“That’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding!”
“Not if it’s on church grounds. At that point, it’s a done deal.”
I huffed as he pulled me into the room. He unhooked my dress, and I sighed out of sheer relief.
“That’s why you looked pale,” he said. “Your air flow was being constricted.”
“Yeah,” I laughed out. “I’m bloated.”
“Where?” He eyed me.
I ran a hand over my stomach and we both became quiet. When we looked at each other, it was like we both melted.
Two days later we went to Rome to see a doctor who confirmed the pregnancy. We heard the baby’s heartbeat and brought home a souvenir from the appointment—an ultrasound picture.
From there, we spent the rest of the summer exploring Europe.
I was both dreading and anticipating going back to Vegas. I was enjoying my time with Big. He’d always been attentive to me, but he was even more so after he found out about the baby. And I was eating up the attention, allowing him to spoil me, because it was almost like he got off on it. Then again, we had a lot to look forward to at home.
We were going to be a family of five in under a year.
Because of Phoenix’s anxiety over losing the people he loved, we decided to wait to tell anyone, just in case something happened early on. The only one who knew besides us was Georgia, and she was stealthy about asking how I was feeling when my brothers were around. She was keeping them company in Greece until we all met back in Vegas.
I was uneasy about that, too, given how Angelo was acting toward her, but Big told me to let it be. There was nothing I could do about Angelo’s feelings. One day, he would talk to him about it.
Then there was the situation with my mom and the torching of the apartment complex she lived in. She was okay, but I wasn’t sure why she was being targeted, unless I was. I didn’t have enemies that I could think of, except for maybe a few people I pissed off in traffic. Unless Whoever was trying to go through me to get to Big. When the shooting first happened, I’d asked him if he had any idea of who’d done it—not at the moment, but it could be anyone.He’d said if he didn’t have enemies, “I’m not conducting my business like I should.”
So…
That made me entirely uneasy, but I’d decided to put it on the back burner until we got home from Italy. I could tell Big was being even more protective in Italy after his call from Umberto. Big following me to Triora wasn’t just about him missing me. He wanted to be wherever I was, especially if it was a new place. And he was being even more paranoid about starting cars. In Vegas, all his cars were started by pressing a button on the key fob in case it was rigged with explosives. He was doing the same in the places we visited, and he was the only one who drove us.
It sent a sick roll through my stomach as we boarded the plane with my brothers, Georgia, and Lidia. I had hours of peace on the flight to Portofino, knowing we were landing in an entirely different world, but I was anxious the entire ride home.
Even when we stopped in New York for Big to attend to some business. I’d never been, and it would have been amazing to take it all in. Whenever I looked back on the trip, all I’d probably remember was the black cloud hovering over our lives.
It was appropriate, then, that when we landed in Las Vegas, it was raining.
CHAPTER28
Mr. Big
A grin cameto my face as Angelo opened the door for Leonora, and a hot-pink heel peeked out. He gave her his hand and helped her from the car. Her hair was still the color of sun-touched honey, but she’d gotten it cut shorter after we returned to Vegas. She was wearing flowing black pants and a blazer with sleeves that were rolled to the elbows. She lifted her sunglasses over her head and adjusted the bag on her shoulder, turning some, and it was apparent by the white shirt she wore, which showed a little bit of stomach, that she was pregnant.
We’d been back for a month, and Leonora was already twenty-four weeks pregnant. We were meeting at the doctor’s office to do the “big” ultrasound to make sure everything looked okay and to find out the sex of our baby. We both wanted to know.
Anger stirred in the pit of my stomach when Angelo put his hand on her lower back and ushered her, with another guard, into the building.
I refused to be in the same car, same room in public, with my wife.
The motherfucker who shot me, who burned down my building, the one my mother-in-law lived in, still hadn’t been found.
Which was why I refused to put her in jeopardy by being close to her in public. She rode only in the fleet of armored cars I’d bought—which I was making good money on by renting them out—and Angelo was her chauffeur. He also stood by her side wherever she went. He was her brother and a man I could trust with her safety. She’d always put her brothers first, and almost traded her life for Angelo’s when she decided to steal from me. He’d learn what it meant by doing the same for his sister. And I’d make sure nothing happened to either of them. But my wife rarely went out anymore because we both felt safer with her being at home.
I looked at Umberto.
I ran fucking Vegas with my cousin Gio. And no one was going to beat me at my own game. Umberto was my answers guy. I paid him to find out what I needed to know, and if he didn’t get me answers soon, he was going to get a bullet to his brain.
He knew I was on the edge, and if I was to that point, someone was going to pay.
