Page 83 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

At this point, I was willing to fuck a hole in the wall if it made me stop thinking about Nyah Matish.

Nyah smiled as she sorted through all the gifts I’d brought her, but as she took out the last one, her shoulders shook again, the tears back.

“Ah, fuck,” I muttered. “Seriously. You gotta tell me what’s wrong. My gran always used to say a problem shared is a problem halved.”

She shook her head miserably. “This isn’t a problem your granny, or you, can solve for me.” Her watery eyes met mine. “Carlos has had a vasectomy.”

It took me a second to understand why that mattered. But when I realized, I swore under my breath. “No. Are you sure? He told you that?”

She shook her head. “No, but Virginia did. She took him ice packs after he had the procedure, Lynx! He’s snipped! There is no way of making him think he’s this baby’s father, even if I could get the old coot to sleep with me.”

“Fuck.” I rubbed my hand over my face. “This is bad.”

She sighed. “Maybe it wasn’t a good plan to begin with.”

I stared at her. “Maybe not, but it was a better plan than just standing by and watching Carlos take that baby from you. Or your father doing worse if you tried to back out.”

She buried her face in her hands. “Maybe I should have just gotten an abortion.”

The idea of her being forced into something like that made me want to murder someone. Namely her father. I gripped her chin and forced her face up so she looked at mine. “Hey. You want that baby. There is no scenario where you being forced into an abortion is okay.”

I could tell from the protective way she cradled her stomach that an abortion still wasn’t an option. No matter what that meant for her.

“He’s going to kill me,” Nyah said slowly, like she was thinking it through in her head, now that she’d finally stopped crying.

“No, he’s not,” I swore with certainty. “I won’t let that happen.”

She patted me on the leg, like it was a nice thought but a naïve one. “You can’t protect me all the time, Lynx.”

I knew she was right. I hadn’t been able to stop Carlos Guerra spreading her legs and finger-fucking her in front of a room full of his men. If I couldn’t stop that, I couldn’t stop him killing her if he wanted to.

Her eyes took on new determination. “I can hide this pregnancy until it’s born. I’m sure of it. I’m already months in, and nobody would even know. I’ll get some baggier clothes…”

“And once you’re married? What then? He’s going to want to see you naked.” The words tasted sour in my mouth.

I didn’t want anyone seeing her naked. Not anyone but me.

Fuck this crush. Honestly.

“I’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t. Doggy-style sex, I guess. Or I’ll just blow him.”

I wanted to pick up that freaking baby book and smash myself over the head with it. Repetitively. Anything to stop me hearing her talk about fucking the old man.

“Great plan,” I forced out, even though it was the worst plan I’d ever heard of. “But that doesn’t solve the problem of what happens after it’s born.”

“Then Carlos kills me.”

The way she said it, so matter-of-factly, made me sick.

Because we both knew it could very well be the truth.

“And the baby? What? He sells it? Kills it too?”

That fierce expression came back into her eyes. “No. That can’t happen. I don’t care about what he does to me. I’ll take it. But the baby hasn’t done anything wrong. Dax will take it.”

Oh, she was deluded. “Dax won’t even get a chance!” I whisper-shouted at her. “Carlos isn’t just going to hand it over to him and say, ‘Oh hey, have a nice life!’”

The fight went out of her. She knew I was right.