Page 17 of Forbidden Surrogate

What the fuck is Angela’s point? And does it even matter? I slept with that woman because I wanted to. The contract had nothing to do with it. That was just an excuse.

The consequences might be more than I can handle but… there’s something twisted about this revenge. Thisloophole.I understand how fucked up it is to bring a child into this world under these circumstances but… my father won’t live forever.Delphine wants to be a mother. I can simply pay her to look after the child a few cities away from us… Syracuse or Utica, maybe.

A swift guilty tug at my conscience makes me clear my head of those thoughts entirely to focus on getting my ass to the gym.

Everybody stares at me and Mikey when we walk into Iron Syndicate, our local family-owned gym. It’s pretty common whenever I go out with him and sometimes it's fine, other times I hate the extra attention. He lost an eye when he was thirty years old and the scar still cuts across his face from the base of his neck over his lips and nose, crossing the missing eye to his hairline.

He was cut up pretty bad in that fight. His physique just makes the scar look more terrifying. Mikey the beast. Everyone we run into during our workout side-steps out of the way. It’s peaceful to get that kind of respect.

“How’s Angie?” he asks with a cocky smile on his face.

“Enough. I need a break from her.”

“I heard she pissed your dad off.”

“How hard is that to achieve?”

Mikey chuckles. “You need a vacation, man. It’s always the same old shit in Buffalo.”

It’s a simple statement, but so unbelievably true. Shit weather. Shit football team. Shit situations.

“I’m on vacation for about a week. Angie’s on lockdown.”

He laughs. “She pissed you off too?”

“You always take her side even if she’s an insufferable bitch.”

“Her ex-husband broke her feet. Seventeen years of ballet out the window because Uncle Leandro married her off to a freaky ass Sicilian pedophile. She’s got issues. Who wouldn’t?”

“She agreed to the marriage.”

“Come on, man. You know how your dad gets.”

All of our first memories involve some flicker or outburst of Leandro Taviani’s rage. Either about a football game loss or a financial loss of some kind, dad was always on edge. Those were the dark ages of the mob, however. Old age mellowed him out and we don’t have the problems we used to anymore. We won’t have those problems unless Carmine Corsini dies out in Pittsburgh before Renzo and Gino return from Italy.

Chapter Ten

Delphine

Iwatch Angela and her brother leaving from the bedroom window. "Bedroom" my ass. This place is a prison, make no mistake. For someone who blames Angela for everything, this man sure was prepared to host a captive. Thick, iron burglar bars painted white across the frames to disguise their presence block me from leaving through the windows, even if they allow plenty of light in.

When the black Chevy Tahoe I arrived in leaves the driveway, I try the door with as much force as I can, discovering that not only is the entire door frame reinforced with metal, but the door isn't actually wood, it’s metal painted to appear wooden.

I stop trying to break the door down when I nearly break my foot. Can't run away with broken feet.

Caged animals all behave the same. This primal aversion to imprisonment immediately registers and I wander the perimeter of the room searching for an escape I quickly learn doesn't exist. One door doesn't lead to an empty closet, but leads instead to an en suite bathroom.

Again, no escape. Just another small window with burglar bars overlooking the partially frozen lake outside. The bathroom has a decent enough shower and it's stocked with the essentialsand towels, so I mentally plan to reward myself with a shower for conducting a thorough search of this bedroom.

I start with the bathroom cabinets, but find nothing but a few restock essentials and cleaning supplies. The towels are in a wicker basket on a shelf over the toilet.

Nothing worthwhile there. The main bedroom has two large dressers and two closets. The first dresser just has fresh clothes -- black t-shirts, sweatpants, and underwear. I'm guessing this all belongs to Luigi. He seems like the type of man to iron his shirts all Patrick Bateman style before folding them up into his dresser.

I'll have to go bra-less and wear men's underwear after my shower.

The second dresser yields more interesting contents once I start rifling through the drawers. Underneath a folded Buffalo Sabres hoodie, I find a folder made out of thick black plastic and run it over to the bed to search through the contents. My stomach lurches when I open the folder and see the contents.

Fake IDs. Well, at least a few of them must be fake. Luigi stares stonily at the camera in every picture, but each driver's license and passport has a different name. He has two Italian passports, an Ethiopian passport, and a Romanian passport. The licenses are for Manitoba, Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Sicily and another country that I don't recognize the flag.

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