddeus says, slipping a set of keys out of his pocket and dangling
them over my hands. I catch them on instinct, perplexed. "I brought your
car."
I don't understand. My eyes drift between the keys in my palms and his
face, stunned into silence.
"I didn't like sending you off with a cab last time. If we want to see more of
each other, you should have a reliable way to get around. I do hope you like
the color. I may have been inspired by your dress last time," he fake-
whispers.
The words are stolen right out of my mouth. I finally manage something
that sounds like a thank you, and I even manage to sound like I mean it. I
know it's no accident I've been given this over-the-top, flashy present in
front of the family, but it's still far more than I expected him to do.
Thaddeus Mori's bony hands cup my cheeks.
"I want to see you sooner this time," he says. "Try to make time for me?"
He starts to descend the steps. I'm still speechless, my head reeling.
Salvatore offers him a ride down to the main road. The polite goodbyes spill
out into the driveway while I stand numbly on the top of the stairs,
gawking.
When I finally have the sense of mind to join them, something reaches out
and tugs me back by the edge of my shirt. Cecilia Mori has pushed her
wheelchair up behind me. The rest of the family wanders off into the yard,
their attention on the car, while Cecilia holds me in place.
"Have you slept with him?" she asks.
The question is so sudden and invasive, it makes me recoil.
"No? Of course not," I sputter.
"Well, that complicates things then, doesn't it?" she snips.
When I don't follow, that sharp gaze lands on me again. It runs up and
down my body, making me feel small and childish.
"Complicates what?" I ask.
"How you're going to explain the baby."
"What?"
Her voice croons low and quick, her eyes fixed on the people out in the
yard, anticipating any one of them coming back up to us. "You might not be
showing in the middle yet, Ava, but a woman's breasts and hips—those can
tell the truth before the belly does. And a woman my age knows the signs
when she sees them."
"Well, your vision's been going for a long time," I say, struggling to keep
my voice down. I can feel how pale I must be, all the blood rushed out of
my cheeks. "I'm not—" I lower my voice sharply. "I'm not pregnant,
Cecilia."
"If there's no chance of that, why are you whispering?"
My mortified silence blisters between us.
I don't know what I'm supposed to say, what I'm supposed to even feel.
Over and over, Nico threatened me with his baby. Over and over, I let him
take that gamble, knowingly playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun.
I got into fights, and I didn't get hurt.
I sped down the highway, and I didn't crash.
Every bad thing I tempted swerved me, over and over.
I glance down at my flat belly, wondering if my luck finally ran out. If I
finally got that ruin I'd been begging for all along. The crowd starts to come
back toward the house.
"If something needs to be done about this," she says quickly, "you come
straight to me. Tell no one else. You'll be given cash and the name of a
family physician who will be discreet. Do you understand?"
My throat works feebly.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because I am the closest chance you have of a secret like that being taken
to the grave."
Our conversation is interrupted. Salvatore, Tessa, and Marcel come back up
the steps. I hear them talking to me, trying to get my attention, no doubt
trying to get a read on how I must be feeling about Thaddeus and his little
stunt with the car. Right now, I don't feel anything about it. I can barely
pretend to know what they're talking about.
I begin to walk away, my knees wobbling on the stairs as I head down them.
"Ava?" Marcel calls after me. "Where are you going?"
I dangle the keys on my finger.
"To take it for a spin."
I long to speed down the road, reckless and wild even with tears in my eyes.
My emotions roil. They lash out at Cecilia, thinking how stupid she must
be, some nosy old woman with nothing better to do than pretend she knows
everyone else's business.
But another, tinier voice keeps my foot off the gas pedal:
She could be right.
Universe three, Ava zero?
I refuse to think about it. I point the car toward the nearest convenience
store and drive, trying desperately to shut my brain off, drowning it out with
the radio station I can barely navigate through the unfamiliar panels on the
car.
Cecilia is probably just trying to scare me, my brain insists over the upbeat
cheer of some mid-2000s pop song. I curl one hand around my breast,
squeezing and weighing it against my palm. It could be a million things. A
different bra, the cut of my shirt. Maybe I've put on weight since I've been
eating more. I lost so much after Vinny, there was barely anything left.
That makes sense. Cecilia is just used to seeing me underfed and scrawny
now, and I'm finally getting better.
By the time I have the pregnancy test, I've almost talked myself out of the
panic—but not enough to stop me from buying a couple extras, just in case.
I have to pay with my phone. I realize, for the first time, that I marched off
without my bag or wallet, not even a driver's license. I have no idea who
the car is really registered to. I can barely think straight, my thoughts
fogged up with anxiety. The pimply-faced teenager congratulates me when
he rings my order up, and in a huff, I tell him I'm not pregnant, while
snatching my too-many pregnancy tests off the counter.
It hits me on the way back home—this is the first time I've really been
afraid in months.
I make it to the threshold of my room, where I open the door and come face
to face with my new bedroom. Nico must have finished the work today
while I played nanny. I stand stunned in the doorway. The bed is bigger,
with crisp new sheets and sheer curtains trailing down from overhead, lined
with draping fairy lights that make the space private and mystical. The
artwork, plants, and décor he has left in one corner for me to design the way
I want.
I'm stunned by how gorgeous it all is, how much time he must have taken
to make sure it was just right.
"You know why Nico's doing this, don't you?"
I whip around, instinctively slinging the plastic bag behind my back. Marcel
leans in the doorway, his arms crossed as he looks over the new room.
"It's not because he's nice, Ava. I wish it was. Him and Thaddeus, they're
two sides of the same coin. Salvatore asked me to stay out of the
arrangement you have with him, and I'm trying. But Nico is just the same.
He just wants to use you somehow. You're a pawn in this game between me
and him. Do you understand that?"
My mouth is dry, my thoughts spinning around the secret hidden behind my
back.
"Maybe," I whisper, barely able to think about it.
He sighs and steps into the room.
"If he hurts you in all this, Ava, I'll kill him. I won't pretend I have any
right to police who you talk to or what you do. I'm...trying to let you
navigate this on your own. But please, please be careful, Ava. For me. Nico
Mori wants one thing and one thing only. It's no coincidence that he's taken
an interest in you."
My throat feels tight. I can't look at him.
"Not that Thaddeus is much better," he sighs, holding up his hands, "but
I'm not permitted to speak on that."
"You don't have to do everything Sal tells you, you know," I mutter softly.
Marcel's gaze darkens slightly.
"And that is exactly the kind of thinking you cannot let Nico put in your
head," he says, so sternly that I feel like a child again. "One way or the
other, this will sort itself out. Nico can't go for long without making some
irreparable mistake. This time, whatever it is won't land him anywhere that
he can come back from. I just want you clear of the wreckage."
My heart pinches quietly in my chest as, surrounded by all of Nico's hard,
thankless work, Marcel wishes death upon him.
"What did you get at the store?" he asks, looking at the bag I've had
squirreled away behind my back.
"Tampons," I blurt.
Marcel raises both his hands and backs out of the room.
"And that's my cue. Just...be careful with him, Ava," he says. "With both of
them."
The door clicks shut. I rush into the bathroom and start tearing through the
packaging. My hands are shaking so hard, I can barely read the instructions,
the words a blur, my thoughts stampeding over themselves. I drop it twice
before I finally get it open, shaking head-to-toe and struggling to regulate
my breathing.
It's amazing how long three minutes can feel. How seconds can stretch out
on themselves until you can feel each one aching in your limbs. I pace the
narrow tile floor of my bathroom, avoiding eye contact with myself in the
mirror.
Slowly, I convince myself that all the anxiety will go away if I just look at
the results. That's the only way to get this swarming, stinging beehive of
thoughts out of my head. If I just look, it can all be over.
I dare to look, just one tiny peek.

The universe wins the game.

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