Chapter 17: Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King: Chapter 17

“I need you to do something for me.”

I turn from the mirror. Jewelry drops onto the marble vanity. My feet throb as I slip out of my shoes. This was one of those rare days where Harper’s energy outlasted mine. Nothing was going to slow her down. But having someone else here to help take the reins…it wasn’t so bad.

“Well, I’m not exactly in a position to refuse.”

“You are when it involves your daughter.”

“…Oh,” I say, second-guessing. “What is it?”

Ren crosses the room, coming to stand beside me. I can’t help but grin a little. “You almost look tired, Ren. Did a day of chasing a six-year-old around her dream trip put some mileage on you? Five more years of that, and we’ll almost be on equal footing.”

It’s a half-hearted tease. Dragging a finger through the water to test the temperature.

He gives me a look, but he doesn’t reciprocate. He takes off his cufflinks.

“I need you to come to a dinner with me. You and Harper both. It’s business.”

“You want Harper at a business meeting?”

I think about checking Ren for a fever.

“I don’t just want her there, I need her there. It’s important.”

I don’t like this. Something about it feels off.

“Why? What kind of business meeting are we talking about?” I ask. “Who’s going to be there?”

“Salvatore Mori and his family.”

Salvatore Mori. Know the name. Never met him. I pull my hair out of its bun, shaking it out into loose, messy curls. “You didn’t answer the whole question. I’m not sitting Harper down at a table where you talk about cutting people’s fingers off or whatever. I pieced together more than my parents realized when I was just a little older than her.”

“…Nothing will be seriously discussed while she’s there.”

“So, then, why do you need her? What’s this about?”

It’s obvious he’s trying to duck answering honestly. As if I won’t find out while we’re sitting down to appetizers.

“…There may be a meeting to discuss your debt with Dellucci. The major families will be there. They’ll have some say as to how this is handled. Mori is more likely to be on my side if he’s met you and Harper. His vote carries a lot of sway, and he’s already reached out once. I’m…reconsidering my approach to this.”

My head spins as Ren drops all of this on me at once.

“What are you talking about? A meeting? When?”

“Undecided. I don’t even know that it will happen, Nadia. But if it does, I— we —need to be prepared for it. And if that means getting the biggest player in the game on my side, then…that’s what I have to do.”

He doesn’t sound happy about it.

“Can I be there?”

“No.”

I scoff.

“What, so everyone gets together to gossip about me, and I don’t even get to attend? That’s some bullshit.”

Ren effortlessly hefts me up and sets me on the vanity like a misbehaving child. I freeze, his proximity overwhelming as I am pinned down and crowded in.

“Jon Dellucci will be there, Nadia.”

My stomach sours, objections smothered at once. He’s right. I don’t want to be there, looking Dellucci in the eye. Not after what I took from him. When I pushed his son over that railing, sunk my teeth into his hand like something feral, I didn’t feel guilty about that; I felt justified. I still do. I was defending myself, my daughter—that doesn’t mean I wanted to hurt anybody’s kid.

“Still, I…I should be able to explain myself. To defend…everything that happened.”

“I’m defending you,” he says calmly.

“Why? I don’t even know if you want me around. Hell, Ren, I don’t even know why you’re keeping me alive . I don’t know if you know. Now you’re going to go out of your way and fight for me?”

I try to slide off the vanity, but Ren blocks me in. We haven’t touched since we slept together. We haven’t even talked about why it happened. For him, maybe that’s just part of the deal. Part of being his wife. But that wasn’t my reasoning. I couldn’t fuck a man because I owed him something, but maybe he doesn’t care why.

“What are you doing?” I demand, my hand pressed against his chest to keep him at bay.

“I’m telling you not to worry. As far as you’re concerned, it’s just dinner, Nadia. The rest is for me to handle, not you.”

“Oh, sure, when it sounds like my entire future hinges upon ‘just dinner.’”

I sling my legs away from him and slide down from the vanity. I’m not in the mood for Ren’s games, but he catches me by the wrist like a dance partner. I am reeled back into his arms and held captive, the planes of his chest straight against my shoulders.

“ Our future isn’t in jeopardy,” he practically growls. He slides his hand down the front of my shirt, following the buttons like breadcrumbs to the hem and then continuing down my skirt. A shiver dances across my spine and saps my breath. “That this belongs to me,” he hooks his hand under my skirt and drags it up, sliding his palm up between my legs, dragging and cupping my heat, “is not up for debate. Do you understand?”

His fingers grind the words into my pussy, like he’s signing his name on it.

I quake, weak under his touch. I know it’s just a pretty distraction.

I ignore the way my pulse flutters for him, the way heat pools heavy in my belly and inner thighs, rushing with the pace of his fingers.

“What happened today, Ren?” I demand. “One minute you can barely look at me, the next you can’t keep your hands off me. I never know what you’re going to want next—”

“You know exactly what I want—” The words brush against my neck, punctuated by his lips, his teeth.

I close my eyes, frustrated beyond all reason. His fingers try to persuade me to let this go and just agree. Resist, resist, resist.

“Right now you do,” I say, forcing the words out between my hitching breath. “Because you want to shut me up.”

He goes still.

He’s so close that I am washed in his cologne and his body heat. His thumb strokes my lips.

“If I wanted to shut you up, Nadia, I’d already have you gagged on my tie.”

My belly flutters without my permission, the drag of his fingers suddenly against damp fabric. The words burn in my belly.

“But you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he continues.

My knees tremble as his fingers slide knowingly against my clit, my hands gripping his suit and my legs shaking under me as they almost buckle. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. With one tiny twitch of his fingertips, Ren shows me just how much power he has over me. He gives a soft, harmless pinch to my clit that makes me gasp and chases off the heat.

“Be a good girl for me, for this, and I’ll take care of you, Nadia. But not until then.”

***

I’ve been to my fair share of mob meetings. They’re never what you’d think. When the wives and kids are invited, it’s all old stories and jokes and double meanings. To an outsider, you’d never know what you were looking at unless you had an eye for concealed carrying. The extra waitstaff lined up across the room as if anticipating more customers to a private dinner? Not actually waitstaff.

I get a tiny rush from walking next to Ren, head held high. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be a player in the game and not just a pawn, rushing across the board from pieces far more powerful than itself.

Ren has rented out a private rooftop dining hall for just the six of us, a single table washed in glossy light. Salvatore Mori—I presume—is already seated as we arrive, one arm stretched over the back of his wife’s chair. He stands and becomes every bit as looming and powerful as his reputation. Ren shakes his hand as though the slightest gesture of goodwill is beneath him, but Salvatore brushes by it without so much as a flinch. He feeds me one of those little lines about how our families knew each other from back in the day. Such-and-such was such-and-such’s business partner, blah blah blah. Mafia sentiment doesn’t mean much to me these days, but I smile and play the part, anyway.

Everything depends on this.

He shakes my hand—a cold, brisk shake—before I’m introduced to his wife.

Either Tessa Mori’s skin routine is off the charts or she and I are about the same age. If I had to guess, Salvatore has at least a decade on us. Maybe that’s why I feel like Ren and I are, somehow, the bad kids on the block, dragged before the neighborhood watch committee to answer for a dented car or a busted-out window. Their infant daughter babbles in a highchair, and although you’re not supposed to assume, Tessa is visibly pregnant again. She has the start of the belly and the natural glow. Her handshake lingers, a gentle, warm squeeze that matches her eyes.

“You’re going to ruin my streak,” I say, taking one look at the baby girl who might be a little over a year old. “I’ve been so good about avoiding baby fever.”

Tessa smiles.

“I tried that and—well, you can see how well that’s going. This is Emma,” she says, then puts a hand on her belly. “And I’d introduce this one, but we’re still fighting over a name. And who’s this?”

I introduce Harper. She has a hundred curious questions about Tessa Mori’s little girl, looking at the baby with the same fascination as she looked at the animals in the zoo. She giggles when the baby makes noises and reaches out a little hand for her.

“She’s adorable,” I say, and I mean it. I never really got to enjoy Harper being that little. I was always too worried, always wanting her to get bigger, get stronger. Terrified of what the next day might bring.

Tessa sighs, “She has to be cute because Salvatore is already doing his best to turn her into a brat.”

I feel my smile tighten.

“Somehow, I know exactly what you mean.”

We settle in, a natural divide splitting the table into halves. Ren and Salvatore discuss the “Family,” while Tessa and I discuss our families . The cold tension on one half of the table thaws to warm laughter on our side.

I thought Ren might only be cold toward me, that I just brought that out in him. But he settles in across from Salvatore with no smile, his shoulders tight and posture tense, like a wire close to snapping. His does not switch into someone else; there’s not even a hint of that persuasive man he used to be. He used to be quite good at this, cunning and diplomatic and so charming, he could make your ears pink. He had everything he was supposed to have on the outside—to hide everything he was supposed to hide on the inside. That ruthlessness. That wild, proud anger. The predilection for murder.

Now, Ren carries his flaws on his sleeve the way a dog in a fighting pit carries its scars.

Luckily for me, Tessa is as warm as they come as far as mob wives are concerned. The Moris seem like decent people. Doesn’t mean anything. Anyone who can rise to the top in this lifestyle is going to seem, on the surface, like a good person. My father was largely regarded as a great man. A good father, a good husband, a good business partner, until he burned his rivals alive. His mistake was just being caught giving the order.

I don’t trust anything about them, not even Tessa’s sunny smile, just as I am sure that neither of them really trusts us.

“How old is she?” Tessa eventually asks about Harper. Just polite curiosity in the flow of conversation.

The number withers up on my tongue.

“Too old, too fast—” I try to brush the question aside. Harper is eager to jump in.

“I’m six!” she announces. And then, in case I had any chance of worming my way out of it, she adds, “ almost seven.”

“Really?” Tessa says, obviously surprised. “That’s such a big girl number! So, you’re in, what, first grade?”

Harper nods, her smile bright.

“Yeah. And I have a new school, and we have homework now, and we go to lunch with all the big kids in like fifth grade—”

Harper carries on while the chill in my stomach creeps down my thighs and spreads down into my feet. It’s a slow, spreading numbness threatening to consume me, head to toe. I can’t bring myself to look at Ren. I stare at the empty table in front of me. I silently beg— pray —that Ren is not paying attention. That he and Sal are talking about something, anything , and our little chatter is going right over their heads.

But when Harper speaks, Ren always listens.

He has turned statue-still, his conversation with Salvatore Mori halting abruptly.

Salvatore hasn’t noticed. Not the way I have. He’s still speaking, but I can’t hear it over the rush of my own thoughts, and I don’t think Ren can either, because for a moment, the whole table goes awkwardly silent as Salvatore Mori goes ignored.

Half of the table is burning to the ground, and no one can see it.

“Excuse me,” Ren says softly. “I need to—”

He’s about to stand, but a train of waiters bearing trays over their heads interrupts him. Our food is smoothly distributed, plate after plate, in front of us. Ren sinks back down into his seat as if crushed back into it, his eyes staring at the table as if he’s incapable of seeing anything on it.

A whole fish is placed in front of me. It shares the same dead-eyed stare as Ren, unable to focus.

Suddenly, in my right ear, I hear a gasp. Harper lets out an awful yell, looking at my plate with sheer horror and devastation. “Mommy, it needs water!” she panics. My head is swimming, trying to pull away from my own silent panic and into hers.

I glance at my plate, where my very cooked fish rests on a bed of vegetables, its murky eye staring up into nothingness. He’s a little bit past needing water.

“No, Harper, it’s just—”

Harper gets her hands around my glass of water before my mom reflexes can fully kick in. I reach for the glass, trying to stop the inevitable as if it’s happening in slow motion. Too late. Water dumps into my plate, and subsequently into my lap, drowning the fish and me both.

“Harper!” I gasp, pushing out from the table to drip all over the floor.

She’s staring at the fish on the verge of tears. Chairs scoot back as everyone scrambles to help.

Salvatore Mori whisks the dripping plate of fish away. He makes a fast track for the kitchen to get the offending dish off the table, shouldering through the staff that try to intercept and take it from him.

Ren helps me dry off, patting me down, our eyes catching. The silent rage I see in his eyes makes me want to vomit.

Harper has started crying, which has started Tessa’s baby crying, and the whole dinner is unraveling into a total shitshow all because I didn’t think about fish being served with the head on. The kids crying muffles what might be Salvatore yelling in the kitchen. Something shatters distantly.

I blot my dress with a thick silky napkin that doesn’t want to absorb anything, keeping my head down, thoughts rushing a mile a minute. When Ren speaks, I flinch by sheer instinct.

“No, it’s okay,” Ren says. Gently. Soothing. Not to me. I glance up and find him reassuring Harper, taking both her hands into his. “I think you got him just in time. And what a brave thing you did, trying to help him.”

“Fish can’t be outside of water,” Harper hiccups to him. “He’ll drown .”

I stand frozen, watching, as he scoops Harper into his arms and holds her close, hushing her.

Tessa swoops in to help me, applying more napkins like field triage. Water drips. Ren glances at me, our eyes meeting over the crown of Harper’s hair. I look down at my dress. Can’t hold his stare.

“I’m so sorry,” I say again. To Tessa. To Ren. As if to the universe itself.

“No, you’re fine,” Tessa laughs, sweetly oblivious to the tension between Ren and me. “Look at it this way—at least fish don’t swim in red wine.”

Once there’s little more anyone can do for me, Tessa tries to calm down her own baby and I turn toward Harper. Ren backs off. It’s easier to face her than it is to look at him. I run my hands over Harper’s big, pink cheeks, wiping away her tears.

“I didn’t mean to get your dress wet,” she sniffs. “But I had to! He wasn’t breathing—” she gasps, barely breathing herself.

“It’s okay, Harper. I’m not mad at you, but…” How do I even lecture her on trying to save something? She has a heart of gold, and I don’t have it in me to punish her for it. My frustration burns out like an ember. I’m upset, but it has nothing to do with her. “Next time, you ask someone to help you. You don’t just do it yourself.”

She sniffles and nods.

Salvatore comes back empty-handed and stony-faced.

“How was he?” Tessa prompts him. Salvatore reads her meaning without any trouble.

“They’re taking care of him. He’s fine,” Sal answers, smoothing his tie down as he sits. “Better than the cook, anyway…”

Tessa visibly rolls her eyes.

“I’m sorry about the theatrics,” Ren says. Salvatore brushes the comment aside.

“They should know better than to serve something like that with children around. My apologies for your dress, Nadia.”

“No, it’s fine. Just a little water.”

A lot of water. It’s seeping into my heels. When I walk out of here, I bet I’ll squeak like a chew toy.

I still can’t look at Ren. Can’t bear the thought of facing him, seeing the angry truth in his face. The shock of it all. That he found out here and now of all places. At this dinner, with these people. This dinner was supposed to be so important . And now neither of us can focus and do what we came here to do, which is charm them into letting us live .

I am brought a new dish—a fillet already cleaned beyond recognition of the living animal it once was—and the chef’s apologies. Nobody should have to apologize for falling victim to child reasoning, but I take the thanks graciously. The last thing we need at this table is another scene.

A slight tremor shakes my hand as I grasp my cutlery. I clench down on it. I would have never, ever been trembling with nerves when I was a teenager, no matter how bad things got. Maybe I was just young and dumb then. Maybe stupidity and bravery are easily mistaken for each other. I didn’t know then how bad things could go so quickly…but I try to summon some of that old courage anyway.

Tessa smoothly launches into a story about Emma dumping a loose sippy cup all down her cleavage. Somehow, it helps, as we swap our own little disaster stories that have followed us through motherhood.

We’re halfway through dinner when one of the men approaches our table holding a bowl. He places the bowl in the middle, like a centerpiece. A fish swims in circles in a glass that’s too small for it. Harper gasps in delight.

“It’s him!”

She exclaims. It definitely isn’t.

But it’s damn close, too close for her to tell the difference.

I can only imagine the logistics that went into making that fish “reappear” in front of us, and I’m certain Salvatore Mori had something to do with that. I give him a thankful glance. His grin is a rugged, amused slant as he watches Harper’s delight.

“See? What did Ren tell you? He was going to be fine,” I tell her.

Harper beams. “Can we keep him?”

Salvatore gives me a subtle shake of his head. Bad idea. I’m not even sure that type of fish is supposed to be in that type of water.

“No, Harp. He has to go home now that you saved him.”

She watches the fish, transfixed, throughout the rest of the dinner, the food in front of her growing cold.

“Something tells me you have a future vegetarian on your hands,” Salvatore says.

“Oh, you haven’t seen her diva moments. I’m predicting full vegan,” I agree. “Assuming she can break off her love affair with chicken nuggets.”

“I never managed it,” Tessa confesses in a fake whisper.

I glance over. Ren has been quiet. Thoughtful. His gaze is trained on Harper, his expression closed off to the world. He’s eating about as much as she is, lost in some other thought.

I slide my hand over to his, giving it a bold squeeze. His head jerks, looking at me.

“You okay?” I ask him casually, trying to make it seem normal.

“Of course,” he says, not too forceful. “I just—”

He still stares at Harper, then forces his gaze away. His calm, aloof demeanor seems broken somehow. A hairline fracture, barely visible, but there. I know what he wants to say. What he wants to talk about. But we can’t. Not here.

“What do you want, Sal?” Ren finally asks, straight to the point, dropping the pretense of dinner right alongside his cutlery. “Do you want me to beg you? Tell you that you were right? Name what it will take to keep them safe. You know you have the leverage, so use it.”

An awkward hush sweeps the table.

Salvatore looks to me and Harper for a moment.

It’s not supposed to go like this. It’s supposed to be subtle, but Ren doesn’t have subtle in him right now.

“I haven’t asked you for anything, Ren.”

“Exactly. So, ask.”

The corner of Salvatore’s lip lifts. It’s not a smile. It makes his face darker as he leans back in his chair, appraising Ren with the same look that Ren is giving him.

“How much are they worth to you?”

Ren opens his palms. Leaves the number unquantified. Holds that fierce, bitter stare.

Salvatore takes another bite of the rare steak on his plate.

“Anything?” he prompts.

Ren scoffs bitterly.

“Dellucci already sent one of his dogs to make that offer. And we both know I can’t take it. It’s not really an offer at all—”

My head perks up, trying to piece together what they’re talking about. It’s not subtle, but it’s just vague enough to leave me in the dark. Ren just keeps saying let me take care of it, let me take care of it, it isn’t your place. Well, it’s my life. It’s my daughter’s life. I didn’t even know Dellucci made him an offer—and he rejected it?

“Of course it isn’t,” Salvatore agreed.

“Just give me something better than that,” Ren says, his voice low, urgent. Desperate? “What do you want, Mori?”

“I want exactly what I asked you for the first time. A good reason.”

Ren’s eyes flick to Harper, his expression burning.

“…If I haven’t given you one, then we have nothing else to talk about.”

Salvatore Mori nods, and the table descends into silence, except the tiny sound of Harper tapping her nail against the bowl as the resurrected fish swims in trapped, tight circles, around and around.