Page 4 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)

Chapter One

Myra

Present Day

(Seventeen Days After Luigi Taviani’s Wedding To Delphine)

W e broke up three weeks ago and this morning, my Instagram algorithm showed me a picture of him, a tall, olive-skinned woman who looks like Nina Dobrev, a golden doodle, and an engagement ring. Surprise! My ex-boyfriend met the love of his life, and they’re getting married.

I’m going to be sick. The worst part of dealing with this bullshit is that I still have my nonrefundable appointment at the fertility clinic in a few hours to check in about which of the embryos were viable and to test my fertility.

Because of my particular health concerns, I might fall into this rare group of women who lose her fertility completely after egg harvesting.

I don’t want to think about my ex getting married and I don’t want to think about the circumstances under which he met the so-called “love of his life”.

Once this stupid appointment is done, I’m going to lie in bed and wallow in self-pity.

I wasn’t just a late bloomer, my luck kept getting worse.

It’s like I cursed myself after losing my virginity.

And the curse has only tightened its grip on me the older I get. I’m single. Again. Thirty-eight years old and I have to enter the dating market which more closely resembles a septic tank than a market. I need to throw my phone into Lake Erie.

Tristan is getting married. I can’t fucking believe it. Except… I can believe it. Tears pierce the corners of my eyes and in an act of tortured self-loathing, I re-open the text message thread containing the details of our breakup.

We were together for four years. He was supposed to be “the one”, especially since I’m running out of time.

I went to the local fertility clinic three months ago.

How is this my life? We were supposed to be on track to start a family together because we “didn’t need marriage” and now he’s on my fucking Instagram homepage holding hands with the woman I lived with throughout graduate school.

The caption is the icing on the cake. Never question God’s timing.

Continuing to stare at this Instagram post is an act of self-loathing.

Hadley & Tristan. Together forever. I’m going to puke.

The audacity of the both of them to post “Never question God’s timing” after I held this woman through breakup after breakup.

I was there for her when she had to scale a three story building to escape a Hinge date.

And she fucked my man. Not just that. Within seconds of meeting him, she had him on the fast track down the aisle.

It would be easier if Hadley Donovan was ugly, unsuccessful, or had some other minor trait about her I could sink my teeth into while I’m at my lowest. But she’s perfect.

She’s always been perfect, which made it easy for me to tell her that while she cried into my arms about one failed situationship after another.

I was the boring and safe friend in the relationship, constantly delighting in her salacious stories about one hook up after another.

The year she had a four-man-roster had to have been one of the craziest years for Hadley’s storytelling.

I guess she found her happily ever after lying on my couch playing Elden Ring on the PS5 I bought Tristan for Christmas the year it came out.

I’ll never forgive either of them for this.

I just wish I could look away from that stupid post and not let that sappy, fake as shit social media performance get to me.

Tristan and I planned this appointment together.

A little over a month later, we weren’t just over…

he’s married. I log out of the stupid app and promise myself to never look at those pictures again.

Today, I’m going in to see if my eggs are viable, which means my emotions are running high generally, but I’ll at least have a chance to slow things down with the next guy I meet and have a baby at forty-five with reasonable assurances that I’ll have a strong, healthy baby.

That’s the plan at least, since I’m starting over at thirty-eight, forced to question everything I ever thought about love and romance.

My alarm yells at me to get out of bed and prepare for the appointment. I take a nice shower and dress up in a pair of comfortable black flared leggings and a hoodie. I wear gold hoops to make the outfit feel a little more ‘put together’. I never know what to wear to these appointments, honestly.

The fertility clinic is only a fifteen minute walk away from my apartment, so I leave right on time with my headphones in, playing my good luck anthem “bad idea, right?” by Olivia Rodrigo.

That was the song playing when I found the perfect lease last year, so I’m hoping the good luck translates and the egg freezing goes well.

When I round the block to the clinic, three police cars line the normally quiet streets in this residential neighborhood with only a few law offices, doctor’s offices and insurance offices. Weird… I walk closer to the clinic when I notice the yellow tape across the door.

What the fuck? I stand on the sidewalk staring at the door when a bulky cop bursts from the clinic red in the face.

“Are you the secretary?” he asks.

“Um… no?” I stammer. I’m still confused, so I babble foolishly. “I’m here for an appointment.”

Does this cop look like he’s going to help? He looks like I’m in the way and like his politeness is being barely tethered together by pity or some sense of duty to his post as an officer.

“Doctor Pierogi is under arrest,” he says with a tight, impatient voice. “Sorry, ma’am. Your appointment is canceled.”

I can’t stop myself from asking questions, even if it pisses the officer off. “Under arrest? For what?”

The cop rolls his eyes at me like I’m ruining his day. Panic surges in my chest as the entire situation starts to smack into me like a brick in a pillowcase.

“Ma’am. I’m busy here.”

His partner bursts out of the doctor’s office and I look around the street at the police cars and to assess the situation further. I see Doctor Pierogi in the back of the last cop car, screaming at the window. No sound leaks from the police sedan. What the hell is happening?

“Officer Crosby!” the partner yells. “We found loose pills in the back! Get the K-9!”

Officer Crosby gives me an irritated expression like I’m in the way, or somehow causing this situation. “Listen, ma’am. This doctor of yours was selling viable embryos on the black market. If he has your eggs, they could be halfway across the world. My advice? Get a lawyer.”

He turns his back on me and enters Dr. Pierogi’s office, slamming the door behind him. It feels like the door got slammed in my face. I stand on the sidewalk for a few seconds staring stupidly at the door as if that will change anything.

But I had an appointment.

I’m numb. My last chance to have a baby evaporates before my eyes.

This was my last resort given my age, and obvious lack of a partner.

The whole thing might have been a scam in the first place.

What the hell is happening to me? The cops bustle around me like I’m not even there.

Part of me wants to run in there to try to get my eggs out of the freezer, but not only do I have no idea what I’m looking for, I run the risk of facing assault from a Boston police officer.

Officer Crosby emerges from the house again, glaring as if someone is forcing him to talk to me and he isn’t doing it of his own volition. Maybe I should have moved.

“If your documents are in there, someone from the department will be in touch with you,” he says. “So you can head home now. Okay?”

I nod my head slowly because that’s clearly what Officer Crosby wants to see, and I would much rather do what it takes to get this man out of my face so I can run through my emotions without him glaring at me.

Behind that yellow caution tape is my last chance at having a baby, even on my own and for all I know, all my eggs could be halfway across the world, sold to a Russian billionaire or some other worse fate.

My head swims with the fear and anxiety that would accompany anyone finding out their genetic material was stolen.

The process of egg extraction is a last resort and I gave all of mine away to a scammer. The cop doesn’t give me much more information on what needs to happen next. There’s no “if”... my eggs were in there. Officer Crosby clearly wants me gone, so I turn and walk away from the fertility clinic.

I walk until I can’t feel my feet anymore and the exact point where I stop feeling my feet is outside this bar I’ve never been to in one of Buffalo’s older Italian neighborhoods.

The bright red neon sign reads Belladonna’s.

I mindlessly shuffle towards the doors. I need a bathroom and more importantly, I need a drink.

You can’t see the bar from the street, so when I open the door, I scan the details around me to ground myself in a world that I feel totally unmoored from.

The bar immediately strikes me as upscale with the low lights and luxurious modern velvet furniture, with details that suggest the owners or at least the frequent patrons are from the wealthier Italian families around Buffalo.

I see pictures of the owner with Pino Corsini, a big-time member of the Italian mob and owner of several small businesses around my neighborhood – a laundromat, a couple pizza places and an insurance company.

This city still has mob families, believe it or not.

I actually went to college with Pino Corsini’s son – the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.

Glancing around the room, I see pictures from local high school football games around the time I was in high school.

He might be in one of those pictures. The son – I honestly can’t even remember his name – was either the wide receiver or the tight end.

High school was so long ago I can’t even remember.

It does bother me that I forgot his name though.

Who even cares? He probably has a big happy and basic as hell Upstate New York family. I’m seething at the ‘live laugh love’ of it all and worse, jealous of this imaginary family I cooked up for my worst nemesis of a million years ago because I’m so damn emotional over the day’s events.

I walked over an hour to get here and my feet hurt. I turn my gaze away from the family photos and follow the signs to the bathroom to relieve myself.

When I get to the bar, the woman working approaches me enthusiastically. It’s nice not to have to wait.

“Hi, I’m Rachel! What can I get for you?”