Chapter 19: Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King: Chapter 19

U serious about helping Sincere, Nadie?? Need 2 do it soon!!

That is the text I wake up to after the maybe-not-totally-disastrous dinner. I check the timestamp on the message: 3:04 a.m. I drop my head back onto the pillow and muffle a groan. Stripper hours are brutal.

Luna wouldn’t ask for anything if it wasn’t dire—there are few too many years between us to reach out over small favors—but I’ve been dealing with my own bullshit. Government name: Ren Caruso. His moods are like a summer wind, blustery and wild, and always bringing a thunder cloud on the horizon. But he can be warm, too.

I lie in bed for a long time, studying the ceiling, thinking about my place here. Last night still tingles on my skin. I run my hand over my belly, fingertips tracing the satisfied buzz that being with Ren has left behind. He laughed with me for a few minutes. Grinned that sweet, boyish grin. Until he remembered—because eventually, we always remember.

Our relationship swings back and forth like a pendulum, one emotion to the other. Good to bad, bad to good. But he hasn’t been overbearing or demanding, except for one little order that he told me last night: I’m not allowed to leave the house alone, which really puts a kink in my “Save Sincere” plan.

I glance at the phone again.

I am serious about helping Sincere. I want to.

I don’t have many left when it comes to relatives, and in some twisted way, those dancers are my family. What’s left of it. I don’t want to lose someone else. Not if I can finally, finally do something about it.

I get ready in my empty bedroom, stewing over an easy plan.

Ren won’t go into detail as to why I can’t go out, but for once, I think I have a better perspective on him. I don’t think it’s him being a control freak and trying to punish me for existing. Finally, after weeks of being here, I can admit that this isn’t his goal. It just isn’t safe out there. If Dellucci can catch me out in the street, then he avoids getting the rest of the city involved in our little spat. Something has Ren spooked, and he isn’t taking chances anymore.

An armed guard detail escorts Harper to and from school every day. She’s happily oblivious. They drive her up to the front door, and they pick her up like clockwork at 3 p.m., which gives me until the afternoon to figure out what I’m going to do and how I’m going to do it.

Ren still isn’t interested in hearing another word about Marlow. I knock on his office door, but he doesn’t answer. It’s probably for the best. He has too much on his plate right now.

I am not completely forbidden from leaving the house, but I do have to have an escort. The driver from that first night—Ren’s personal driver—has been assigned to me now. Marco suits the job. I’ve always thought being a bodyguard is a little bit like modeling. If you don’t have the right look, it doesn’t matter if you have the skills. But Marco is big and burly, with cropped, military-cut hair, swept eyebrows, and wind-bitten skin.

I find him downstairs, sitting around with a few more of Elijah’s security men, gossiping in low, gruff tones and barking laughter. Elijah sits among them, looking out of place in his pale suit and tie. The voices die off as I enter the room.

Marco’s eyes pull away from his phone. In the other hand, he clutches a tumbler filled with something that has the consistency of gruel. At the sight of me, he seems to forget both of them.

“Miss Nadia,” he says.

“I need to go out somewhere. Do you mind?” I ask him. His grin splits in half.

“What I’m here for,” he agrees, good-naturedly.

“Where do you need to go?” Elijah interrupts us, flinty eyes peering up over the edge of his tablet, his face washed in white. I hesitate. I haven’t seen him since the night before last, when he had a blade against his throat and hatred in his eyes. I swallow.

“I have a few errands to run.”

“So, have someone run them. You don’t have to run errands yourself anymore.”

“This one I do, Marco,” I say, trying to throw my weight around. I hear Elijah stand up, his footsteps following as I keep moving. I drag my bag onto my shoulder, keep my eyes forward. Don’t look back.

“I need to run some errands myself. We can both go,” Elijah offers, catching up with me effortlessly. I nearly roll my eyes. I don’t know why we’re all obsessed over tall men. They’re really fucking annoying when you’re trying to walk away from them. Elijah catches up and puts a hand on my lower back, accompanying me toward the door.

“You want me to drive…?” Marco asks.

“We’ll be fine,” Elijah says, brushing him off. “I need to get better reacquainted with my future sister-in-law, after all,” he says. The guard watches me. I can hear the mental math calculating in his head, adding up just how dead he is if something happens to me. The last thing I see is the driver’s disapproving stare. But Marco doesn’t follow. He is bound to the pecking order and Elijah’s orders.

“…you really think this is a good idea, Elijah?” I mutter. I step apart from him, shrugging away from his hand and keeping my distance.

“What’s wrong?”

“The last time you spoke to me, Ren put a knife to your throat.”

Elijah scoffs, “Oh, like that was the first time he’s put a knife to my throat.”

I stare at him like he’s lost his mind.

He flashes a sympathetic grimace.

“Maybe not the best time for dark humor,” he admits. “But I know my brother. And there’s a thin red line between having a knife pressed to your throat and having a knife pulled across your throat. Usually, I know how not to cross it.”

I don’t know if I believe that after what I saw last night. Ren lost it at the slightest thing. A harmless joke. Who can say what will or won’t set him off?

I thought for sure Ren had pieced together the truth about Harper. It seemed like it by the way he was acting. I came very close to blurting it out myself. Just coming clean and getting it out in the open, getting it over with. But if he can pull a knife on his own brother, what else can he do without a shred of remorse?

My stomach tingles again, as if trying very hard to make a counterpoint about all the other things Ren can do, too.

“It’s better if I escort you than anyone else. Ren would prefer it that way,” Elijah points out. “You might not trust me, and that’s fine, but I’m doing us both a favor. I can’t have anything happening to you, Nadia, or that knife is going in everybody, and I’m part of that demographic.”

Honestly, it’s the only good point he’s made. We fall into step, side by side as we march down into the depths of the parking garage. Elijah starts the car from a distance. When it doesn’t explode—key fobs are basically anti-mob tech—he opens my door for me.

I check my phone again, hoping for a reply from Luna. Nothing. I still don’t know if I’m too late. If those few hours of sleep are the difference between Sincere being okay or…whatever the hell not okay means in this context. I hate not knowing. I have had six fucking years of uncertainty, six years of helplessness, six years of bad news about everyone I ever cared about. It’s gotten so old.

“Where are we headed, Nadia?” he asks, a little too warmly, throwing the car into gear.

“Marlow’s,” I say, like I’m the one in charge. “The Red House.”

Elijah stares at me. The car idles under us, growling low at being held stationary for so long.

“You want to go to your uncle’s strip club?”

“Want to? No. But I have someone I need to meet there. Marlow won’t be there; he never shows up before 4 p.m.”

I wave it off, as if it’s all quite natural. And it is. It should be.

Elijah stares ahead for a long moment, pressing his lips together in a tight, uncertain line. I see the family resemblance for a moment, the expression deep in his eyes.

“What are you doing, Nadia?” he asks.

“What are you doing?” I counter, “Offering to drive me around suddenly? Like we’re best friends. Like you don’t have some motive.”

“Of course I have a motive,” Elijah sighs, frustrated. His foot hits the gas and swerves us into the tight street. “My motive is to look out for my brother the same way I always have. You’ve seen the way he is. Those of us who are around him, who are…impacted by him. We have to stick together.”

“What, is this a support group—”

Elijah shakes his head, frustrated.

“Look, it’s hard enough being his brother and his underboss, alright? It’s not easy for me, and he respects me. I’m sure it’s only a sliver of what he puts you through on the daily.”

I stare out at the window, wondering if Elijah really is just looking out for his brother or if there’s something else driving him.

“He’s confusing,” I admit.

“That he is.”

A traffic jam ties us up. Honestly, I didn’t miss driving around New York. One of the few pluses of no longer being among the mafioso elite—there’s no shame in public transit. It stinks, it’s loud, it’s dodgy, but at least it’s going somewhere .

“Why do you work for Ren if he’s such a nightmare?” I ask.

“Because I know why he’s like that. And I forgive him for it. He saved me, you know. Or at least, tried to save me, when he couldn’t save our parents. Once he realized there was no helping them, he ran up to get me. His arm was all burned, but he…” Elijah’s voice trails off. His hands tighten on the wheel, frustration carved in the bulge of his muscles. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you my brother isn’t a bad person. Not after what he did to you and your family. God knows you probably have your own opinion. But I’ve got my reasoning, and I don’t question it.”

I stare out the window, trying to picture that night. What it must have been like. When I think about it, Ren looks just how he does now. But I know that’s not the truth. He was younger and happy and brilliant. And all of that was burned up with his childhood.

The landscape of the city starts to change. Worn-down, unkempt brick buildings. Historic landmarks nobody cares to visit. I watch the scaffolding whoosh by, wishing we had turned on the radio instead of this conversation.

“I know you probably don’t trust any of us at this point, Nadia. I wouldn’t, if I were you. But I think if my brother has any shot of…I don’t know, healing, then that’s on you.”

I almost choke on my own spit.

“You think I can heal him?”

His expression pinches, eyes on the road even when we’re locked up at a red light and have nothing to do but judge each other in the meantime.

“I didn’t say that. I said if there’s a chance, then that’s it. Time isn’t doing it. Money isn’t doing it. Power, whatever. And you’re the one thing he kept going after, so maybe…” His hand opens on the wheel, a sigh dragging from his lips. “Maybe there’s something to that.”

I don’t bother shattering Elijah’s dreams. I already know damn well what I am to Ren, and it’s not a solution to his problems or a Band-Aid for his mental health. I’m just what he settled for.

I’ve never been so grateful to see my uncle’s strip club come into view.

“What the hell are we doing here, Nadia?” he asks again.

“Just taking a meeting. I hear you’re popular here, so they shouldn’t mind if you stop by, right?” I ask, flashing him a look. He glares after me as he parks along the street, getting out with me.

“Nadia,” he hisses, as I cross into the alleyway.

I call Luna, begging her to answer the phone. I don’t know if I have Cali’s number. The back door is locked, though I give it a solid tug.

“Dammit,” I whisper, the ring rattling in my ear.

Finally, Luna answers. She sounds like she’s been asleep, but she tells me to wait a minute. She appears, bleary-eyed and in a sexy little nightgown at the doorway. Her eyes do a double-take as she sees Elijah with me, and suddenly, she’s very awake. She ducks behind the door and curses me in festive Russian.

“What do you bring him for?” she demands. Her accent is thickened by sleep.

“Necessity. You said I needed to help now, so I’m here to help. What’s going on?”

Luna gives Elijah a scowl and slowly steps out to join us.

“There are cameras inside,” she says, “And I will only talk to you, Nadia. Alone.”

I ask Elijah to back off. He doesn’t look happy about it, but he finally sighs and wanders a few feet away, keeping an eye on us from afar.

“What’s your issue with him?” I ask.

“Who do you think brings in garbage for the girls to get hooked on? Men like him. Wandering around, no rules.”

“Men like him or him specifically?” I demand.

Luna only shrugs. “You think they tell me?”

I glance over my shoulder. “He’s just my escort. He’s not involved in this. What’s happening with Sincere, Luna? Is she alright?”

Luna sighs. She wraps her arms tighter around herself as if fighting off a chill, as if the truth is cold. “Marlow isn’t letting her dance anymore, and no one eats and sleeps for free. Not here. I don’t know when he’ll try to move her. Or where or how. If you want her, you figure out what to do with her and get her away from here.”

“Can’t she find somewhere to go just for a day or two, just until I have some time—”

“She’ll stay where her habit is. They always stay, even when the obvious is staring them in the eyes.”

I force myself to nod.

“Marlow will be back this afternoon. I want her gone by then.”

God, that’s such short notice.

“Okay,” I force myself to say. “I’ll make it happen.” I glance over my shoulder at Elijah, whose eyes have not left the two of us. “But not right now. Later. I didn’t know he would be with me. You might have to move her for me, if I can’t get away.”

Luna nods.

“You tell me what to do, I do it.”

I give her all the cash in my purse—which isn’t much, most of Ren’s business is run on credit card, and that trickles down to me in plastic instead of bills. “In case you need to get her in a car or…well, anything that might come up,” I say.

Luna gives me a brief hug.

“I knew, even back then, you were the type of girl to come back, if you could. Come back pissed off with a bank account,” she says and laughs.

“Hell hath no fury like a pregnant girl made to sleep on a one-inch mattress topper,” I agree. Luna sees me off, her gaze lingering on Elijah as he wrangles me into the car. He seems pissed off, gestures heavy, as he piles into the driver’s seat with an angry huff.

“What the hell was that, Nadia?” he demands.

“Old friends catching up. You ever have any of those?” I ask. The mood in the car has shifted now, his frustration palpable. He levels a dark glare at me.

“Those people aren’t your friends.”

“No, you’re right. They’re really the closest thing I have to family besides Harper. Courtesy of someone. What do you care?” I finally ask, annoyed.

Elijah keeps his eyes on the road again, and this time, it’s not because our reunion is awkward and uncertain. He’s angry. I know he’s angry because he has the same tiny line between his eyebrows that Ren gets when he’s holding back some bitter remark.

“Marlow is a business associate of ours. You don’t need to be interfering in our business any more than you already have. If he finds out—”

“Who cares?!” I practically yell. Elijah jumps at my frustrated outburst. Granted, I had the first half of this argument with Ren, so maybe it’s not fair to pick it up with the brother who has no idea why I’m about to pop off if I hear one more person say how my uncle is suddenly untouchable. I grew up hearing exactly how much of a nobody Uncle Marlow was. He was an afterthought, a footnote in my family. I’m shocked no one killed him for sport, except like a sloth, he just wasn’t worth the time and effort for anyone to try and kill.

“Marlow deserves to rot, and he’s not going to lift a finger to a fully established family unless he wants it cut off! He can’t. Why are you and Ren both dead set on protecting him? Do you think he’s going to sic his strippers on you? Are you afraid of women in stiletto heels—because, take it from me, most of them can’t run very fast—”

“Nadia,” Elijah cuts me off, giving me a look. The stare lingers. I feel it seeping in through my anger, getting underneath it and pulling up the roots. He grins to himself, a crooked smirk. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve heard you really sound like yourself since you moved in.”

The observation catches me off guard.

An angry blush creeps up my neck. “Bitching is my default setting,” I sigh, leaning back into the seat. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m not even that mad at Ren. Not as mad as I should be. I guess I just…don’t get it.”

“…It’s personal, for me,” Elijah finally admits. He won’t look at me again, his shoulders bunched up like a cat confronted with a mirror. “I don’t care about Marlow as a person. But his business—” He finally sighs, “Someone at his business—”

It’s hard to follow along when he refuses to speak in full sentences, but I’m getting the idea.

“Wait. One of his girls?”

His jaw ticks.

“Don’t call them that,” he mutters under his breath.

I feel like I’m about to slip right out of my seatbelt and onto the floorboard.

“Are you dating one of his dancers?” I ask.

“No,” he says instantly. Too fast. His knuckles on the wheel are white, his jaw tense. “Look, can we just pretend that this conversation never happened—”

“Sure, once we finish it. Who are we talking about?” I demand.

He grits his teeth like he has to chew the name down before he can speak it.

“Her name’s Cali.”

I would have started guessing random stripper names before I would have guessed Cali of all girls. Elijah has grown up, and he can fill out a suit and beard now, but he is permanently imprinted in my brain as a textbook “nice young man.” The way most teenagers are when you don’t really know them at all except in passing. I knew Elijah as a kid, and I barely have any idea who he is as a man.

“And you and her are…”

“I’m just a client,” he tells me sharply.

I glance out the window, checking my own face to make sure my expression is neutral and unassuming.

“…and what, you don’t want your favorite stripper out of a job? Or you want her to be something else?”

Elijah sighs.

“Nadia, I got in this car so I could talk to you about your relationship. The one that matters here. Whatever I have going on, that’s not important.”

“It is important. Because the way I see it, you could get a girl like Cali out of my uncle’s club in a second flat. So what’s stopping you?”

He stares ahead.

“I don’t know if I want to bring her into all this. Around Ren. Not until he’s…better. It’s one thing if he pulls a knife on me. It’s something else if…”

If he threatens someone Elijah actually cares about.

I sigh under my breath. “You know my pussy isn’t a therapist, Elijah.”

We almost swerve off the road. “Jesus Christ, Nadia—”

“I’m just saying! You’re asking an awful lot of the resident fuck toy.”

“That’s not what you are to him.”

“How would you know?”

“How do you not?” Elijah demands. “He went insane looking for you. I watched it happen.”

“Because of a vendetta, not because of feelings—”

“No,” he cuts me off, “My brother started losing it the night you blocked his number and wouldn’t talk to him days before anything happened to our family. Sure, everything that happened after—that made it worse. Just…so much fucking worse. But you blocking him and cutting him off out of the blue? That’s what cracked the foundation. Everything after that was just the earthquake that brought it down.”

My stomach flips nervously.

That can’t be right.

Nadia’s a good time, but she’s not wife material.

Ren Caruso was not torn up over me. He wouldn’t be. I heard him say those words as clear as day. Hell, I heard him say them to Elijah. I can still picture them standing shoulder to shoulder, watching the gala. The way he almost laughed about it, like it was just a funny little anecdote about how he was going to break my heart. I have spent every day after hearing that, trying to prove that I am good enough. A good enough mother. A good enough friend. A good enough—

My brain skips over the word wife, refusing to acknowledge it. The fact that I still want to be that for him is pathetic.

“Whatever happens with Ren, that’s going to take time. I have to get my friend out of that strip club tonight , Elijah. And you’re going to help me do it.”

He sighs, annoyed.

“And why am I going to do that?” he asks.

“Because I’m keeping your secret about your stripper girlfriend—” he tries to argue that she isn’t, but I talk over him, “So you’re going to keep my secret about my stripper friend.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” he asks, dumbfounded.

I shrug. “You know what they say, Elijah. You can take the girl out of the mafia, but you can’t take the mafia out of the girl.”

I feel his sigh of resignation in my soul.

***

I can’t bring Sincere back with us, not with Harper in the house. It’s bad enough that she has all these mafia types prowling around the house to influence her. I can’t bring Sincere, in her current state, into her life.

I think I might have to put her up in a hotel for a few days, if it comes to that. But with Elijah’s connections (and credit score) we find an apartment for Sincere. A loft. Natural raw brick. A decent view. A little dolling up, and it’ll even be cozy. With Elijah’s arm twisted behind his back, maybe he can even get her proper identification, some bullshit credentials. A new start. I’m buzzing with the thought, excited for her. She’ll have a place of her very own, and a monthly allowance as I get her on her feet. She’ll be able to start over the right way. The way that I never really got to.

But it takes hours to fish around to find someone who will bite on such a short-notice deal, especially in New York, where renters are largely regarded like an infestation by landlords. As the sun sinks lower in the sky, a nervous knot draws tight in my stomach. No word from Luna. I can’t shake the feeling that at any moment, Sincere could vanish into the night. That I could be this close to saving her—and I could still lose her.

I wander in the property manager’s footsteps, humming and nodding impatiently through the sales pitch that neither of us have the time or patience for. Elijah has paid a considerable fee to bypass the background checks and just get handed the keys the same day.

If the property manager smells something fishy, the smell of crisp, freshly printed dollar bills puts him off the trail.

“Think of it this way,” I say, as Elijah tosses me the keys with an annoyed huff, “this will all be good practice for when you smuggle Cali out of Marlow’s place.”

He might be grown now, but the boy still blushes like a teenager sometimes. He forces me along through the hallways and tells me, sternly, to stop talking about it. I resist the urge to tell him that it’s cute when he’s shy.

The sun should still be high in the sky, but it’s a dreary overcast day, the sky sitting low above the city. It feels so late, but it isn’t. For all my worrying, we’ve made good time.

“I want to be home when Harper gets there, get her squared away for the afternoon, and then we can go pick my friend up and get her settled in—”

“I still can’t believe you blackmailed me,” Elijah complains again.

“Oh, please. If you were the one blackmailing me, would it even make the top five list of bad things you’ve done this week?” I ask.

He considers it, sucking on his cheek.

“…Yeah, fair.”

I’m brainstorming everything that we’ll need to do. I’ll have to find sobriety programs for Sincere. Maybe a security system to see who she’s bringing in and out of her apartment—just at first, just in case. My hands feel clammy, my nerves shot. And somehow Marlow just has to never find out what happened to her or that I was involved at all.

One step at a time. One step at a time. And each step brings me a tiny bit closer—

I walk through the doorway of Ren’s apartment and am struck dumb.

My wedding dress hangs on the banister railing. Like a ghost, hovering just an inch off the floor. I stare at it, uncomprehending. Elijah steps in after me, looking at the dress with just as much confusion as I am.

“Nadia…” he says, in a low warning tone.

I have no explanation.

“There you are,” Olivia says, as if I’ve been hiding somehow. When she sees us both arrive together, her unhappy eyebrows drop yet another inch. She doesn’t comment with anything but her expression. “Your dress arrived, Nadia. You need to try it on, make sure it fits.”

“I will.”

“Mr. Caruso wants it done now.”

“What’s the rush?” Elijah asks on my behalf. She gives him a look.

“Life is short, time is money. Whatever people say,” she says, snapping her fingers at me and gesturing to the bedroom. “Nadia,” she says, beckoning me like a dog.

“Like hell ,” I start, but Elijah interrupts me, a hand around my elbow to stop a WWE match from happening in Ren’s foyer.

“Just get it over with,” he mutters.

I snatch up the dress, trying not to feel a pinprick of sadness as I scoop up the gorgeous, perfect gown into my arms and carefully haul it—ironically bridal style—into Harper’s bedroom without the train dragging on the ground. Olivia follows me.

“I know how to dress myself, Olivia, you can stay outside,” I mutter.

“Oh, I’m sure you do. I’m just here to verify your honesty. We can’t have you putting off the big day over a tight zipper, now can we?” she asks. She stands with her hands pressed to her hips, watching me as I undress.

“I thought you were telling me not to get settled in, that I wasn’t going to last long around here,” I remind her, turning away from her and vengefully stripping out of my clothes. I feel her eyes on me the whole time, but I have nothing to be ashamed of. I’m too pissed off to be annoyed, shimmying down to my underwear in front of her. I hope she sees the fading marks Ren has left on me. The places where he branded me with his mouth and his touch. I hope she pictures what they’d look like on her.

“Marriage isn’t forever,” Olivia says, calmly, as if she’s enjoying this somehow. “And yours—it’s just good business. The sooner you have his last name, the sooner we can put the mess you’ve caused behind us all.”

I try to tune her out, focusing on pulling on my dress.

Not wife material.

I stand straight, avoiding the mirror and waiting for Olivia to zip me up. She steps up behind me, French tips grasping the zipper and dragging it up until the bodice hugs my rib cage. A perfect fit.

“Like a glove” she says, turning me around to face her and giving me a once-over. Her contempt for me is still unmasked. “Good. Go wait in the foyer, and don’t get it dirty—”

“Wait for what?” I demand.

She looks at me like I’m stupid.

“For your groom, obviously.”