Page 78 of Bellini Bound

“Yeah, only until she births a little leather-jacket-wearing, motorcycle-riding, buzzed-head mini Enzo.”

The sip of scotch I’d just taken went down the wrong pipe, and I coughed violently.

Matteo chuckled as he gave me a hearty slap on the back. “Bet you’ll be one of those ‘cool dads’ who let their kid get a tattoo at fourteen.”

“Never,” I croaked.

“Seems mildly hypocritical considering you’re covered in them.”

Clearing my throat a few times wasn’t enough to keep my voice from coming out hoarse. “Not talking about a tattoo. Kids. We’re not having them.”

“No?” His dark eyebrows rose. “Allie’s cool with that?”

I stood, walking into the private bathroom inside his office in search of a towel to wipe away the droplets of scotch that had landed on my dress shirt. “Doesn’t really matter,” I called over my shoulder while cleaning up.

“Take it from a man who’s made major reproductive choices without asking his wife first, it fucking matters.”

Stepping back into his office, I countered, “Itdoesn’tmatter because it’s a hard limit for me.”

“Marriage used to be a hard limit for you,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, and if I recall correctly, I was forced into that shit.”

Matteo smirked, completely unapologetic. “You don’t seem too broken up about it these days. So, who’s to say you might not feel the same way about fatherhood at some point down the road?”

“I say so!” I shouted. “It’s my fucking life, and I’m not having kids, okay? End of story.”

He reared back at my outburst, wide-eyed. Shaking his head, he said, “Sorry. I’ll drop it.”

About goddamn time.

Though Matteo became the target of my anger, he wasn’t the root cause. No, that honor went to the man whose genetic material I possessedand outright refused to pass on. I might not be anything like my father, but there were no guarantees that his sadistic tendencies wouldn’t skip a generation. What was I expected to do if any son of mine inherited his penchant for violence and I discovered he was hurting his kids? Turn a blind eye? And what if, God forbid, Gio never found Rory, and he didn’t produce an heir of his own? With Matteo having only daughters, a male child of mine would then automatically be first in line to become this family’s leader for the next generation. I could never doom an innocent life to that fate.

The decision to remain childless until my dying day was final.

“Nope. Get the fuck out of my house.”

I wasnotin the mood to deal with this after my argument with Matteo.

“Enzo!” Allie slipped off the kitchen stool, moving in my direction. “I thought you said you were working late tonight.”

My eyes remained trained over her head. “What isshedoing here?”

Briefly peeking over her shoulder toward the two women still seated at the island, my wife turned back to me. “We, um, started a book club.”

“A book club.” I blinked at Allie.

“Yeah, you know, where a group of people read the same book and then discuss it once they’re done?”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed. “I know what a book club is.”

“Oh, then—”

“I just have one question,” I spoke directly to the bane of my existence. “How did you make it past the circle of salt I painstakingly placed around my property to keep the demons out?”

Gabi didn’t back down. She never did; she always had some smartass remark ready and waiting on the tip of her tongue, which was part of what made her especially infuriating.

Lifting her chin, she returned fire. “Can’t say I’m surprised you left a gap. It’s probably hard to see with all the sunlight being blocked out, living in yourlittle cousin’sshadow.”