Secret Baby For The Italian Mafia Don

Part 24

AVA POV:

Emma won't stop crying. I don't blame her. It's a miserable day.
Patting the baby on the back, I try not to think about what's happening
downstairs, my whole little life getting rearranged. I know it's not much of
a life, and it's the second time it's happened in as many months—but it still
weighs on me, a dark cloud heralding the changes on the wind. I will share
my bed with another man. I will spend my time in his company, as much as
he asks of me. I will learn the names of all his boring business friends and
pretend to laugh at their jokes.
It is exactly the sort of thing I could have done easily weeks ago. It
wouldn't have been fun, but it would have been survivable. Now, I can
barely stand the thought of it. Because of him. Nico has made everything
better—and therefore worse.
Tessa got called away and left me with the fussy little baby, who sobs and
sobs as if she's had her own heart ripped out. I know how she feels, how
devastating it is to have the person who is your whole world torn away from
you suddenly. I bounce her, trying my hardest to shush her.
She only wails harder.
I try everything I can think of. I double-check her diaper, making sure she's
changed and fresh. I switch out her clothes, in case there's something
uncomfortable about her onesie. I rock her, and sing to her, and finally
resort to begging her.
She's pink in the face, hot tears spilling down those plump little cheeks.
I don't know what she wants or how to make her happy. Is it just me? Do I
just not have what it takes?
"Come on, baby," I croon softly to her, begging her to stop. "It's okay. Just
tell me what you want. Anything."
Her shrill little cry rattles my eardrums.
Overwhelmed, I head downstairs to try walking her around. Her voice fills
up the house as she cries to the point of hiccups. We walk up and down the
stairs, we turn circles in the sitting rooms, we go around and around,
looking at everything I can think to show her and get her attention. She
cries harder.
I slump down in the living room with her, begging her to stop, on the verge
of crying myself.
What am I doing wrong?
This whole time I've been telling myself I have to be prepared to be alone
—maybe forever. It turns out, I can't be alone with a baby for ten minutes
without a disaster-level meltdown. My own emotions lash and roil right
alongside Emma's, my nerves so frayed and thin lately, I want to break
down right along with her.
"What's all the fuss?"
My head jerks up as Nico steps into the room, holding a familiar box in his
hands.
"Nico," I gasp, the word lost in Emma's crying. I didn't expect him to be
back at the house. I look between him and the box of Vinny's things in his
hands. "What are you doing with that?"
"Bringing it to you for safekeeping. Thaddeus was going to throw it away,"
Nico says. He carries Vinny's things to me and puts them on the couch.
My heart skips.
"What? I told him just to push my stuff out of the way, not—"
There's hardly any point to speaking as Emma gives another long,
anguished cry. I brace myself against the tiny thread of anxiety spinning and
spinning inside of me, threatening to snap.
"I'm sorry, I just...she won't stop, and I don't know what's wrong, and..."
Suddenly, Emma is whisked from my grasp. I blink as Nico scoops her up
into his arms.
"You got a lot to say, don't you?" he teases her, scratching his fingers
against her belly. "That's a lot of opinions for somebody so little."
Even Emma is surprised, too surprised to cry for a few moments, her big
eyes wide and curious as she's stolen away. She looks at Nico, who sweet-
talks her lowly, asking her what the big idea is. The moment she thinks
about crying again, Nico cradles one big hand around her neck and the
other under her back, feigning tossing her around as he carefully swoops
her up and down in the air. Her desperate crying turns into frantic giggles.
She loves it, squealing and laughing. Nico grins as he wins her over in a
flash, her little limbs kicking, begging for more, each dip of his arms
accompanied by a playful roar as he pretends to sling her around.
Nico dances around the dusk-purpled living room with a baby in his arms.
It twists my heart into a vise.
"It's not your fault you're a little troublemaker, is it?" he asks her as he
gives her another playful pretend-toss. "It runs in the family."
He plays right along with her, holds her so carefully but so fondly, sheer
adoration in his face—no matter what he feels for Salvatore, with one look I
can tell he would never hold that against Emma.
He's so perfect with her that now my tears start coming and they don't stop.
I look at him like that and see everything that I could give him. How can he
not want that? I can see it so plainly in him, right here in front of me!
My hand slides against my belly, and suddenly, the truth feels lightweight.
"Nico," I choke out through my tight throat, desperate to tell him.
He spins around, surprised by the tears in my voice—but his expression
darkens as his eyes land on something over my shoulder.
"Put her down, now."
Salvatore's voice is cold and deadly as it interrupts us, cutting through my
confession like a blade. I recognize his tone immediately—the resigned
voice of a man who has already made a deadly decision, who is too
outraged to be angry. I leap to my feet, spinning around to find Salvatore,
Marcel, and Thaddeus standing in the arched doorway. Thaddeus is red in
the face with a necklace of ugly, violent bruises around his neck and one
bloodshot eye. He cradles his hand to his chest.
Emma whines when Nico stops playing with her, frozen to the spot as she
squirms in his grip.
"Sal, I wasn't..."
For the first time, genuine worry colors Nico's voice.
Emma starts to cry again, filling up the tense air as her fingers tug at his
shirt, trying to figure out how to get him to play with her again. I rush to
them and slip Emma out of his arms and into mine. I turn to stand between
him and the angry men.
"What's happening?" I ask, staring at Thaddeus, shocked by the state of
him.
"Ava," Marcel snaps, "get over here."
The fact that he has his pistol drawn at his side isn't subtle, even if he tries
to hide it behind his suit jacket. I hold my ground, bewildered, begging
someone to explain as Emma wails in my arms.
"But what—"
"Bring my daughter over here, now," Salvatore says, so furiously that the
frightened little girl I used to be responds. I go skittering to him, easing
Emma into his arms. Salvatore takes her and steps behind Marcel, letting
his second-in-command take point with the gun in his grip.
"He didn't do anything," I say.
"He tried to kill Thaddeus," Marcel answers, shoving me behind him so that
he has a clear shot.
I look Thaddeus over and take in the pathetic state of him.
"Bullshit," I whisper furiously.
dead."
"If Nico tried to kill Thaddeus, then he'd be
Nico gives me a half-grin, but the happiness doesn't reach his eyes. It's a
grim and resigned look, as if his fate is already sealed. I can sense it in the
air. Salvatore is just reading the charges—the verdict has already been
decided. I don't understand what happened, everything happening too
suddenly. Nico was with me. How could he have done anything to
Thaddeus?
But looking at Nico, he isn't denying it. He isn't confused.
He knows what happened.
"You attacked a member of our family," Salvatore says to him. "You almost
choked the life out of him, and then with his blood on your hands, you had
the audacity to come here and put those same hands on my daughter."
My heart burns, emotions thundering. It's not fair. I know what Salvatore is
like, I know that he's protective of those closest to him, and that his
protectiveness is only amplified where his daughter is concerned—but it' s
not fair. He's painting the picture all wrong. I don't know what happened
between Nico and Thaddeus, but I know more than anything that Nico
wasn't going to hurt Emma.
"He was just trying to help—" I try to interject for him, but Salvatore
rounds on me so fast, it makes me jump.
"And you! You'll be lucky if you ever touch her again, either. I asked you to
help Tessa look after her because I trusted you, and that trust was betrayed."
I swallow hard, my heart racing.
I glance to Marcel, but his glare is only on Nico. He doesn't turn to look my
way or speak up to defend me. Through his silence, I know he agrees with
Salvatore. The world feels like it's shrinking in around me. There's nowhere
left to go, no more second chances to beg for.
"Ava, you need to get out of here," Nico says calmly.
"No," I whimper.
This can't happen.
I have exactly one card left, and I'm terrified to play it.
Would it save him, if they knew? Or would they dig Nico's grave just a
little bit deeper, so he wouldn't claw his way back to the living just to get to
me and his child? I hold the truth under my tongue, debating if this is the
moment—and how the high-strung, already emotional men in this room are
going to react to it. The gun in Marcel's grip looks too ready, as if it already
knows the answer.
My stomach lurches.
Does the truth make it better or worse?
Suddenly, Marcel steps forward and leverages the gun between Nico's eyes.
"Marcel, don't!" I beg him.
"Tell me why I shouldn't, Nico," he says lowly. "You've practically been
begging for it. I should just put you out of your fucking misery."
Nico doesn't flinch, but his voice is black with hate when he says,
"Shoot me if you want, but don't you dare do it in front of her." His gaze
slides to me again as he says, more firmly, "Ava, go."
My brother's gaze moves between me and Nico, and he digs the muzzle of
the gun deeper into Nico's skull. "I'd be doing her a fucking favor, getting
rid of you."
"Marcel, please," I beg him, on the verge of sobbing, while Emma cries and
cries, a hundred different emotions roiling on all sides of the room, anger
and misery lashing against each other and whipping the room into a frenzy.
"What the hell is happening?" Tessa says suddenly, stepping sharply into
the chaos as if she's impervious to all the tension in the air. She lifts Emma
from Salvatore and bounces the baby on her shoulder. Tessa's gaze moves
coldly around the room—from my tear-stained face, to Salvatore's wrathful
expression, to Nico being held one trigger finger from death.
"In my sitting room? Really, Sal?" she asks dryly.
Her calm demeanor shakes up the tension of the room.
"We're just taking out the trash, ma'am," Marcel says calmly, his eyes fixed
on Nico.
"No one is taking anything anywhere until I know what's going on,"
Contessa says. She stays in the doorway and blocks the way, her eyes on
Salvatore as she waits patiently for an explanation.
"Thaddeus was getting settled into Ava's room," Salvatore says, "When out
of nowhere, Nico followed him outside and jumped him in the yard. He
nearly killed him—"
Tessa interrupts, "But he didn't, because I saw what happened between
them, and I stopped it myself. I sent Nico in here to give this back to Ava,"
she says, gesturing to the box of Vinny's things on the couch, "while I went
to see what other damage he'd done to the room. I didn't know you'd be
staging a public execution in my living room. These seem to be the only
things he outright stole—"
"Stole?" Thaddeus rasps. "It's a bunch of garbage taking up space."
"They're sentimental. From Vincent Mori," Tessa says sharply, still
speaking directly to Salvatore; she is the only person in the room who he
can hear through his anger and his distrust, her words the only ones that
reach him. "And even if it was junk, it still doesn't belong to him."
I'm holding my breath and my poker face, silently begging Tessa to talk
sense into him.
"Nico knew what this box was and what it meant, and he knew Ava would
be devastated to lose it. So he stopped him, perhaps aggressively, and he
took it back. If there's any crime in that, I don't see Nico being the
perpetrator."
Salvatore glances to Thaddeus, his gaze dark. He weighs his judgment, the
whole room seeming to chill for a moment as he digests the truth. Thaddeus
glares down at the floor.
"I didn't know they were important," he tries to say, but Salvatore interrupts
before he can dig the hole deeper.
"Even if the version of the truth I got was abridged...that's still not grounds
to jump a man. You don't take justice into your own hands, not in this
family. If there's a dispute, it's brought to us." His gaze lingers on Emma as
he adds, "And he still knew better than to put his hands on her."
"That was my fault," I jump in, desperate to dive on the grenade. "I handed
her to Nico. Just for a minute, I didn't think anything about it at the time. It
was my fault, Salvatore, I swear," I beg, frantic for him to believe me, even
if it isn't true. "It was only going to be for a second, and he didn't do
anything. You saw."
Salvatore's anger doesn't soften easily. His eyes move between me and
Tessa, trying to read us. He steps closer to his wife, his voice low, so that I
only hear the slightest beat of the syllables as he asks,
"Why are you defending him?"
Tessa meets his gaze steadily. "Because the punishment doesn't fit the
crime, and you know it. You're just looking for an excuse. If you had a real
grievance against him, then you'd have my full support, love. But all you
really have is a childhood rivalry neither of you outgrew. This isn't worth
shooting your brother over, Sal. If the rest of the family hears that it went
down this way, there will be sides drawn. I don't want to raise my daughter
in a divided house."
Salvatore's silence fills the room.
Hope dares to spring up inside my chest. I don't understand why Tessa is
defending him, and I don't think Salvatore does either, but she's resolute.
He loves her and respects her too much to simply ignore her.
Marcel stands with the gun still in his grip, immobile, waiting patiently for
the verdict. I know he must be itching for it, to have everything so close to
being back to the way it was before. So close to a solution, but it keeps
slipping further and further away.
"How long are we going to wait, Sal?" Marcel asks. "Are we just going to
push it off and push it off, until it's too late and the damage is done? What
does he have to do before the reason is good enough?"
"I don't know," Salvatore says, and then finally sighs, "but this isn't it."

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