Page 46 of His Nephew's Ex
“I’m exactly where I should be,” I tell Clay, sweeping up the glass with movements that are probably too aggressive for my condition. “This is my bar. My life. My choice.”
The words taste like defiance and desperation in equal measure. Because is this really my choice anymore? Or am I just fighting the inevitable, clinging to scraps of independence while the man who claims to own me tightens his golden chains?
The bell above the door chimes, and I look up expecting another regular looking for their usual Friday night escape. Instead, Ifind winter-pale eyes and an apologetic expression that makes my blood turn to ice.
Tiziano.
“Miss Parlato.” His voice carries that diplomatic tone that somehow makes everything sound like a threat wrapped in silk. “The boss would like you to come home now.”
“The boss can go fuck himself,” I snap, earning a surprised look from Clay and a raised eyebrow from Tiziano. “I’m working.”
“With respect, Miss Parlato, you’re pregnant and it’s past midnight. Mr. Codella is concerned about your health. And safety.”
“Mr. Codella’s concern is noted and rejected.” I turn back to the bar, aggressively wiping down surfaces that are already clean. “Tell him I’ll be home when I’m ready.”
“I’m afraid that’s not an option.”
The quiet authority in his voice makes me turn around, and I see two more men standing by the door—not threatening, exactly, but definitely not taking no for an answer. This isn’t a request. It’s a politely worded kidnapping.
“Are you serious right now?” I set down the bar towel with enough force to make the bottles rattle. “He sent you to drag me home like some runaway child?”
“He sent me to ensure your safety,” Tiziano corrects. “The streets aren’t safe at this hour, especially for someone in your... condition.”
My condition. Like pregnancy is some kind of disease that makes me incapable of functioning in the world I built for myself.
“Clay,” I call over my shoulder. “Can you close up?”
My bartender nods, but his gray eyes are worried as they track between me and Simeone’s men. “You sure about this, Loriana? I can call someone—”
“There’s no one to call.” The bitter truth of that statement hits me harder than it should. No family to rescue me, no friends who could stand against the Codella name, no one who can protect me from the man who’s decided I belong to him. “It’s fine. Just... lock up tight, okay?”
The car cuts through the night in suffocating silence, broken only by Tiziano’s eyes finding mine in the rearview mirror—brief, wary glances that confirm he can feel the rage radiating from the backseat. When we finally sweep through the iron gates of the estate, my fury has hardened into something deadly and precise.
Simeone wants to control my life? Fine. But he’s going to hear exactly what I think about his high-handed methods.
I slam through the front door and stride straight to his office, throwing the doors open without ceremony—fury in denim and righteous indignation personified.
“We need to talk,” I announce, then stop dead in my tracks.
He’s behind his massive desk, sleeves rolled up to reveal powerful forearms, silver hair catching the lamplight like moon fire. Those obsidian eyes lift from whatever document he was reviewing, and the way they drink me in—possessive, hungry, absolutely devastating—makes my breath catch despite my fury.
“Stellina.” His voice is silk over steel, and I hate how it makes my pulse spike with unwanted awareness. “I was wondering when you’d come home.”
“I was at work. You know, that thing people do to support themselves instead of relying on mafia dons to pay their bills?”
“Were you?” He sets down his pen with deliberate precision, the movement drawing my attention to his hands—hands that have touched every inch of my body, that know exactly how to make me fall apart. “Because from what Tiziano tells me, you were endangering yourself and our child by sneaking out of a secure location to serve drinks to drunks.”
“Endangering myself?” I move closer to his desk, fury overriding the way his proximity always makes my skin prickle with electricity. “By going to my own business? By trying to maintain some semblance of the life I had before your psychotic nephewstarted harassing me, and then you decided to rearrange it to suit your preferences?”
“The life you had before was a fantasy.” He stands slowly, and suddenly the desk feels like an inadequate barrier between predator and prey. “You were already living on borrowed time, already marked for violence by people who wanted to hurt me through you.”
“So this is my fault? For existing in your orbit?”
“This is biology,stellina.” His eyes drop to my stomach with possessive satisfaction that makes heat pool low in my belly despite my anger. “You’re carrying my child. That makes you the most important person in my world and the biggest target for my enemies.”
“I never asked to be important to you.”
“Didn’t you?” He rounds the desk with that fluid grace that never fails to make my mouth go dry. “When you asked for my protection? When you kissed me in your bar? When you pulled me into your bed and spread your legs for me?”
