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“Took care of us? You made us secondhand citizens, and I’m not playing second fiddle to anyone. I’m a di Cecco. You’re just a whore’s son.”
“Call my mother a whore again and I’ll slit your throat from ear to ear.”
It was a standoff then. I looked at him and he stared back at me. Maybe he was right. Maybe my mother had been a whore. I couldn’t confirm or deny that.
I didn’t know how she met and got tangled up with my dad. It hadn’t mattered, because she had loved me and I had loved her.
Matteo took a deep breath then and smiled. I wasn’t expecting that. Something was up.
Did he send those men to kill me the other night? I had thought that, but…no…he wouldn’t have put a hit out on me? Right?
“Did you send them, Matteo? To kill me? To burn down my house?”
“You gonna cry? If I wanted to hurt you, trust me, I would hit a lot closer to home. Like your wife, for example. You think yourcrew is thrilled that you married that dead cop’s wife? You’re out here making emotional moves instead of strategic ones. And look where it’s gotten you…on the run…struggling to figure out your next move. Everyone sees it. You’re off your game. You married that woman, and now you can’t function. You can’t take care of business or do what needs to be done. Face it, Dario. You barely know what’s going on anymore. You aren’t the leader you thought you were.”
Normally, I would have dismissed his blustering as just that—random words from a nobody trying to scare me into giving up what was rightfully mine, but now I wasn’t too sure.
Had my obsession and marriage to Mya led to this? I knew that rival gangs were trying to encroach on my turf, and that someone close to me was likely betraying me, but had I dropped the ball somewhere along the way? Was my destabilized empire my own fault?
I didn’t think so, but Matteo was a gifted manipulator. Had he used my marriage to Mya to sow seeds of discontent within my own organization? As I looked at him, I had a feeling that he had.
I didn’t know yet how I would fix the damage he’d caused, but I would, and then I would make him pay.
“I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work.”
I turned to walk away when I saw Matteo snap his fingers. One of his men came up and handed me something. A thin file.
I looked at Matteo, who had a Cheshire Cat smile on his face. I pulled the papers from the file and realized they were photos.
Photos of Mya. My stomach turned. When I told Mya that I hadn’t been the only one following her or the only one to know that she had tried to kill Nico, I had thought I was lying…just telling her something that would keep her scared enough to cling on to me, but these pictures were evidence that I had been right after all.
I wished now that I had just been bluffing. I hated that it was actually true.
I opened my mouth to tell him to stay away from Mya, when I noticed something odd in the pictures. One picture was taken of her going into a store. I flipped through the images and found one that had been taken of her inside the store. I squinted to see what she was pulling off a shelf.
Pregnancy tests. A whole box of them.
I stared at them, the wind knocked from my body.
I pulled out the last photo. It was a picture of medical records. Mya’s records. She was pregnant.
Dr. Kali’s name was on the files.
I felt rage wash over me in a wave of cold. Had they hurt the doctor? Why hadn’t he told me? Why hadn’t she told me?
I thought of her watching me at work, thought of her pleading with me to choose her over this life. I thought of her begging me not to kill my brother.
Of course she hadn’t told me. She was scared of me.
I felt sick, but I also finally understood how she felt. I knew now why she didn’t love me and couldn’t trust me.
“I’m so excited to be an uncle,” Matteo said in a sing-song voice as I looked up and he smiled at me knowingly.
The mocking tone made me tense my jaw in rage. I wanted to put a bullet through his brain. Instead, I tucked the photos back into the envelope under my arm.
“If you ever come even within a foot of Mya again, I’ll kill you. Is that clear?”
I walked away, not waiting for an answer. Mya was pregnant. I almost stumbled over my own feet as my brain repeated those words again and again. Pregnant.