Page 33 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Myra

M ichael wakes me up every morning with breakfast in bed and a cup of decaffeinated tea.

He hasn’t said anything since my confession over the last few days, but now that we have spent so much time in each other’s company, I understand his shifting moods and reserved personality a lot better.

He’s thinking of something – maybe even planning something.

And I don’t think it has to do with the baby on the way.

CC offers no relevant information. She has always had a talent – or maybe just the training – to hide the true nature of her family’s activities.

It feels like I have a giant watermelon strapped to my body and this watermelon loves shoving its limbs, feet, and elbows into my various organs.

The heartburn situation has only become worse and I just can’t wait for the baby to come.

Michael seems to share my excitement, but whenever I try to engage him in a conversation that isn’t about food or sports games he can bet on, he gets a distant, pensive look. After five days, I reach my absolute peak for Michael’s shenanigans. I have to get an answer out of him.

Since nobody will tell me what the hell is going on around here, I’ll have to deep dive on my own.

Michael normally spends ninety minutes at the gym, giving me plenty of time to search the house after breakfast while CC sleeps.

She’s a night owl and not often up early in the morning, which suits me just fine.

The house is huge with a fireplace in every bedroom and so many different nooks and private wings that I can easily get lost when I stray from my zone – the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and the family room where I curl up on the couch next to Michael to watch his precious Buffalo Bills irritate the hell out of him.

Michael has a home office upstairs where he spends part of the day ‘managing business’ – a vague term that he uses as if I didn’t have multiple degrees and a full blown career before my chance encounter with his sister at Belladonna’s.

He trusts me enough not to bother locking his office, plus I haven’t moved much since my baby bump got big enough to almost knock me off balance every time I move in any other way except a waddle.

The house might be old, but Michael’s desk has a mixture of modern and rustic decor, with a large mahogany statement desk anchoring the decor.

His black wallpaper with an elk pattern seems too specific not to have been selected for a specific reason – not Michael’s, since he bought the house last minute.

He doesn’t have a laptop, just two large leather bound black books.

One seems like a day planner by the week and the second one is just a large, black notebook – like a journal but without pages and pages of distinct scrawl, just intermittent notes.

He has his phone sitting on the desk – his work phone.

Heart pounding, I guess the code. It’s COSIMA typed out with six numbers.

Even if my next move is downright crazy, I can’t stop myself.

Would Michael let something being “crazy” stop him from doing it, or would he go after what he wanted?

With shaky but determined fingers, I slide open location services and share his phone’s location with mine – permanently.

Quickly, I lock the phone again with a slightly renewed sense of security now that Michael can’t completely disappear undetected.

Luckily, Michael has most of the notes dated.

I flip through a couple pages, desperate to see something useful.

I see a large circle with four words written next to it – diamond, pink diamond, sapphire.

It might be a mafia-related code of some kind.

The next words after that look like random last names.

Kleinman. Horvath. Bianco. I don’t know what the names mean and only one of the names is in Italian.

“Looking for something?”

I let out a yelp and slam the book, my gaze snapping to the doorway. It’s just CC – thank goodness. I don’t think Michael would be too pleased with me snooping around his office.

CC smiles. She doesn’t disapprove, but I don’t need Michael finding out that I was snooping. I can’t handle him throwing up more locks around this house. She walks up to me as I close Michael’s book.

“He’s planning something.”

CC sighs and rests her head on my shoulders. I can feel how sorry she is ever since she found out the truth. She has been extra caring and her fights with Michael have diminished as well.

“He might be,” CC says.

Her voice gets lower and tighter. Maybe I know CC just as well as I know Michael, because she’s hiding something too.

“What’s happening? Am I in danger?”

“No,” CC says. Her arms wrap around me more tightly. I know she wants me to stop asking questions, but I can’t help myself.

“Is Michael in danger?”

She pauses for several more beats than I expect after her next answer.

“I don’t know.” My stomach sits, unsettled. He’s planning on doing something reckless. I sense it deeply. I wrap my arms back around CC, but mostly so she can’t get away from me.

“What is he planning to do, Cosima?”

I hope calling her by her government name instead of the nickname will prompt CC to tell me the truth.

“I can’t tell you.”

The knot tightens. I should have expected that her loyalty to her family was stronger than her loyalty to me. Unfortunately, her refusal to give me any information tells me all that I need to know. He’s planning to take a life.

If Michael’s family members have what it takes to send gangs of men to attack me at several separate intervals over the years, he must know what they’re capable of, and it’s not too far of a reach for me to assume he’s capable of the same thing.

He didn’t show up twelve years later with a missing eye for nothing. Something happened to him. CC presses her face into me.

“Don’t worry about it, Myra. Please. Just come downstairs before Mikey gets done with his workout.

” She yawns, as if the mere mention of a workout makes her ready to sleep again.

This can’t be good. But if I don’t want CC to get suspicious and discuss the entire situation with Michael, leading to me further disappearing under lock and key.

“Fine. I’ll come downstairs. Any plans for today?”

“Rub your feet and come up with baby names?” CC suggests. I tell her that it sounds like a good idea while quietly mulling over our interaction in Michael’s office. She makes oatmeal for her own breakfast while I sip on a big glass of orange juice and indulge her desire to discuss baby names.

Michael emerges from the wide hallway that leads to the garage entrance wearing his tight pair of black shorts and a pair of white sneakers.

No t-shirt. Nothing but his sexy ass body dripping in sweat.

He smiles at me and my stomach does a flip.

Michael could be in danger. He’s planning on killing…

someone … and he doesn’t want me to know. But I do.

If knowing Michael might kill someone is supposed to change the way I feel or think about him, it doesn’t.

I admire his calm in the face of every wave about to hit us.

He panics over nothing, just moves swiftly from one direction to another in order to protect both me and the future of our families.

“Good morning, baby,” Michael says, crossing the room to wrap his arms around me and then plant a wet, half-sweaty kiss on my cheek. He smells gross, but hot. I want to hug him back, but I also don’t want to get wet.

If you let go of him, he’s going to die. I bury the thought and allow Michael to pull away from me and take a shower. I don’t know where my sudden burst of panic comes from, but my fears of losing Michael to mob related violence suddenly feel like the only thoughts that I can really access.

He leaves the room, and I continue my facade that everything between us is all okay, and that I blindly trust him to handle things.

I can’t. If it weren’t for CC’s revelation, I would have never noticed Michael’s small tells throughout the day.

After his shower, he eats a bigger breakfast than normal, and he doesn’t head off to work. He cleans his gun.

Then, he spends the rest of the day spoiling me.

We drive to a large orchard near a much larger lake for a picnic after a long walk.

I hate hiking, but I love a calm little nature walk outside, especially with a sweet treat at the end.

Michael delivers with fresh cinnamon rolls and sliced fruit.

Yum. After our walk and picnic, he patiently listens to me raving over my favorite new thriller and how I am desperately waiting for a new Romantasy book to drop that has a black female lead who actually looks like me.

We honestly have the perfect day together, which scares me. You ever have a day so incredible that you can’t imagine life getting any better? That’s what it felt like to be next to Michael all day. I never thought I would end up in this place again with a man.

Michael makes his best efforts to keep his secrets until it’s time for us to go to bed.

Lately, he has been completely aligned with my desire to go to bed early – at around 8:30 p.m. Tonight, he doesn’t wish to rouse my suspicions, so it’s no different.

I’ll face my biggest struggle pretending to be asleep.

Luckily, I have enough time to look up strategies for how to fake like you’re sleeping on the internet.

Listen, I wasn’t one of those badass kids and I know there are wild ones out there who have done this better than I ever could.

When Michael crawls into bed with me, I pull out my best acting skills, including my fake snoring.