Secret Baby For The Italian Mafia Don

Part 23

NICO POV:

Don't come to my room anymore.
What did I do to piss you off?
Believe it or not, you're not the problem this time.
I don't find out what Ava's vague texting means until almost dusk, my
knuckles bloody from a long day, when I roll up to the house and find piles of
cardboard boxes littered around the front doorway. I wade through them. My
instincts bristle, like an animal catching an unfamiliar scent. Something's
wrong in my territory, and my hackles rise in response.
Ava's room is a rectangular orange light at the end of the hall—where a man's
figure strides in and out of view.
Thaddeus Mori marches through Ava's bedroom as if he owns the place. He
clutches a string of LEDs in his grip—the same goddamn lights I installed
over Ava's bed, the ones she liked so much—and I watch as he chucks them
straight into the trash bag by her door.
What the fuck is this?
I'm about to walk toward him, a honing missile on a target, when a familiar
voice calls out,
"Some advice, Nico?"
I swivel and find Cecilia there in her wheelchair, her beady eyes trained on
me.
"Don't."
My mother's memory has mostly turned to shadow now. When I try to picture
her, her face is always one expression, pressed into my psyche from some
photograph that I saw often enough that it stuck. The details have finally
faded, eroded by time. In her place, Cecilia did what she could, just enough to
leave an imprint on me. I don't know if we love each other, but I know that
when I got arrested, she was my one phone call, the first person I reached out
to. Not my underboss, or one of the family's high-profile lawyers, or our
connections in the police force. Not even the woman I killed a man over.
I called Cecilia like a boy calling home, and told her what I'd done. I wasn't
tearful or afraid, I didn't need comfort—but something in me still reached out
for her first.
When the verdict came back guilty, hers was the only gaze I couldn't meet. I
still can't. We haven't reconnected, dancing around this reunion day after day,
and finally, it's here. Of all times. Hers might be the only command that could
stop me in my tracks. She's parked up at the entryway to one of the sitting
rooms, watching the newcomer like a nosy neighbor who happens to share
the same roof.
"Where's Ava?" I ask her. "Does she know what he's doing?"
"Of course she does. She's with Tessa and the baby, no doubt, doing what she
should be, and letting things take their natural course. You'd do well to learn
from her example."
Is she really alright with this? She can't be.
My feet pace, prowling restlessly.
"You will make it worse, Nico—just as you've done every step of the way."
I should have known she's been paying attention. She always did. She goes
on, bewildered,
"What are you trying to achieve, child? Every time you try to get between
Ava and Thaddeus, it only pushes them closer together. All you've done is
hasten their marriage and make Salvatore more suspicious of you. I take a lot
of pride in knowing what's happening in this family, but when I look at you,
Nico—quite frankly, I have no idea what you're doing. What you're trying to
accomplish."
"I'm protecting what's mine," I answer her.
"Which is what?" she prompts, needling me, her stare like a laser grilling
through my skin. "Your interests? Your position in the family? Your legacy?
Or the girl?"
I ignore the question and throw one back at her. "Why the fuck do you care,
Cecilia?"
"It's my duty to care."
"Not anymore."
"Is that what it is?" she asks wryly. "You've simply outgrown me? I suppose
that's why you never wrote back to any of my letters."
My heart cracks as Cecilia takes a tiny, refined chisel against the stone. I look
away, the uncomfortable well of emotion not something I know how to deal
with.
"I read them. Hell, I kept them, and all their nitpicking. I just didn't know
what to say. Figured you were disappointed enough in how it all went down.
Last thing you needed was to see how bad my handwriting had gotten, too."
She smiles wryly.
"Those awful hieroglyphs you called letters."
I scoff slightly at the memory as we share a look, nostalgic and bitter for the
time gone, and how little is left, and how fucked up it all is. We fall silent as
Thaddeus Mori strides by us again. He eyes me out of the corner of his
vision, and I swear I see the slightest smirk tug at the corner of his wax
museum face. Cecilia's cold hand closes around my wrist and holds me in
place.
"Nico," she implores me.
Thaddeus strides back and forth again, through my house, gloating as I do
nothing but watch. Holding back my anger is like trying to hold back the
force of the wind, unable to get a grip on it. Cecilia's feeble little grip around
my wrist, even her tight clamp around my heart, neither of those are going to
be enough of a leash.
"Fuck this," I whisper, starting to push away and hunt him down.
"Are you in love with her?"
The question comes out of left field, so fast, I can't defend against it. The
feeble old lady damn near knocks the breath out of me with just a few
syllables. I turn to look at her, the answer hovering somewhere between my
chest and my brain. It doesn't matter if I don't say it. She reads the answer in
my face, the way it flickers, unable to give an answer—which only leaves the
truth.
I am.
Her expression falls, pained.
"Dear God," she mutters bitterly. "I thought you would have learned
something—"
"What does it matter to you?" I interrupt.
"It means everything to me, you foolish boy. I watched this weakness of
yours put you behind bars once. I thought you getting out, you might actually
use this second chance for something." I pace away, as if the distance will
make the words less true, make them miss their mark, but it doesn't help.
Each one lands like a bullet. "But here you are, barely two months out and
right back to your old ways. Don't you see that this is what Salvatore wants?
To bait you into attacking a member of the family and give him a reason to
get rid of you for good? Don't play into his game, boy. I raised you to know
better than that."
"It wouldn't be the first time I've been a disappointment to you."
She sighs.
"Nico..." she says, so softly I can barely hear it, "this time, you're not going
to end up behind bars. You'll end up in a grave. If you can't act for your own
sake, then act for mine. I attended your sentencing. Don't make me attend
your funeral, too."
I stare down that yawning hallway, watching the man at the end of it the way
a hunter watches a deer, with his finger curled around the trigger. The kill
shot lingers, right there in plain sight. But slowly, that hunter lifts the barrel
of the gun. He uncurls his finger. He watches the deer meander by, heading
toward the edge of the clearing.
I look down, trying so damn hard to bottle that rage up inside me. For her.
Thaddeus Mori comes down the hallway again, humming merrily to himself.
He has a box clutched in his hands. A familiar stuffed animal peeks out from
the top of it. Dusty and worn and well-loved, its button eyes boring into my
soul. He walks by us with Ava's most cherished possessions clutched in his
mitts, and he takes them right out the front door, toward the trash.
I sigh under my breath.
"Cecilia," I say, drawing her attention as our eyes meet. "Do me a favor, and
tell the family I don't want a single nice thing said about me at my funeral."
She watches, resigned, as I march out of the house after him and slam the
door behind me.
I'm going to destroy him.
I'm going to rip him limb from limb, break him bone by bone.
"Hey!" I yell across the yard, footsteps quick and furious. Thaddeus turns
those mortified eyes to me. The color drains from his face as I chase him
down, his feet skittering back like a man who just can't get out of the way of
an oncoming bus.
"That's her shit! Get your fucking hands off it!"
"Nico—Nico, stop, you can't—Salvatore—"
I knock Sal's name right out of his mouth.
He drops the box as he reels, Vinny's items spilling across the ground as he
hits the lawn. He backs away from me, crawling backward, digging up grass
and dirt as he scrambles away.
"This?" he screams, womanly and frightened, utterly confused as he gestures
to the junk on the ground. "This is what you're going to die over?"
The emotionless button eyes of a teddy bear stare up at me. It's almost funny,
in a way. Of all the shit I did, everything I was meant for in life, every
obstacle I overcame against all the odds—this is what might end it for me. A
box of stuffed animals and gift shop mugs.
I haul Thaddeus up by the collar.
He trembles, flinching, braced for the next hit.
"You're goddamn right, Thaddeus. Salvatore could walk out that door and
shoot me dead," I say, staring him down. "And it'd be worth it. Ava loves
these things, loves this memory of Vinny more than she could ever love me or
you—"
My fist cracks against Thaddeus' face, my blood singing.
"—and I'll be dead before you take that from her."
Finally, finally.
If I can't have her for myself, there's only one thing I can do—and that's take
Thaddeus out with me. His hand is right there, sprawled against the grass.
The one he put on my wife. I crush it under my shoe. He howls, those thin
bird bones snapping. His scream cuts short as I wrap my hand around his
throat, crushing down. He writhes and kicks and hits me, trying to fight as
he's choked out under my grip. The muscles in my arms strain, my fingers a
vise, crushing the life out of another man.
"Stop!" Contessa Mori says, coming down the steps two at a time.
"Sorry, princess," I mutter, ignoring her, keeping my hold tight, waiting for
his struggling to stop.
Killing a man like this—it takes so long. If you get them around the throat
just right, they'll pass out first, but I want him to suffer. I want him to feel the
air turn to fire in his lungs, I want to watch the blood vessels in his eyes pop
like bloody fireworks. He doesn't get the luxury of being unconscious when I
kill him.
"Nico, listen to me!" Contessa says, urgent, desperate, whispering furiously
as she grabs my shoulder and tries to pull me off. "That's enough! Stop it,
stop! If you want to help Ava, then stop!"
My fingers relax like a soldier given an order.
Thaddeus Mori draws a horrible, wheezing breath as he tries to right himself.
He chokes and clutches his throat. Tessa looks him over, trying to see how
damaged he is. Every vein on his neck is highlighted an ugly purple, his
temple bulging. He finally swallows air, drawing himself to his shaking hands
and knees. The life comes back into him, one rasping breath at a time.
When he finally manages words, he says:
"He—he tried to fucking kill me!"
I ignore them both. I gather Ava's things back into the box before they can get
lost or broken in the chaos of whatever is about to happen to me.
Once Thaddeus isn't at risk of dying, Tessa stands to her full height and
rounds on me.
"You," Tessa snaps, "with me."
Contessa Mori marches me back behind the house. I follow in her angry
steps, holding the box between my hands. I don't know what's about to
happen. I don't think she has a gun on her, but I can't be sure. Maybe she's
taking me back to Sal, to be put down like that badly behaved pet they just
couldn't risk keeping.
"If you're going to kill me, at least let me put this shit down so we don't get
blood on it."
She reels around—and slaps me hard across the face.
The pain is a jolt. I know how to take a hit, never mind a slap, but the surprise
of it still jostles me. My cheek stings fiercely.
The girl is bolder than I thought.
I scrub my hand against my cheek, quietly counting down my anger before I
really fuck up.
"You're a selfish bastard, Nico Mori," Contessa says furiously, her breaths
heaving.
"That's me." I grin through the stinging on my lip, staring her down. "You
know, I can see why Sal was into you."
"Shut up," she snaps. "I'm not going to let you do this."
"Do what?" I snarl. "Get in the way of your precious husband's plan?"
"No, you idiot. I'm not going to let you, or anyone, do this to Ava again. I
know how you feel about her. I can see it in you every time you look at her,
and I've seen how she's changed since you moved in here. Marcel and Sal
can think whatever they want, but I'm not blind. I see how you two are
around each other. We just got her back, and I will be damned if you get
yourself killed and do that to her again. She can't lose someone else. She
won't survive that. She won't. Do you understand me?"
I stare down at her, the pieces shuffling quietly into place. I glance down into
the box between my hands, at the little trinkets and memorabilia. What have I
ever given Ava? Bruises and heartache and a knife.
"She can lose me. It wouldn't be the same. I'm not like Vinny."
"You'd be worse," Tessa says, sure of it. "Because you were the thing that
helped heal her. Now stop giving my husband reasons to kill you," she says,
stepping up close to me, "and start giving us reasons to keep you alive."
Us?
Slowly, sensing eyes on me, I turn and see Cecilia sitting in her sunroom that
overlooks the backyard, a cup of coffee between her weathered hands. She's
watching the show.
She smiles wryly as she lifts her cup in acknowledgment—a silent you're
welcome.
I look back at Contessa Mori, face to face with the most unlikely ally I've ever had.

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