Secret Baby For The Italian Mafia Don

Part 22

AVA POV:

Like two high schoolers sneaking around after curfew, Nico and I tiptoe into
the foyer, where he recklessly pins me in the entryway of the dark mansion
and kisses me breathless. I shush him, begging him to be quiet. The man's
mouth is going to be the death of me, though I haven't figured out how he's
going to use it to kill me yet. His words, his lips, his tongue. It's a multi-
purpose weapon of mass destruction, and its primary function is undoing me
in every way possible.
The foyer may be empty, but the house itself feels alive, a silent witness as
we careen through the dark together. Nico doesn't care.
"If I had my way," he breathes, "I'd take you over Salvatore's desk and burn
that lingerie right there in his fireplace."
I silently allot another point into the words category.
"Don't," I say sharply, before he can convince me it's a good idea. I'm
already halfway there.
It's safer for everyone if Nico can't speak at all, so I kiss him to the point of
distraction. I tempt him toward my room, luring Nico from the siren song of
bad ideas with the only thing that will make him listen.
"Your birthday present is in my room," he says, barely willing to break the
kiss.
"My room's closer," I argue. "And I thought you already gave me my
birthday present."
He laughs lowly.
"You can have that any day of the year."
But true to his nature, Nico follows me like a magnet chasing north until I put
a closed door between us and the rest of the house.
There's still a part of me that's devastated, knowing that the future is dark and
complicated and that he probably won't be there with me, but that makes it
easier to fall into this—into the present, where there's nothing but Nico and
wild, hot pleasure, and late nights, and sneaking footsteps through the house.
Maybe this is only fair. Maybe it's payback for my perfect reputation as a
good girl as a teenager, never sneaking out or fooling around with boys.
Maybe all girls are eventually doomed to hide a man in their bedroom, and
mine just came surprisingly late.
Even spent and inebriated, Nico still pins me down on the bed and tears off
my lingerie one piece at a time. He throws it onto the floor like trash until I'm
stretched out naked under him, but I'm too exhausted to want anything except
his arms and his soft kisses and deep sleep.
He runs his admiring hands over my body. My skin is pink and welted, aching
softly at his touch.
"Don't get any ideas."
"I can't help it," he says. "I don't know how to keep my hands off you."
He kisses me again, with no urgency now. Slow, self-contained kissing.
Kissing for the sake of itself, with no road beyond it. Finally, Nico settles
against me. He wraps me in his arms, where I feel the swell of every breath in
his muscled chest. But that doesn't stop the words, the dark confessions that
he mutters against my ear,
"I want to tattoo my name over your cunt so anyone who sees it knows
exactly who you belong to." His huge hand palms between my legs. "I want
to tell Sal, tell your brother, tell Thaddeus, that I'm going to take you just to
see them try to fucking stop me."
I want to believe it's the alcohol talking, making a wild man wilder, but I
know that's not it. Nico hasn't been subtle this past week. He's getting more
desperate, greedier and reckless, as my wedding to Thaddeus grows closer.
But I am getting desperate, too.
After going shot-for-shot with Thaddeus, the alcohol is still burning through
Nico's system. He's drunk, unguarded, his tongue already loose and talking
too much.
This is an opportunity to do exactly what Salvatore told me to do: get close to
Nico and find out what I can from him. I have no desire to trade Nico's
secrets back to Salvatore. I need them for myself.
I push Nico over onto his back. He moves easily, and I settle where I can look
down at him, eye to eye. His hand cards through my hair and pushes the
strands back over my ears. The way he looks at me makes my stomach thump
softly for him. All those rough, commanding edges soften when he's drunk.
He's vulnerable in some way he'd never admit to.
"You're a liar," I say, gazing down into his face.
"Not to you," he chuckles, too easily.
"You are. You're lying to me right now. You don't want me that badly."
"Of course I do," he insists, angry that I would suggest otherwise. It plucks at
the strings of my heart. "More than anything."
His hands roam up my body again, as if he needs to convince me of it.
"Then what's really stopping you from being with me? If you want me so, so
badly, like you're always saying...I don't see the proof, Nico."
His silence wavers. I try to read his expression, his eyes glossy with drink as
he tries to think through it, to figure out what he wants to say. He tries to kiss
me instead of answer me. I push him back down. He slumps back against the
pillow, eyes fixed at some place over my shoulder.
"Ava..."
He's not too drunk to realize he's making a mistake, he's just too drunk to
stop making it.
"Am I not worth it, Nico? Or are you just using me?"
"Don't you ever accuse me of that," he growls, so seriously that I almost
believe him. Even hearing what I did just this morning—God, I want to
believe him. He cuts my doubts thin with that piercing gaze, suddenly clear
and coherent for just this moment, for something that really sobers him. I
almost feel guilty for accusing him.
"Then why?" I beg, so desperate for the truth, and so torn and confused. I
have to know. My entire future depends on it so much more than Nico could
ever know. His hands cup my face.
"Sometimes, you just have to let me handle things, Ava. You just have to trust
me."
"Why would I trust you when that trust doesn't go both ways? When have I
ever asked you for anything before? Do I not deserve the truth? Or am I just
supposed to let you fuck me, let you play with my head and my pussy
whenever you want, and then get tossed aside when you're done?" His
expression tenses, and sensing weakness, I sink in my claws. "You and
Thaddeus are more alike than you'd ever admit."
The words are barely out of my lips before I am put onto my back on the bed.
"Don't you ever—"
"Then prove it, Nico!" I demand, beneath him now but still holding control.
"Please."
I watch the man's resolve crumble in real time right in front of me. I admired
Frankie when I watched her march off to handle business with just a bullet
and a target. Functional. But I hate this. Nico and I are too close, our
relationship cutting to the quick. I wish I had another choice. I wish I had
time for other choices.
I kiss him softly, trying to pry the words from him. "Trust me," I beg against
his lips.
"Christ, you think you're so clever, don't you?" he whispers in a moment of
clarity. "Trying to get at me like this."
I wait, sensing an answer is coming.
"You're not the only one who made deals," he finally admits. "I owe people,
Ava. Not the kind of debts that a single cash payoff or wire transfer is going
to fix. Debts that run deeper than that. They got me out of prison. And if I
don't...if I can't make good on those promises, then..."
I try to read him, try to read that eventual outcome written there in his eyes.
Would they hurt him? My fingers trail softly over the little wounds he got
from the fight, the ones I couldn't make sense of. Have they already?
"Tell Salvatore," I urge him. "Work with him. I'm sure there's a way to get
everyone what they want, even if Marcel stays in charge. Sal already knows
something suspicious happened to get you out of prison, Nico. He'll figure it
out if he hasn't already. Don't you want to be on his side when that happens?"
"Marcel is a symptom of the disease I promised to cure. It's already in
motion, and I can't stop it now. It's not that easy, Ava. None of it's easy. And
telling Salvatore I conspired with a bunch of the family behind his back?
Fuck, he'll put my head on a stick in the front yard just to warn everybody
else. A cautionary tale he'll tell his daughter about in one of her bedtime
stories—"
"Okay, okay," I interrupt. I don't want to hear any more of that.
"But I won't let them hurt you, alright?" Nico says. His drunk thoughts are
unpredictable, and they slide one to the next. "Trust me that much, Ava. They
won't hurt you. You're never in danger as long as I'm here."
In danger?
The thought of being in danger hasn't even crossed my mind, not until Nico
says it. I don't know if it's drunk ramblings or if he really thinks I might be
threatened, but I don't feel in danger. Maybe having a six foot five cage
fighter in your bed comes with its own false sense of security, but all of my
problems are more complicated than just men with low morals and shady
agendas. Even if someone was coming after me, I don't have any worry left
to give them. My problems are booked out for the whole year. They're just
going to have to make an appointment.
"If I could choose you, Ava, I would. But it's not my choice to make," he
says.
And the stupid, heartbroken little romantic in me wants to believe him.
I slide my hand through his hair. It's getting longer now, and I wonder if he'll
let it grow out. I kind of like the close-shaven look he wore fresh out of
prison, but I wouldn't mind if it got to one of those awkward growing-out
lengths that I could tease him for. I swallow the thought along with my smile.
Why do my thoughts slip so easily into something soft and domestic with this
man? All he's done is teach me to fuck. He's threatened to own me, to control
me, to fix me at my own peril—and my feelings for him are warm and gooey
and sweet, like a bite of hot cookies right out of the oven.
I could swear, gazing into his eyes, that sometimes he feels them, too. In his
own way, I'd imagine. It's like I'm looking at two totally different sides of the
same man. I wish I could see who he is when he sits across from Salvatore.
When he drives late across the city with an address on a napkin and a gun in
his jacket.
I wish I could see all of him at once and know the truth, but I can't.
We spend the night in each other's arms, crushed to each other's bodies,
fighting fruitlessly against the tide of tomorrow that will drift us apart again.
I'm not running any of this back to Salvatore, no matter what he wants.
Disobeying the head of the family, even in the smallest way, puts a dark
shiver in me. Marcel drilled one truth into my head from the time I was just a
child: the don is obeyed in all things, at all costs. But not this time.
Nico's fingers ghost against my skin, and when they slow, I think he's almost
asleep, when his voice reaches out and he says,
"Don't choose Thaddeus. I don't have a choice. But if you do, if you get to
choose, Ava—don't choose him. You're better than him."
"If it's any consolation, Nico, I think I came closer to stabbing him tonight
than sleeping with him."
Nico buries his smile in my neck and mumbles, "That's my girl."
In the midst of falling asleep, he quietly adds, "I'm not like him. Better or
worse, I'm not like him." This is not his commanding, furious voice. This is
different. The softest note of hurt colors his tone, something that might only
slip through because of the shots and the late hour.
"Will you tell me about your other girl?" I ask softly. "About the one you
went to prison over?"
His throat bobs. Maybe it's a dangerous topic, especially while drunk.
"You don't have to worry about that, Ava. It's in the past."
"I'm not worried about it," I promise him. It's not like I don't have my own
man in the past, even if my past and Nico's have two very different meanings.
"I just want to know."
He sighs, his fingers dragging strands of my hair through the air as he toys
with them.
"You'll get jealous," he says grumpily.
"No, I won't," I whine, elbowing him gently.
"Suit yourself." He drags me against his chest. "I met this girl a little after
high school, when I was still running wild," he says, as if he's stopped
running wild. I don't interrupt him. "And my dad, he had all these
'opportunities' lined up for me. That's what he called them, anyway. Felt
more like a bunch of leashes and I just got to pick the color, but whatever.
Rich, pretty women with good teeth and good families. Plastic surgery right
at eighteen, if they needed it. All that bullshit that matters when you have
more money than common sense, you know? But anyway, I met this girl. Her
dad worked at a deli or something. Just worked there, didn't even own it. I
was crazy about her, and I thought she was crazy about me. I hadn't been in
love before. I didn't know it was going to eat me up like that. Nothing else
mattered. I didn't care how pissed off my old man got or how everyone else
was gonna look at us at some stuffy, old money party I didn't want to be at
anyway. Dad said she was just some nobody. But she wasn't going to be some
nobody when she was standing next to me. If I had the world, I wanted to cut
out a slice of it for her."
My heart squeezes a little, because that sounds oh-so much like the Nico I
know.
"Then Dad died. Nobody saw it happening that soon, least of all me, and I got
shoved to the top of the food chain. Dad was barely cold before I popped the
question. Maybe I just didn't want to face it alone. I don't know. But I asked
her to marry me, and she said yes. Of course she did. Except now she was
going to be a mob man's wife, and that comes with mob man surveillance. I
guess nobody warned her about that. She staged her bachelorette party so that
she could fuck her ex one last time, before she signed off to live with me
forever."
His voice grows a little hollow.
"It turned out, she'd been fucking him for a few months behind my back. But
I guess when I popped the question, the money was too good to turn down.
Her life would be set. And all she had to do was act like she was as crazy
about me as I was about her. When I found out..." He pauses, searching for
the right words. "I don't really remember it, to be honest. I used to think
about it all the time, but it always felt like what I would do. Not what I did do.
Hell, I sat in a courtroom and I watched myself shoot him right there on
screen. But..." He shakes his head. "I don't remember doing it. I don't have
some high and mighty justification. Some good reason. I just knew I did, and
that I would have done it again. Because that's what I am."
I turn to face him in the dark, tracing out the gorgeous carving of his face.
"Why are you so sure about me?" I ask.
"Because I already know you're crazy," he stage-whispers, and kisses me
again. It turns my heart into sparklers and fireworks.
Nico was right, after all. It did make me a little jealous.
I wish I could be the girl who Nico had wanted to marry. Maybe that's why
he doesn't want it now.
I spend the night next to him, dragging my hand over my belly. My thoughts
spin in the quiet. I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep. When I know he's passed
out, I dare to reach over and bring Nico's hand to my stomach. I let his palm
rest there, fingers sprawling over the thin barrier between him and the child
he doesn't want. I wonder if they are good for each other, if babies can sense
their fathers close by. If they just know somehow. I like to think so, even if it
makes little sense. The tiny something in my belly can't know anything yet,
and still...
My heart flows over. It heaves quietly in my chest and waters in my eyes.
Love drowns me, pours out of me down my cheeks.
I'm glad Nico showed up when he did. I'm glad he stalked me through the
city, invaded my life like a conqueror, tore apart my self-destructive
autonomy, and ignored all the family's wishes that would have kept us apart.
It sounds crazy, but lying next to him and listening to him breathe, just being
with him makes me happy to the point of tears: I'm glad he's fucking insane.
Tonight could have gone so much differently if he weren't ruthless and
unstoppable and just a little unhinged. I could be lying next to Thaddeus, sick
with guilt, convincing myself that I was doing the right thing. For the family.
But I'm here. I'm with him. I'm still his. And I have my family to think about.
I slide my hand on top of Nico's, interlocking our fingers over my secret.
I am going to find another way. I have to.
Because I've made a decision.
Nico might not want to raise his baby, but I do.
Sunlight spills fresh across the floor, a deliciously cold chill settling over the
room. I drift between formless dreams when a knock rattles my door. I have a
moment of groggy panic before I realize Nico is gone. He left the bedsheets
neatly made, all evidence that anyone ever lay beside me cleanly swept away,
except for one thing: a sleek wooden box on the pillow. Before I can inspect
it, Marcel knocks again. I know his knock as good as anything else about
him. I bark at him to give me a minute. I inch my way to the door.
"What?" I sigh, bleary and sick.
I don't know what time it is, but I know it's too early for any rational person
to be fully dressed and awake. Of course, Marcel is anyway. I can barely get
my eyes open through the exhaustion.
"I have news from Salvatore, though you didn't hear it from me."
I perk right up, blinking through the haze.
"Thaddeus called him this morning. He told us what happened last night. That
Nico intruded on your evening, your birthday, and that he felt threatened. He
thinks Nico is trying to intimidate him out of taking the deal."
"He told you that this early?" I ask. Not only is Thaddeus alive, but he's also
already talking. Either the man ended up getting his stomach pumped, or he
has the tenacity of a cockroach.
"Ava," Marcel interrupts, trying to get me to listen. "Salvatore is moving
Thaddeus into the house with us."
The nausea hits the back of my throat. I swallow bile, trying to be discreet as
I cough.
"What house? This house? Why?"
"Because you're going to be married to him soon, Ava. For once, I agree with
Sal about this. You need to get to know this man before you're tied down to
him. Living with him first will give you an idea of who really he is, how
compatible you are...and it will make it harder for Nico to get in the way if
you two are here together all the time, sharing a room."
"Compatibility doesn't matter in arranged marriages, Marcel. You just make it
work. I shouldn't have to live with him until I don't have another choice—"
Marcel interrupts my whining.
"Well, you don't have another choice. It's Sal's decision, and to hear him tell
it, he's making it on your behalf." My brother's voice lowers. "Don't act like
you can't call this off whenever you want," he says, as if the walls have ears,
even though my side of the house is a ghost town these days. "You know Sal
would renegotiate if you change your mind, and it's alright to change your
mind."
I have changed my mind, but I haven't figured out what I'm going to do
about it yet. My problem is a Jenga tower, and pulling out one piece causes
the whole thing to sway precariously, one wrong move away from collapse.
"And have you get ousted from the family?" I counter. "No chance."
"Let Nico try to test me, Ava. He'll get buried six feet deep when Salvatore
finally realizes there's no better use for him, and we'll deal with that fallout
as it comes. Just like we should have done from the beginning."
My stomach sours. That can't happen, either.
"Aren't you supposed to be the diplomatic one?"
"Not where you're concerned."
I look away, unable to meet his gaze. It's almost surprising to me that Marcel
and Nico don't get along. I was lying when I said Thaddeus and Nico were
alike, but Marcel and Nico—they both have one very important thing in
common.
"Thaddeus is starting the move-in process this weekend, Ava."
"Well, hopefully he doesn't snore."
I shrug my shoulders as Marcel and I stare each other down. He waits for me
to break, for the mask to slip and show my true hand. He wants to see that I
don't want this. He wants me to beg him to do something about it, but we
hold each other's gazes until Marcel sighs under his breath and turns away.
I close the door after him, resting my throbbing head against the wood, where
I can finally panic in peace. I am already mourning my late-night trysts with
Nico and dreading every queasy early morning. How am I supposed to hide a
pregnancy while sharing a room full-time with a man?
My stomach lurches as if the baby thinks the same, sick of all this drama and
nonsense just like I am. I agree with it. Disasters shouldn't be allowed to
strike before noon.
Inside the wooden box left on my pillow, I find my birthday present from
Nico: the most beautiful pocketknife I've ever seen, with an abalone handle
that shimmers like an oil slick, giving off every pearlescent, reflective shade
in the rainbow.
Since you don't like guns, and I owed you.
The pocketknife Nico stole from me was some cheap little thing, the kind of
pocketknife you just end up with somehow. It was probably bought at a gas
station off the interstate. This knife has a subtle weight to it, its design
intricate and ornate. The handle feels smooth and cold in my grip. I press the
gemstone-studded push button, and the blade flips out to a sharp, dangerous
point. The words with love swirl across the blade.
Holding it in my hand, it fits me better than the lingerie ever did.

Words 4052