Page 39 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

He holds my gaze a few moments too long.

"If there’s something wrong, Gianna, you need to tell me."

I return his stare with one of my own.

"If there was something wrong, you wouldn’t be the first person I’d tell."

It’s cruel, but effective.

He lets me pass, though I can feel his gaze lingering on my back as I climb the stairs, cataloging everything I don’t say.

I lock the door once I get to my room, not because I think anyone will enter, but because I need to allow myself a few minutes without performance.

I sit on the edge of the bed, hands folded, eyes fixed on the ledger left half open on the writing desk.

I don’t move.

I don’t cry.

I consider the options, the liabilities, the risks.

And I reach one conclusion.

I cannot raise this child under Rafa’s roof, not without assurance that my position is ironclad.

And I will not raise it with Dante, not after the way he spoke of permanence like it was a punishment.

If spending a lifetime getting fucked by the mafia prince means losing my baby, I’m out.

But there is someone else.

Someone who knows exactly how to play the long game.

Someone who has protected herself inside the most dangerous marriage in the country, and turned it into an empire.

Someone who understands that in a city like ours, family is always both weapon and weakness.

Valentina Salvatore.

I pick up my phone and compose the message without ceremony.

We need to talk. Alone. Tomorrow, if possible. Let me know where.

I hit send, set the phone down, and begin pulling the necessary files from my safe.

If she agrees to see me, I need to walk in prepared.

A few minutes later, the screen lights up.

Greenhouse. Noon.

I place the phone face down on the table.

The clock ticks, the window glass turns silver with the changing light, and somewhere inside me, a plan begins to take shape.

It stays tucked close to my heart all the way to the next afternoon, to the point where I arrive at the destined location for my meeting with her.

The greenhouse is tucked behind the main estate, invisible from the road and obscured from most of the house by a long row of cypress hedges and a shallow reflecting pool that no one maintains anymore.