Chapter 24: Lovely Beast: Chapter 24

“Drink this. You’re not going to like what I have to say.”

Carmine shoves a whiskey into my hand. I take it, throw it back, and savor the sharp bite as it slides down my throat. He grabs the glass and puts it down on a table before steering me into a chair in front of the fire. We’re in his gorgeous apartment in the office with its windows overlooking downtown Dallas and the gently crackling flames despite the Texas heat.

It’s been three days since Sara went home with her father. Three horrible days. I haven’t heard a word from her despite the calls and the texts, and I’m close to marching over to their house myself and dragging her back to the hotel.

But instead, Carmine told me to meet him here, and now I wish I hadn’t shown up.

“She wants you off the case.” He stands in front of me, arms crossed over his chest, staring me in the face. That’s Carmine: no bullshit, no dancing around the topic, just straight to the bad news.

I sit up straighter. “Sara wants me off the case,” I repeat like I can barely understand what he’s saying.

“You’ve done good work, Angelo. I know you want to get your boy out of prison—”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He flinches slightly, but he had to have known I was going to say that. There’s no way in hell I’m going to turn around and head back to Philly, not when Nicolas is still behind bars. I don’t care what kind of personal shit I have going on with Sara, I’m not going to leave my soldier no matter what.

But Carmine shakes his head. “You’ve done everything you can do and now it’s time to step aside and let the process complete itself.”

“Are you fucking joking right now?”

“Angelo. I’m not your friend right now. I’m your fucking Don.”

That makes me sit forward. I show him my teeth. “Then as my you should tell the little lawyer to suck it the fuck up and deal with her problems. I am going home.”

“Angelo—”

I stand up and storm to the windows. I’m seething, boiling over with rage. This anger is misdirected—Carmine doesn’t deserve my ire right now and I know it—but I can’t help myself. I’ve been living with low levels of mind-numbing anger ever since Sara’s father showed up at the hotel and I found out the truth.

She’s pregnant with my baby.

Even now, even three days later, I still can’t believe it. We first slept together a couple months ago at Brice and Carmine’s wedding, and she’s been pregnant this whole time. From the start, she’s been hiding the truth about the baby, maybe hoping I’d give up and go away, maybe thinking everything would work itself out.

But it hasn’t. If anything, things are so much worse.

Because now I’m attached to her, and I’m attached to my baby.

“You can’t ask me to leave, Carmine.” I stare at the clouds, at the buildings, at the cars moving down below like beetles crawling in the grass. “You know you can’t.”

“I can and I am.”

“That’s baby.” I turn on him, hands curled into fists, barely holding myself back. “You understand that, don’t you? Sara’s carrying my child, and her fucking family is turning her against me. We had something—”

“Angelo, listen—”

“We something,” I snarl at him. “We were so fucking close. And now all that’s ruined, all because she kept this secret from me. What the hell was she thinking, Carmine? What the fuck did she think was going to happen, like I wouldn’t notice it when she suddenly had a child running around?”

Carmine holds up his hands and lets out a long sigh. “I don’t know what she was thinking, brother. I really, really don’t. But you’re on the edge right now and I’m afraid you’re going to do something stupid.”

I work my jaw, glaring at him, but I know he’s right. I have this fantasy where I roll up to Sara’s family house and murder her father in cold blood. In my fantasy, I shoot him in the skull, throw Sara over my shoulder, and carry her back to the hotel where we live happily ever after. I raise my baby, she becomes my wife, Nicolas gets released from prison, and the cops involved in the coverup all go to prison.

It’s absurd and it’s never going to happen.

But some sick part of me wants to do it.

“She was afraid,” he says and sits down heavily. He gestures for me to join him, and though I hesitate at first, eventually I take the chair by his side. “You know people do dumb shit when they’re afraid.”

“I could’ve helped her. I could’ve done something, but she didn’t give me a chance.”

“That’s just it, people don’t always make rational decisions. You know that better than most.”

I grunt and stare at my hands, at my scarred and callused hands. I’ve seen plenty of irrational in my day—plenty of fear, plenty of anger. I’ve felt it all, over and over.

“She’s not taking my calls,” I say and still can’t look at him. “She’s not even giving me a chance to explain. If she’d listen, I could tell her—I could make her see—”

“What would you tell her?” Carmine asks. “Would you ask her to marry you? Do the right thing?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Do you want to be a father? Do you want this baby? No, don’t look at me like this, be fucking honest. Before you knew she was pregnant, did you want to have a child?”

“No,” I say and speaking that word out loud nearly kills me. “I never thought I could ever be good enough for that.”

“And there’s your problem. If don’t believe it, who’s going to?”

I look up at the ceiling and don’t reply. I hoped Sara would’ve, but now I see how naive and fucking stupid that was.

Wanting could turn into more—

But only when we can see each other clearly, and I don’t think Sara’s ever really looked at me.

Not really.

All she can see is the gangster, the pain, the violence. She doesn’t see my loyalty, my protectiveness, my deep caring, my abiding love for everyone in my family, everything I sacrificed for my grandmother, everything I sacrificed for Carmine, and everything I’d sacrifice for Sara and my baby.

She only sees the tattoos, the bruises, the pain.

“I thought we were starting to build something,” I tell him. “But it was resting on a shaky foundation.”

“I know, and I’m sorry things worked out this way. But Sara doesn’t want you involved in the case anymore, and if I’m going to convince her to see this through then I have to respect that. I need you to back down, Angelo.”

“I’m not going back to Philly. Not until Nicolas is out.”

“Fine. You can stay. But you need to leave Sara alone, at least until she decides she wants to talk.” I say nothing and let my silence speak for me. It stretches and finally Carmine rubs his face and stands. “You’re a pain in my ass, Angelo. You know that?”

“I’m aware.”

“All right. Get out of here. Say hello to Brice on the way out. And Angelo, think about things and don’t do something stupid.”

I nod and head into the hall. Carmine stands behind, staring into the fire. I find Brice in the kitchen, kiss her cheek, make short small talk, then ride the elevator to the ground floor.

Once outside, I stand in the heat on the sidewalk and look out at the street.

An ugly, sinking feeling lodges itself in my gut.

There’s no way I can leave Sara alone. Not while she’s in the clutches of her parents. Not while she’s carrying my baby. I’m staying here for Nicolas, but I’m also staying here for her.

For the first time in my life, I’m going to go against my Don’s wishes, because Sara and my baby matter more than anything else now.

It took me a while to come to grips with everything. At first, I felt desolate and broken like I’d never come back from this. I thought about leaving, thought about forgetting her, thought about giving her what she wanted and pretending like she didn’t exist.

But that’s what everyone expects from a guy like me.

A guy that doesn’t step up. A guy that ignores his family, that doesn’t take responsibility for his own mistakes.

I’m not that guy. I refuse to be what everyone thinks I am.

Sara is mine. That baby is mine. And I’m not giving up on them.

Only I have to find a way to rip her from her parents and make her see me for what I am.

Loyal. Brave. Deeply, madly, stupidly in fucking love with her.

And I don’t turn my back on the people I care about.