Page 72 of Bellini Bound

“Wheeeeeeeee!” Serafina raced down the track for what seemed like the millionth time in the last hour, her youthful giggles filling the air.

Okay, Allie kinda knocked it out of the park with the kiddie roller coaster. The girls had demanded that Matteo and I assemble it the minute they unwrapped the box, abandoning all the other gifts yet to be opened.

Bianca took the first few runs, showing her little sister how it was done, then they began to take turns. However, since sharing was a difficult concept for toddlers to grasp, Serafina soon became the sole rider.

Thankfully, it wasn’t much of an issue because Summer and Allie pulled Bianca to present her with a bunch of “big girl” gifts, and the five-year-old was more than thrilled with the special attention.

“E-zo! E-zo! Play!” A whole hand’s worth of tiny fingers wrapped around one of my larger ones and tugged.

“All right.” I chuckled, rising from the couch, following her to the long ramp that made up the roller coaster. I grabbed her around the middle to lift her onto the wheeled cart, which resembled a motorcycle, at the top of the track. “Up you go.”

Her tiny feet kicked wildly. “No!”

“Okay.” I set her down again.

“E-zo ride!” Serafina patted the cart’s seat.

Tilting my head to the side, I eyed the toy, wondering if I could pull this off. Like she could read my mind, Allie called out, “No way. The weight limit is fifty pounds.”

I flashed her a cheeky grin. “Weight limits are merely suggestions.”

“Enzo,” she drew my name out in warning.

Hitching my leg over the other side of the ramp, I prepared to lower myself onto the tiny cart’s seat. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

My wife opened her mouth to protest further, but I’d already perched one ass cheek onto the cart and shoved off the ground to propel it down the ramp. I made it to exactly the halfway mark before there was an ear-splitting crack, and I tumbled sideways onto the carpet.

“Oops.” I stared at the wreckage of the roller coaster. The cart had lost a wheel, and the thick plastic track was split right down the middle.

“If this isn’t an appropriate time to say, ‘I told you so,’ then I don’t know when is,” my wife muttered wryly.

Propping myself up on one elbow, I looped my free arm around Serafina’s waist, hauling her toward me until she landed on her little bum. Gently, I squished her cheeks. “How could I say no to this little face?”

“Her father also suffers from that same affliction,” Summer teased, gazing lovingly at Matteo.

In one fluid movement, I rose to my feet while tossing Serafina over my shoulder, and she let out a delighted squeal. “We’d better go test out theball pit next!” I declared, running to the opposite corner of the living room where an inflated castle filled with plastic balls was situated.

With a flying leap, I dove in, holding Serafina over my head. Laughter filtered in through the mesh sides, and a quick peek caught Bianca gripping her sides, sprawled across Allie’s lap, having fallen over in her fit of giggles.

“Uncle Enzo’s so silly,” she announced to no one in particular.

Allie smoothed a hand over the little girl’s dark hair. “He sure is, isn’t he?” Then her eyes lifted, and I sucked in a sharp breath, seeing the stars in them aimed in my direction.

Uh oh.

I wasn’t just fucked up over this girl. I had majorlyfucked up.

Allie had fully accepted her place within this family. Hell, she’d gotten comfortable in her role as my wife.

But she never would have agreed to marry me if we weren’t literally holding a gun to her father’s head. And she certainly didn’t belong here, tethered to the darkness that would eventually extinguish the bright light inside her that made her glow from within.

She deserved the best this world had to offer, and I couldn’t give that to her.

So that left only one option: I had to set her free.

A brilliant bolt of agony tore through me, the mere thought of giving her up making it hard to breathe. It was the right thing to do, but it could wait until morning.

Tomorrow, I would sever the growing connection between us. Tonight was for cherishing every second we had left together.