Chapter 27: Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King: Chapter 27

Harper gives me a firm scolding as I try to figure out the logistics of wrangling all that hair into a tiny, stretchy band no bigger than her own hand. In plain, simple language Harper spells out everything I am doing wrong. Not with her hair—she’s letting me suffer with that conundrum—but for “being mean, and yelling, and hitting people.”

I am threatened with a time-out.

As I’m smoothing out her damp hair, I consider that I already am in a time-out. Nadia has made sure of that.

How do you explain to a child that you are not just obligated, but compelled, to keep them safe? Too not just protect them, but seek vengeance for them? To destroy anyone… anyone . I focus on twisting the band around again, use the distraction to keep my hands busy, before they can do more violence.

I wish my world abided by the rules Harper is laying out. I really do.

Nadia comes back in. She gives me a look, but she doesn’t seem angry anymore. Whatever she learned from Elijah, it was enough to convince her that I am not entirely in the wrong.

“Get your coat, Harper,” she says. “We can’t be out long.”

“You’re going somewhere? She should be in bed .”

Nadia’s voice lowers as Harper rushes to her closet. “Well, when my options were either stay here and let her listen to a murder or take her outside, I had to make a decision—” Her eyes wander to the girl who is singing to herself in a trilling voice. “—Besides, she has so much energy, she’s going stir-crazy.”

I still don’t like it.

“You’ll need to take security—”

“We will.”

I wonder if she’s leaving. Some psychotic, knee-jerk fear makes me want to run to the door and lock it and forbid them from going anywhere. I have to fight my own instincts.

“Are you coming with us?” Harper asks me.

“Not this time.”

Her expression falls.

“Why not?”

I fight my own heavy breath, and for the first time, I clock the way I feel.

Exhausted.

As for Harper’s miraculous rebound, I don’t share it. I feel worn down all over. Inside. My brother has betrayed me, my world is on the verge of collapse, and I have the hardest choices still looming ahead of me. I’m simply tired.

“I don’t feel up to it,” I admit.

“Oh, well, let’s stay here then,” Harper decides on a whim as she drags me toward her bed.

I dig my heels in—I have too much to do, too much to worry about—but she offers me her fluffiest pillow. I slip off my shoes. Harper pesters Nadia into the bed the same way, and suddenly, we are all curled up together, Harper snuggled up between us.

If there was any hope of a nap, it’s out the window. Harper chatters on, full of energy, until Nadia and I are grinning at each other over her head. I decide to close my eyes and savor the moment. Just a moment like this, with both of them.

Time becomes meaningless, when a sudden silence falls over the room. Harper, the most energetic of us all, has suddenly fallen asleep between us, talked herself out just like that. I glance down at her, run my fingers over the soft, taut shell of her hair. I don’t think I did such a bad job.

“When Harper’s well enough, I want you to take her and leave the city,” I tell Nadia quietly. “I’ll give you cash. You know how to survive on your own for a little while—”

“What?” Nadia asks, her head jerking up as though she had almost fallen asleep, too.

“You’re going to leave, Nadia. You’re going to get out before this all blows up. You’ll take my card and buy whatever you can carry easily and pawn later. Jewelry is a good bet—”

“Ren, I can’t just leave,” she whispers.

“Of course you can. You’ll have resources you didn’t have before. Enough to really start over—”

“Without you?”

The question catches me off guard. I’m not sure why she’d ask it.

“You said you weren’t going to let me go. You said my future was a sure thing—”

“Nadia—”

“Are you a liar?”

“We’re all liars,” I snap, struggling to keep my voice low. “You think I don’t want to keep you here with me, no matter what happens? I’m not some chivalrous knight, Nadia. If I burn up, there’s a part of me that wants you right there next to me, burning, too. But…”

We both look at Harper, who stirs.

“She’s not going to suffer because of us. I want her far away from all this.”

“Then come with us—”

“Nadia,” I say, like she’s stupid, “I am giving you what you always wanted: a chance to start over, to give yourself and Harper a good life. To be free of all this. You keep me with you, you’ll never be free.”

“What if I don’t want to be free?”

The words grind my thoughts to a halt. I have always known Nadia did not want the things I made her do. The wedding, the dates, the dinners and dancing—pantomimes of the past that let me indulge my own fantasies, the memories I had replayed in my head for years and years. I dragged her along through it all, put her in a position that she couldn’t refuse. And now that I’m offering a way out of the cage, she won’t take it?

I could shake her or kiss her or maybe both at the same time. I swallow the urge, finally look through the haze of the past and see the future, crystal clear.

“This isn’t about us.”

Both of our eyes go to Harper.

“Where do you want me to go—”

“Anywhere. As long as I don’t know where it is.”

Her bewildered expression follows me as I put my back to her, turn away and force myself to get up, carefully, minding that Harper doesn’t notice.

“Ren, take the offer.”

The words stop me in my tracks.

“Dellucci offered you something, right? You said so at the dinner with Salvatore and Tessa. You said Jon offered you a way out, but you said it wasn’t a good deal. Who cares about a good deal? Just…take the offer.”

“Nadia…” I sigh.

“What was it? What offer did he even make? What did he want?”

“…To quote? ‘Everything.’”

She stares at me blankly. Her palms show.

“And…?”

“The money, the property, the businesses. Everything , Nadia.”

She keeps staring at me, those plump little lips pressed tight.

“That’s it…?”

I stare at her, bewildered.

“He offered to settle, to leave us alone, and instead of taking that deal, Harper almost—” she catches herself, drops her eyes to the little girl with her head rocked against Nadia’s side “—she ends up in the hospital? ” Her rage wobbles on that last word, the shade of those green eyes glimmering like poison. “We could be safe right now, but instead we’re what…playing war again? Going on the run?”

“Do you really think Dellucci would just let us walk away? Once we had nothing and no one left to defend ourselves with, he’d come for us, regardless! Why wouldn’t he? What would stop him? The law?”

“The families! He wouldn’t want to put a target on his back right after a windfall like that!”

I turn away from her because it’s ridiculous, but she somehow gets out of Harper’s grasp without being noticed and chases me across the house where we can raise our voices.

“You had a choice!”

“So, that’s what you want? To go back into poverty? Drown in medical debt and wonder where your rent is going to come from? You want to have nothing again, Nadia?”

“I never had nothing,” she says, her voice scathing, “Because I always had her, and you could have, too. And you turned it down because you can’t imagine not living in some mansion with a bunch of staff and sports cars!”

“That’s—that has nothing to do with it—” I say, the accusation so off the mark, I can barely counter it.

“Take the deal, Ren!” she says, all but begging.

My mouth feels dry, my heart heavy. I shake my head.

“It’s too late for that.”

Her expression breaks, pained and furious all at once. But it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t have taken that deal.

“Nadia, I have an obligation—to Harper, I—”

She sweeps away from me.

“Where are you going?” I call after her.

“Exactly where you told me to. Somewhere you don’t know about.”