Page 53 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

Marco doesn’t wait.

He knows better.

"She has daughters. Twin girls."

My heart stops, then starts again with a fury that feels like drowning.

I told her I didn’t do kids.

"Marco," I say, my voice no longer lazy, no longer amused.

"Why the hell are you telling me this?"

He doesn’t answer immediately.

There’s a sound in the background—papers shifting, footsteps pacing.

When he speaks again, there’s nothing soft in it.

"Because they’re yours, Dante."

The room doesn’t move.

The music doesn’t stop.

The club doesn’t collapse in on itself.

But I do.

Somewhere inside, quietly, without blood or noise.

I don’t hear the rest.

I don’t ask how he knows.

I don’t remember how to speak.

All I hear is the echo of a name I haven’t said aloud in five years—and the impossible, irreversible truth that follows it.

She has daughters.

She did not get that abortion.

The girls are mine.

9

GIANNA

The city unfurls beneath the car window in soft, blinking lights and the shimmer of glass towers waking under a dull sun as my brother drives us to the Salvatore estate.

It has been many years since I last rode in a car driven by Rafa Salvatore, and the irony does not escape me now, though neither of us is in the mood for words that lighten or decorate.

The man behind the wheel speaks only when he must, and when he does, it’s without warmth.

The twins, strapped into their car seats in the back, are wide-eyed and murmuring between themselves about everything that passes.

They’ve grown up in a city, yes—but not like this.