As much as I hate it, I nod. “I do.”
“Good. If you ever come near my daughter again, I will kill you where you stand, regardless of circumstance. Understand?”
I’m granted one last glimpse of Aerin and my heart grows hollow. “Yes. I understand.”
39
AERIN
When I’m not attending visits with my doctor or pregnancy classes with my mom, I’m helping my father rebuild his empire. News spread quickly about my brother’s betrayal, and with my father’s ailing health, we’re fish swimming in shark-infested waters.
I hate him.
But I promised Falco I would protect our baby, so that’s what I do.
Within a month of taking over from my father, I have a new deal worked out with the Italians and their gunrunning business. Coupled with a new drug deal with the cartel, the Irish are forced to back down on their threats to crush us into dust. They even propose the marriage again.
I swiftly reject it.
Many men stare at me with wide eyes and think they can get one over on a pregnant woman, but Falco taught me to defendmyself, so I have no qualms about spilling a little blood so people know I’m serious.
Six months after his departure, a box arrives in the post. Inside is the aquamarine sea glass I’d found up at the cabin and forgotten about until now. It rests inside a white gold locket, and I immediately place it around my neck, hoping Falco would appear next.
He doesn’t. Instead, just as I’m in full swing organizing a charity fundraiser to soften the family’s image in the public eye, my father dies.
His health has been rapidly declining as I made myself big so he could rest and heal in peace. Then, one evening he retires to bed and that’s it. He passes without noise or fuss and the great Guido Paramatti is buried four days later in the Paramatti family crypt.
My mother breaks down. She stops eating. She stops sleeping. She drinks heavily and blames my pregnancy and my affair with Falco as the last nail in my father’s coffin.
She blames me up until I go into labor a month later and my darling daughter Keira is born.
Her arrival injected new life into Mom, and she became a completely different person. No nanny is needed when work calls because she’s right there to help.
I don’t know where I would be without her, because the death of my father tore open a can of worms I hadn’t known was festering in the background.
When Giacomo died, those loyal to him were hunted and killed. But a few remain, snakes in the grass that rear their ugly headsnot long after Keira was born. Cutting them down takes almost as much attention as trying to survive with a newborn.
Through it all, I never stop thinking about Falco.
The moment the family crypt closed on my father, I put out feelers to try and find out where in the world Falco ended up. To no avail.
He left under my father’s order and became a ghost.
Then, one stormy night, while Keira screams in my arms and refuses to take her bottle, while my skin is clammy with sweat and puke, and I haven’t taken a shower, dreadful news is brought to me by my guard.
Mom is gone.
Taken is more accurate.
She left the estate intent on purchasing baby clothes and toys for Keira and never returned. Two hours later, her guards are found shot and killed in a parked car just off the highway.
Mom is gone.
There’s no ransom demand.
Dad is dead.
Falco is gone.
