Page 12 of Banished and Pregnant by Her Sicilian Billionaire Husband

IT’S MY FIRST TIME to be this close to Marcello again. I’ve imagined this moment for years. But I never imagined it would happen because of this. My daughter almost abducted. And that’s why...

“Let me see your hands.”

I barely manage to keep my voice from shaking, and my heart’s still pounding against my chest. I can’t make myself care at all about being in the same car as my husband. How can I when Rica was almost...

“Mama—”

I smile at her, but my voice is firm when I repeat my request. “Hands, baby.”

She gives them to me with a sigh. Like what just happened is totally nothing to her while here I am, struggling to keep myself together as I turn her little hands over in mine. I check both sides carefully then her wrists, then her elbows. I push her hair back off her forehead and look at every inch of her face while the car goes up the ramp and out into the traffic.

There’s a scrape on the heel of her left hand. That’s all. One scrape, from where a man I have never seen before put his whole body between her and a van.

“Does anything hurt?”

“My hand a bit.”

“Anything else? Anywhere, even if it’s small.”

“No.” A pause. “My bag’s still in your car.”

“I know. We’ll get it back. I promise.”

She nods. Then she crawls into me the way she used to at three, all knees and elbows, her face pushed into my neck, and that’s when I feel it. With my baby girl in my arms, I’m close enough to feel how her heart is beating faster than it should, but when I look down, and Rica lifts her head to look into my eyes...

No, she’s not pretending to be brave or anything.

She knows what happened wasn’t a good thing.

But because she’s with me...and him...it seems that’s enough for her. She believes with all her heart she’s safe, and I...I realize that’s what I believe, too.

I know there will always be people who’d think that we had this coming. Marcello never lied about who he was when we first met. I knew what I was getting into when I married him. He wasn’t lying when he told me that his family was done with that life. And I wasn’t lying either when I promised to stand by him, for better or for worse.

The day he threw me out of his home still haunts me to this day. It breaks my heart every time I remember it. But even so. No matter what Marcello feels about me, I know he’ll do everything to keep Rica safe and that’s why, when I see how our baby girl has fallen asleep...

“It’s not your fault,” I whisper.

Marcello jerks as my words shatter the silence between us like a sledgehammer. He hasn’t said a single word during the entire drive...or at least not to me. Earlier, Rica did ask him if those men were coming back, and he had answered without hesitation.

“No, piccola mia. Nobody’s coming back.”

He had said it the way people would say one and one equals two, and that had been enough for our daughter. And honestly, it had been enough for me, too. The only one Marcello failed to assure...was himself.

“I saw you, Marcello. You did everything possible—”

“Don’t.”

I look at him in confusion. What does he mean—

“This is my fault, and we both know it.”

The rage in his eyes finally makes sense. It’s nothing but a cover-up, his fury at those men masking his pain for what he sees as his failure in keeping our daughter safe.

“Those men came for her because of who I am—”

I’m already shaking my head even though I know it’s folly to go against a Bastianelli, especially when they’re not their usual calm self. “It’s because of who you were! It’s because of who your family used to be. All of you left that life behind you, and so you need to stop blaming yourself—”

“Then you do it instead!”