Secret Baby For The Italian Mafia Don

Part 18

NICO POV:

I have a headache and a hitlist. Thaddeus Mori is on it, somewhere near the
top, and I don't really remember why. I just remember falling asleep thinking
about killing him. Maybe I dreamed the why. The details are foggy, but they
probably aren't important. There's some reason he deserves it, even if I have
to figure out what it is after the fact. But he's not in spot number one,
nowhere near the top of the list.
That spot is reserved for the ones who threatened her.
I check my phone, second nature. I ignore the dozen or so outraged messages
demanding to know why I walked into the ring already half-dead, flicking the
messages away like insignificant flies. The fight was over before it had even
begun. Everybody in the room could see it, and there will be a lot of pissed-
off people who lost money on that fight.
But the important ones, the ones who knew the outcome before I ever set foot
in that cage, I'm sure they made a killing betting against the odds.
I swipe instead to the tracker I put on Ava's phone when I first set it up. Her
phone's location shows on the map, a tiny dot moving along somewhere in
the house. The tension bleeds out of me. She's here, and that means she's
safe. For now.
I drag myself to the sink, taking a mouthful of water and spitting old blood
into the basin. I run my tongue along my teeth, feeling for anything loose, but
I don't find any damage. Ava's care is littered over my body. Bandages and
ointment and skin glue holding me together. She left a bottle of pain pills out.
The real deal, not some over-the-counter trash that would barely touch a
toothache, but I use the pain to keep me sharp. Focused. I'm not going to lay
up in bed all day and lick my wounds. I didn't let her do it. I might be a mix
of every bad trait you can inherit, but at least I'm not that much of a
hypocrite.
I go to Ava's room. It's empty, the bed unused. She hasn't decorated it yet, all
the excess items still piled up in the corner. I don't care. It makes it easy to
spot the car keys sitting on the top of her dresser. I swipe them, march down
to the garage, and click the start-up. A red BMW roars to life near the back of
the multi-car garage, its lights flashing. I hobble my way to it, rip open the
door, and start tearing through the console, the glovebox, under the seats. I
swipe my hands under the wheel arches, pry the vents out with a pocketknife
until the dash is mangled and the upholstery is cut up.
I don't find anything suspicious. No tracker. Just an ordinary car. A gift.
Goddamn, it almost makes me angrier, as I plunge a knife into what's left of
the upholstery.
My vision redder than the gutted car, I get in and tear out of the indoor
garage, the wheels spinning wild and grass kicking up as I sling it onto the
lawn and park the car front and center before the house. The best place for the
show. Front-row seats.
I do a little work on it, some personalization that the car sorely needed, and
then I get ready to go into the city. Footsteps shake the house, raised voices
calling out in alarm. Upstairs, I fasten my tie and slide my wallet into my
pocket. I straighten my cuff links, covering my beaten body in my most
expensive suit, with polished shoes and dark shades. I counterbalance cuts
and bruises with the one thing that will make people look past them—money.
Outside the window, a thin line of black smoke cuts into the air.
When I step out of the house, hot flames lick from the car's open windows,
eating up the interior of the cabin. The rags in the gas can are almost burned
through. I step around the two men gawking in front of the house, one of
them holding a fire extinguisher so small, he must have pulled it out from
under the kitchen sink. I move around the car, ignoring the stunned people
filling up the doorway behind me as the chaos attracts attention.
I am almost to the first gate when the flames reach the gas tank. Even from
here, I hear the rush of ravenous fire and the shattering of glass as Thaddeus
Mori's gift is swallowed up in flames.
They're still dealing with the mess two hours later.
Ava has texted me a single, ironic sentence:
Tell me you didn't.
They've pushed the blackened, burnt-out body of the car down the road,
where the tow truck can get to it easier. The grass on the yard is fucked, ashy
in some places and completely gone in others. They're hauling the wreckage
onto the back of a truck as I drive by. Salvatore and Marcel stand and watch
the ordeal as I drive past them and pull up to the front doors of the main
house.
The women stand in the doorway, watching. Salvatore's pretty little wife
paces, on the phone with someone, while Cecilia perches like a vulture
watching the only interesting show in town. Ava stands between them with
Tessa's baby. She bounces the little girl in her arms. My thoughts go wild
seeing her like that, a baby nuzzled up on her shoulder and curling tiny
fingers into her shirt. My grip tightens on the steering wheel, and I draw in an
angry breath of fresh leather.
My girl isn't going to have another man's car or engagement ring, and she
sure as hell isn't going to have another man's baby. Not if I can fucking help
it. All eyes are on me as I step out of the SUV and march straight toward Ava.
Salvatore's wife comes sweeping in between us. Contessa stands between me
and Ava and my own niece. The woman might only be a couple inches taller
than Ava, but she knows her place on the totem pole. She holds herself like a
mob boss's wife, like I don't tower over her by a single centimeter.
"That's far enough, Nico," she says.
I stop.
The women surround me, a flock of little songbirds ready to dive at the hawk
to get it away from the nest.
"Easy, ladies," I murmur, dangling the new key fob. "I come bearing gifts."
In the driveway stands the replacement for the car that I torched, Ava's actual
new car: a pristine white, top-of-the-line G-wagon. The Mercedes is specially
armored with a bulletproof cabin and windows. It's not the sort of model you
can pick up off the lot unless you know where to go, but some parts of this
city haven't changed.
Ava is utterly speechless as she pieces together what I've done.
"But...why?"
She fumbles her own question, not knowing how to ask it.
Ava knows damn well why I would give her the car, and why I would torch
the old one. She isn't asking that. Her unspoken question is understood only
by the two of us: why would I do this in front of the family?
Neither of us can admit to the obvious truth—that Ava and I have been
sleeping together for weeks, and that jealousy and I do not play well together.
"I promised you a wedding present," I say, before she has to explain away my
insanity. "And I don't take kindly to my cousin shortchanging you with some
standard sedan. Once you represent my family, you accept nothing but the
best. Do you understand?"
The double meaning makes Ava somehow pale and pink at the same time, the
blood rushing to different parts of her face, unable to decide if it wants to fill
up those pretty, high cheekbones or stay in her ears.
My eyes drift to the baby on her shoulder. Moving carefully, under the sharp
gaze of Contessa Mori, I dangle the key fob like a teething ring in front of
those big, dark eyes. The baby reaches out a stubby hand, no depth
perception, as she tries and fails to swipe at it.
"Even the baby knows my gift is better," I say, low and private. I pass the
keys to Ava. She snatches them, her face pink as the women around us
silently judge our interaction. I feel the calculations running, the silent,
knowing looks passing from one woman to the next.
But all they have is guesswork.
Ava and I are the only two people standing here who know the real why.
Everyone else can only read the smoke signals I left in the sky declaring my
burning, flash-fire feelings for Ava St. Clair. I stare at her, eye to eye, hoping
she knows why. I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, but she needs to
know—no one else is allowed to dote on her like that.
Footsteps crunch in the gravel behind me. I brace, fully expecting my pissed-
off brother to come tackle me to the ground like a goddamn linebacker for so
much as looking in his wife and child's direction. I get it. If there is anything
that Salvatore and I have in common, it's that we are savage for the ones we
love most. I wouldn't trust me, either.
I know it's going to be bad without turning around.
I break eye contact with Ava just enough to brace myself for what's coming.
"It's alright, Sal."
Contessa's voice snaps out and intercepts him.
Those angry footsteps slow. Salvatore slings me back a few feet. It rips the air
right out of my lungs, my battered ribs catching in my chest as I keep my
footing. I swallow the urge to vomit, forcing myself to keep upright and stoic,
even when it takes a good twenty seconds to draw my first breath through the
searing pain.
Salvatore's eyes are black with rage.
"Do you really think I'd just murder them all on the front steps of our
house?" I ask between breaths. "That I wouldn't protect them, if I needed to?
Like it or not, Sal, your family is my family, too—and between the two of us,
I'm not the one with a history of killing our family members."
Sometimes, even I don't know why I say shit. Just to make it all worse.
In the world's shittiest trade, our mother died giving birth to him. As a grown
man, I know that's not his fault. Hell, I knew it when we were kids, too, but
damn did it feel good blaming him for it all those years. She didn't deserve to
die—not for him, anyway. He was never worth it. No matter how high he
climbs in the world, no matter what he achieves, that will never change. Not
for me.
His fist wraps into the collar of my shirt, pulling me close. I meet his gaze,
unflinching and unafraid. I grin even when I'm about to eat a punch. At least
that old wound still hasn't healed for him. I hope it never does.
Before he can start swinging, a hand comes up and hooks into the bend of
Salvatore's arm. I expect it to be his bold little wife, maybe Ava—but only if
she wants to start beating me up herself. Instead, Cecilia reaches out and
closes a hand around Salvatore's elbow.
We're both so surprised she would stop him, it actually works, the tension
skipping like a scratched record.
"You forget your place, Cecilia," Salvatore says, shaking off her hand.
She sniffs.
"Interrupting a don taking care of business is not my place, but stopping you
two boys from fighting each other in the yard has always been. Just because
you have one up on him now, Salvatore, doesn't mean you need to take
advantage of it. Even if he deserves it," she says.
I lift an eyebrow at him, a silent dare for him to do something.
But he's not easily goaded, not like I am.
Finally, Salvatore lets go with a furious breath. We back away from each
other and let the tension bleed out, sapped out of the moment by Cecilia
basically calling us overgrown kids. Just at the foot of the stairs, Marcel has
been standing by all along, his hand tucked inside his jacket, just waiting for
me to do something so that he can pull out that gun and shoot me. He doesn't
mask his disappointment when he straightens his suit again.
An awkward silence lingers.
"I appreciate that none of you have anything better to do than stand around
and watch tow-truck drivers and other blue-collar people with real jobs work,
but personally, I have things to do," I say, clapping Sal on the arm as I walk
by him.
"Is anyone going to explain the car?" I hear Marcel ask as I step through the
group and cut into the house, feeling every gaze on my back. Ava's burns the
hottest of them all, trying to peel me to the bone. I turn around just enough to
wink at her. That gorgeous face goes scarlet, her beautiful eyes darting away.
She turns her back and refuses to look at me, but I see her reaction in the pink
of her ears.
It's all the thanks I need.

Words 2272