Page 105 of A Seed Of Peril

While Vincenzo happily played with his new driving toy near the Christmas tree, Isabella fought sleep in my arms. Every time I tried removing the nipple of her bottle from her mouth, she latched back onto it, suckling. It was adorable, and I gave her an A for effort for drinking from what was now an empty bottle.

With the injury to my uterus during Vincenzo’s birth, it was unanimously decided that Isabella’s birth would be a scheduled cesarean section. I wanted to go as long as I safely and comfortably could, and she entered our lives at thirty-eight weeks. That was last week, and everything went off without a hitch.

We gave her the middle name Lucia because, just like her brother, she was also, indeed, the light of our lives.

Pregnancy with Isabella had gone smoother than it had with her brother. I was grateful. Life in the Rosini household had also been less chaotic. A well-oiled train running on a consistent track.

That didn’t go without saying we still had our snags.

A mole still lived among us. Contracts lingered on our heads, and it was unknown if the Aleskeis would ever make any moves or just taunt us forever with that what-if. Honestly, that was a nightmare in its own right. Maybe that was Vladislav’s plan all along—the constant looking over our shoulders. Wanting us to feel trapped and afraid and to go insane with it all. But that wasn’t us. He wasn’t going to dictate how we lived, and he definitely wasn’t going to frighten us into any sort of submission. Yes, a tactic the mafia sometimes played was a wait-and-see approach. Who would crack first. But we weren’t about to live under his boot and wave any sort of flag of surrender.

The Rosinis weren’t anyone’s bitch.

Vincenzo was having a blast pretending to drive around the living room. He loved watching his daddy drive and pretended he had his own steering wheel in the back seat. Dominic made it a game with him on road trips, as well as created opportunities to teach him the rules of the road and about the parts inside the vehicle. Vincenzo had his daddy’s intelligence, grasping things rather quickly. One of their favorite activities was playing the piano, and it was clear he, too, developed the same passion to learn and play. He also wanted to grow up and be a dinosaur. We had to breakthatbad news to him eventually.

The incandescence of the cackling fire and the lights around the Christmas tree settled beautifully in the living room. I wished we would’ve gotten lucky this year with a white Christmas but maybe next year. It wasn’t quite cold enough.

All of us celebrated tonight with a home-cooked meal of spaghetti and made-from-scratch meatballs, dressed with Dominic’s homemade sauce and sides of antipasti salad, sweet sausage, and bruschetta. Katrina and Vincenzo helped make the cookies we had for dessert.

Dominic took meal preparation as a time to teach his son the ways of cooking his spaghetti sauce, allowing him to help cut up the vegetables and stir in the seasonings. He even helped roll a couple of meatballs. Cooking was becoming another one of our son’s favorite activities.

My arms grew heavier, and I looked to see Isabella asleep. I smiled, able to successfully move the bottle away from her this time. I set it on the couch cushion next to me at the same time Dominic came back inside.

Something was off as he closed the door—his vibes, body language. Whatever the call was about, it wasn’t good.

I tilted my head, lowering my brows, wondering what was wrong.

“Nothing.” He walked to the fireplace, tossing the butt of his cigarette into it.

“Dominic?” I tried sounding as discreet as I could so I wouldn’t alarm Vincenzo. Not that he wasn’t distracted enough with his toy as it was.

Hands in his pockets, Dominic stared at the fire pointedly. Something was definitely on his mind in a big way.Did he receive a tip on our mole? Was it about the Aleskeis? Anything locally?

During my pregnancy with Isabella, Dominic kept details of work under wraps as much as he could unless I needed to know anything pertinent.

I didn’t want him to hide whatever this was from me, however.

“It’s not nothing. Who called?”

“Mommy, can I open another one?”

“Not until morning,” Dominic answered for me without turning away from the crackling flames. “Why don’t you go put that toy in your room?”

“Wait for you?” Vincenzo asked him.

Part of Vincenzo’s nightly routine was waiting for us in his bed with a story he picked out—if he wanted one read to him that night—when it was time to tuck him in.

Dominic looked at his son, nodding. “Yes.” He looked back at the fire as Vincenzo excitedly ran out of the living room with his toy in hand. Dominic’s ghost of a smile didn’t reach his eyes.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt by waiting for any chance he’d talk, my patience paying off.

He told me it was Andre who called.

“Oh, yeah?”

After a few tense seconds, my stomach twisted into a billion knots.

“Katrina’s father, Louis, was found in his cell this morning. Someone beat him to a pulp and put a bullet in his head. Police found Maria on her kitchen floor later that afternoon. Her head was next to her.”

---