“Vinnie is next,” Stefan said with a bite to his tone. “And he’s mine.”
I nodded. “He was one of your guys. You should execute him.”
Stefan gave me an appreciative look but didn’t speak. We had all agreed on the ways we would torture our enemies.
I walked over to Ava and held out my palm. She slipped her fingers between mine, breathing hard.
“It’s okay to be afraid.” I pulled her to my chest. “But this is how we do business.”
Ava covered her mouth with her hand, turning her head away from me.
“What’s wrong?”
“The smell.” Her nose scrunched. “It’s turning my stomach.”
“Get used to it, my queen. This won’t be the last time you’re in this room.”
“It stinks of death and bleach. I can’t…”
She moved across the room and puked on the floor, her body shaking from the action. Nico was the first to react and held her in his arms, stroking his fingers down her back. I didn’t know how to console a person. But Nico was good at it.
I moved beside her and inspected her face, wiping the spit from her mouth with my handkerchief. “You’ve been sick a lot lately.”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “I think the drugs messed up my stomach. They knocked me out a bunch of times. Who knows what they gave me.”
I glanced at Nico, who had a concerned look on his face. Without words, I could tell we were thinking the same thing. Our father was only in the ground for a few days.
But with death comes life.
Angelo cleaned the blood off his hands and walked over to us with Stefan at his side. “Everything okay, pretty girl?”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel good.”
Angelo tucked her hair behind her ears. “Are you still taking your pills?”
She shook her head. “No, not since before Vinnie kidnapped me.”
Nico’s face lit up with a smile. “I think you’re pregnant.”
“No.” She waved her hand to dismiss the idea. “I can’t be. We have too much going on. It’s not a good time.”
Stefan laughed. “That’s not how this works. You don’t get to pick and choose.”
Ava bit her lip, her eyes finding mine. “But I’m marrying Dante. I can’t be pregnant.”
I raised my hand to beckon her. She inched forward until our chests pressed together. Her body trembled as if she feared my response to the situation. I wasn’t mad. The thought of her possibly carrying my child excited me.
“You looked scared.” I clutched her shoulder. “Don’t be. I’m not mad. This is a good thing. We’ll figure it out as a family.”
ChapterNineteen
STEFAN
Ilearned how to swing a baseball bat when I was five. The old man took me down to the park with my brothers under the pretense I had a shot at being something other than a Wiseguy. Back then, I’d wanted to be many things—a baseball player, a Marine, a cowboy, and even a cop.
I thought I had a choice.
I thought I had a future.
