Page 39 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Michael

Our baby arrives just on time, although she’s late according to the date provided by our doctor.

I barely survive the agonizing uncertainty of child birth, although I’m careful not to emphasize my difficulties when talking to Myra.

She did all of the work, after all. Her natural birth recovery will be about six weeks.

I use every last minute of that time gathering up my resources to plan Myra’s dream wedding…

Once our wedding is over, we will finally be together – the three of us, a family.

I stand in the dressing room alone, fitting a tie around my neck as I prepare to see my wife for the first time in twenty-four hours.

Wedding traditions will be the death of me and I miss Myra.

The next time I see her and hold her close will be after the wedding.

I miss her already. Upon consideration, my looks aren’t horrible, although I’m certain that I’m not enough for Myra.

She probably looks ethereal today and I’m just… better than normal.

“We’re coming in,” Luigi announces alongside his knock on my dressing room door. We? I turn around to see my best man and his surprise guest, Delphine.

“Wow!” Delphine exclaims. “Michael, I didn’t know you cleaned up so well.”

Her dress coordinates with Luigi’s powder blue best man suit, so they look like the perfect couple. Luigi’s arm snakes comfortably over Delphine’s shoulder as he pulls her in close to him.

“Myra won’t recognize you,” Luigi reassures me.

Delphine looks up at her husband with an expression of such deep love that I feel moved in a way that normally wouldn’t affect me in the slightest. Romance was never my thing.

Well, it was. Twelve years ago, I met a woman…

a beautiful, untouched woman with skin the color of warm, roasted almonds and a smile that made me want her in my life.

Nobody in my house smiled like Myra, my mother certainly never did.

“I’m not a suit guy,” I grumble as I fuss with my beard. I had it trimmed and shaped up last night, but now that I have to show Myra the results of my grooming, I don’t know how I feel about it all.

“Myra wants to marry the person, not the suit,” Delphine says. “There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

“Trust me, Delphine. I am not nervous.”

I turn to both of them with a smile that finally feels triumphant and genuine.

Delphine’s concerns couldn’t be further from my own.

Nervous? No. But I am eager. I waited over a decade to get Myra back into my life and after today, she will be a Corsini forever.

There’s nobody left to hurt her or destroy the aspects of her personality that I am deeply in love with.

After this, it’s official. I get to be with her and my daughter for the rest of my living days.

“I’m happy.”

Delphine and Luigi squeeze each other. The way they hold each other for comfort reminds me of the relationship I have with Myra. Close. Connected. They’re a proper family and time together has only strengthened Delphine’s position. She even won over Leandro.

“I’d like a moment with Michael, darling,” Luigi says to Delphine, planting a kiss on her lips while his hand rests gently on the small of her lower back. Delphine moves her body closer to her husbands and my craving for Myra intensifies.

“I’ll check on Myra and the bridesmaids,” Delphine says. “Flora got a little too big for her dress since the last measurements and when I left them, there was a bit of a meltdown going on.”

Delphine disappears to hopefully address the meltdown without much drama, leaving me and Luigi alone in the dressing room. With Delphine out of the room, Luigi’s expression hardens. My instincts are right – he’s here to talk business. He puts a hand on my shoulder and tries to soften the blow.

“Ready for it?”

“As ready as any man can be for lifelong commitment.”

Luigi laughs. “We’re well bred for it.”

“Yes. We are.”

“Dad wants to talk to you today.”

The mob boss, Leandro Taviani, wants to have a conversation with me. I can count on one hand the individual conversations I’ve had with Luigi’s father. We’re family, but that sometimes means you get the pleasure of going years without speaking to each other, suffering no love lost.

Leandro doesn’t scare me in the traditional sense, but he has total power over my life and I killed his underboss. He’s been alive too long to believe the story that the lazy ass Buffalo cops came up with to explain the spate of Italian deaths around the city.

“Great.” I don’t think I pull off casual.

I adjust my tie and then my cufflinks. If Myra were here, how would she want me to react?

All I know is that she wouldn’t want me to run away – although I doubt she would approve of any violence.

Luigi’s hand tightens on my shoulder and the sense of pending doom surrounds me.

“He knows,” Luigi says, remaining poised for my reaction as his hand remains on my shoulder in some half-baked effort to comfort me. Sensitivity has never been either of our strong suits.

Gooseflesh spreads across my skin. Luckily, the suit conceals my physiological reactions. I don’t know if I can stop my face from turning bright red from the discomfort of having to face the past today when I only want to think about Myra and our baby.

“I’m in trouble then.”

Luigi shakes his head. “I have assurances.”

Our brief eye contact after that serves as a silent exchange of information.

The longer you spend involved in the family business, the more natural your skill of nonverbal communication.

He spoke to his father about the typical consequences for an unsanctioned murder.

There are exceptions to every rule of course, but this wasn’t one of them.

“How pissed off?”

“He grew up with your father.”

“Will Myra suffer because of what I’ve done?”

“No,” Luigi says. “But… I can’t predict how my father will react. Only my assurances.”

I nod with understanding and Luigi changes the subject to some of the pettier details of the day – the problem with Flora’s dress, the caterer nearly forgetting the cake at her house, and then he gets a call from Angela, who made the trip back east with her new husband Devin just for the wedding.

Leandro knocks on the door a few minutes after Luigi leaves.

I don’t have much “getting ready” left in me, so I have a bottle of whiskey open and a seat.

There’s not enough alcohol in my body to properly prepare me for a conversation with the boss.

The room chills when he enters, despite his smile.

Luigi’s father never smiles with his eyes – they remain sharp and as black as a shark’s.

“Your father always wanted you to get married in a church,” he says, walking straight towards my bottle of whiskey and taking it off the dressing table without asking. I would have deferred to him regardless. I rise quickly once the boss enters the room.

“The new house is gorgeous. I’d rather make good use of the property.”

He looks at the mirror, catching my eye as he sets my bottle of whiskey back down.

“You picked a great spot. Reminds me of the house on Seneca Hill.”

Myra thought the same thing. I suppose it’s easier for them to see the similarities between the two places, but it’s different for me.

Living in that house caring for CC was a nightmare only temporarily assuaged by Myra’s presence as my younger sister’s tutor.

Every minute in that house I didn’t spend with Myra was weighed down with constant agitation.

This house is much different. I haven’t had a moment of misery since moving in with Myra, and I don’t plan on our lives returning to that deeply stressful state I experienced before. I could never allow that to happen.

“Yes. The houses are similar.”

Leandro turns to face me. Our silent communication vibrates through the room.

I expect harsh words. A punishment. I brace myself for whatever Leandro dishes out.

Obedience has been my only mandate in this family for years.

If the time were to come when I might become Luigi’s underboss, I would gladly accept the role, but I never expected it.

I never expected a damned thing from this family except work and death – perhaps some money.

“Over fifty years ago, your father and I visited family in Italy together. Did he ever tell you about that heritage trip to Tuscany?”

Leandro always had a much closer relationship with his children than my father had with us, something Leandro often tried to correct to no avail in the man he called his best friend.

“Perhaps. I don’t recall.”

“Life is short, Mikey. But it’s also the longest thing there is. We all have to face the music at the end.”

“Yes.”

I’m careful not to say too much. Leandro’s intentions remain a mystery to me and while I trust Luigi has told me the truth, that doesn’t mean I trust his father not to lie to him and take revenge.

For all I know, I could end up slumped over that dressing table with a butcher knife in my back. Or a bullet.

Leandro remains calm as his hand curves around the whiskey bottle again, and he tips more liquor to his lips. He continues speaking after another hefty sip, “Your father lived by his gun and that was exactly how he wanted to die.”

I did the dirty work myself. I looked my father in the face and told him exactly why this was happening to him.

And as for the rest… I preserved as much of my father’s dignity and humanity as possible for an assassination.

No explosive bullets to his head. He had an open casket and he looked just fine despite his time in the harbor.

Still, I don’t understand Leandro’s angle here, and that makes me nervous. The boss is steely eyed when he looks at me.

“I’m getting old, Mikey.”