Chapter 21: Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King: Chapter 21

My thumb keeps finding the ring. Fiddling with it. Twisting it. Like it’s not supposed to be there, and when I’m not thinking about it, I mess with it to try and make it feel right. It doesn’t.

There’s no honeymoon for Nadia and me. There’s no time for that, and no joy. Nadia cried through the whole ceremony. I could see her breaking, little by little, as I made her mine in the final way. I had her indebted to me, then in bed, and now in name. Every box checked off. If there’s an afterlife, I hope we’re chained together there, too.

My arm still fucking hurts. I tell myself it’s the weather.

On the drive home, Nadia and I discussed our marriage with Harper. Fielded her questions and managed her overexcited glee. She told me she’s never had a daddy before.

I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

I want to give her a father, but I don’t think fathers can be easily bought. And how the hell else is she supposed to get a good one? It’s not me, that’s for sure.

“Mazel tov,” Atlas says, the line making his voice scratchy. “I just heard the good news.” Probably a cheap burner phone that he’ll trash immediately after this conversation. I’ve yet to find out how this man is connected to Dellucci. None of my own connects has been able to source him. The name is a fake.

“No face-to-face meeting this time,” I say, cradling the phone on my shoulder while I stand at my desk and load my pistol. I have been a married man for about six hours now, so naturally, every mob connect in the underground has already heard about it. I have signed my name to Nadia Petrone’s life and every bit of bad blood that she has coming her way.

“Never saw a good opportunity. No more little girl hanging on your coat tails to keep you leashed. I saw what you did to Leighton, and frankly, my face is too pretty for that kind of treatment.”

“What do you want, Reicher?”

“I’m just making good on my promises. I told you I’d contact you one last time. One final shot for you to take the deal, skip town, start over with the new wife and kid. Hell, how many of us haven’t thought about doing that every night since we hit thirty?”

“I’m not thirty.”

“Oh, Christ,” Atlas mutters, like it’s a problem. Something in the background whistles, like an old-school coal train. “No wonder. Well, take it from the mentally developed, you’ll get there, and if you’re still alive— big if —you’ll lie in bed one night and wonder why the hell you didn’t take that deal that dear old Atlas offered you.”

“If the terms haven’t changed, neither has my answer. Learn how to do business before you waste my time.”

Atlas sniffles on the line for a moment.

“That’s a shame, Ren. Let’s say you hand over everything to Dellucci. And hell, let’s say you take some cash out, whatever you can get tonight, just a little something to tide you over for a few years while you get settled in, and neither you nor I ever mention it to anybody. You’re playing with Big Dog Sal, I bet he might even throw you a bone you could live with comfortably—”

How the hell does he know that I’ve taken a meeting with Sal?

“So, the offer hasn’t changed.”

“…No,” he finally admits. “It’s all or nothing, and I’m not just talking about money. You can walk away from this with the whole world, your wife and your kid, or you can stay in the game. And die there.” His voice drops and turns almost gentle. “It’s not a hard choice, kid.”

My arm burns. Usually, it aches. Sometimes, the pain hits like lightning, a big bolt, cracking right down to the bone that fades as fast as it comes. But now, it burns. Burns . Like it’s still caught in the fire and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it. I grind my teeth. I try to answer him, but the words catch in my throat. If I let them out, they might come out as a scream. I hold my own wrist with my other hand, not sure what to do. My vision doubles from the intensity of it. I sag against the desk.

When Atlas doesn’t get an answer, he continues, his voice far away. I dropped the phone onto the desk.

“If you’re having a come-to-Jesus moment, Ren, I don’t want to interrupt. But I’ll just say this: There’s no shame in it. Nobody will think less of you.”

I’ve never given a damn about what anybody’s thought about me.

“Tell Dellucci I’ll see him tomorrow,” I rasp.

I end the call and throw the phone across the room as if it’s the thing causing the roaring pain eating up my arm. I collapse into the chair, bent over my own limb, wishing I could chop it off right here and now.

I was in pain every day until the day I got Nadia back.

Maybe my brain has a fucked-up way of telling me what I need.

And maybe, deep down in my nerves and muscle and DNA, I think that I just made the wrong choice. The selfish choice.