Page 31 of Pregnant By the Mafia Boss

“I’ve no idea. I don’t keep count. Those assholes that came after you deserved it. I didn’t want you to see what had to be done but believe me, if I hadn’t broken his neck, he’d have shot me and taken you to Rome.”

“I believe you.”

He strokes my hair, the most intimate gesture I’ve felt from him.

“You’re safe now,” he says. “I let them get to you once, and I’m not making that mistake a second time. No one will ever hurt you again.”

“Tell me you’ll kill them if they do.”

“Cara mia, if anyone so much as looks at you in a way that offends you, it’s over. I’ll make them beg you for mercy, but you need only say the word, and they’ll disappear.

“Christian can give it his best shot, but I’ll fucking destroy every one of his men before anyone touches a hair onmywife’s head.”

I find myself smiling. “My hero.”

He wraps his hand around the back of my neck, massaging it gently. “No fucking way,amore mio. A hero would put something else before you, like the greater good or some noble cause.

“I’m a villain, but I’myourvillain. I’ll protect you until my dying day, and the world and everything in it can burn to ashes for all I care. Just promise me, no more trying to run away?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I let my eyes close, his chest rising and slowly falling as I lean against him, his strong arms wrapped around me.

“There’s nowhere I would rather be than right here.” I look up at him. “Didn’t you have work you needed to do?”

He kisses the top of my head. “It can wait.”

12

Salvatore

Three days later…

There was a time when everything was perfect.

I was ten years old, and my brothers and I were playing cards. Antonio had recently learned how to play poker and was showing us all the rules.

We were only playing for matchsticks, but that didn’t matter—in our young minds, the stakes were high.

I was up on the rest of them, my stack piled high. Luca was almost down to nothing, and Dante had one left.

He was holding it up and mugging for us all, pretending to be utterly broken that he was about to be out of the game.

We all laughed as he summoned up gales of fake sobs. He cursed the sky, his fists clenched, wailing that fate had ruined everything for him.

I had tears of laughter rolling down my face.

That memory never left me. I always try to hold it at the point where we’re all laughing, and not let it roll on.

But a single moment can never last. Inevitably, it gives way to the next moment, and the one after that, until it’s gone.

I can never stop remembering the next part, where my father and his drunken friends burst in on us.

Papa wanted to prove a point, so he began screaming at us, saying we were ruining his meeting with our noise.

He got hold of Luca and Dante, and slammed their heads together. They bounced off each other, falling to the floor and moaning in agony.

He lunged at me next, his boot connecting with my stomach, knocking all the air out of me.

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