Page 2 of Stolen Kisses
A wave of shock shattered me.
Oh God, no.This wasn’t happening.Pregnant?
Fucking hell. I knew something like this would happen. I wasn’t overacting or being the overprotective big brother when I went looking for her the other day. I could sense she was in trouble.
“Pregnant?” I asked shaking my head.
“Yes, and the father wants nothing to do with her. She got mad and said she wanted to destroy him. She had some kind of dirt on him. Dante, the type of guys I’ve seen her with lately are all bad. All of them.”
There was an edge to her voice that twisted my nerves into tighter knots.
“There’ve been so many different guys, and she’s changed so much.” She added. “I don’t even recognize her anymore. She’s out of control.”
“Did she say who the father was?”
She shook her head and winced, crying harder. “She wouldn’t tell me.”
The other day when Christina and I had argued she wouldn’t tell me who she was seeing either. She’d told me to mind my own business and fuck off—stay out of her life. Maybe she’d told Maria the same too.
Yes, Maria was right. Christina had changed. Changed dramatically. I didn’t recognize her either.
Now this. Pregnant, by someone who was no doubt like Donny Manello. Or fuck maybe it was him.
“I’m going to look for her.” I grabbed my keys and pulled my guns from my jacket pocket—my twin Berettas. Maria looked freaked when she saw them.
“Dante wait, you should calm down. You wouldn’t want to make things worse.”
“Calm down, you come here telling me Christina’s pregnant, in trouble, and you’re worried about the guys she’s been seeing. You said they’re bad and she wants to destroy the father of that baby. How the fuck am I supposed to calm the fuck down?”
“Dante let’s just go find her. There are two places I haven’t looked yet. I’ve looked everywhere else. Please let’s just try these two places.”
Yes, let’s and if she wasn’t there, I would take matters into my own hands big time.
“Come.” I didn’t care that she wasn’t my girl. I took her hand and led her out the door, holding her hand like she was mine. Daring anyone to challenge me about it.
Danger had so many faces, it could be anyone. It could be those people in charge like Raphael Rossi, the Chicago mafia boss who had money and power.
He was the kind of danger you knew about and avoided. You wouldn’t piss him off.
We were full blooded Italians. Pa had links with the Rossi family from back in Italy so when he died Raphael sent for us from New York and set us up here. I worked for him as an associate so I knew the ropes. I knew my place and the dangers that lurked around me.
The Manellos and Antonellas were the other kind of danger; the unknown. The one’s you never saw coming.
We got out to my garage and I pulled out my bike. I handed her my extra helmet. We jumped on and set out, tearing down the road.
The first place we went to was the park. Maria said Christina had come out here a few times to do some drawings.
No one was here today.
That just made Maria more anxious, and me …
Well … I got a bad feeling. A really bad feeling that worsened when I saw stop number two.
We pulled up at a classy apartment complex in the city. The kind wealthy businessmen used when they were working right in the heart of town.
We took the elevator up to the penthouse suite and it truly started to get under my skin when I thought of what the fuck Christina must have been getting up to with these men.
Men who had to be much older than her. She was only twenty-one. I was four years older than her. Donny, I knew was in his early forties.
