Page 48 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)

I get ready for the night out. Black trousers, a green silk shirt halfway undone. Gold rings. Gold chains. A gold earring. A necklace with a spoon in it, packed with as much coke as I can fit.

Gel in the blond hair. I look like a young, blond Stavros. He hates that he can’t party as much as I do anymore. I mean, I’m sure he loves his kid but he must miss women.

Cassia bursts through my side door with Sandros, who has grown into a hulking giant since Loukas took over his workout routine. I don’t like that I can’t push him around anymore. I prefer lean muscle to Loukas’ bulky gains.

“Gal. Nice outfit,” Sandros grunts.

“My jewelry costs more than your parents house,” I tell him, because I’m an asshole and that’s what they expect from Yiayia’s favorite, “Look at the rings, Sandros. This one I took from Giorgio Adamos’ finger. Solid fucking gold.”

Sandros can’t help but admire the rings because he grew up worshipping my family. He stares at Cassia like a little pup. Sandros doesn’t mean to be a beta male, but he can’t help it. He didn’t have my upbringing. He didn’t have Yiayia.

“Shut up, Gal,” Cassia mutters, yanking the baggie of drugs from my hand, “Carlotta’s coming with her new boy toy, so I need to be super high. He’s a creeper. The way he talks about her...”

“I thought he was a Vogue model?” I say, thinking about drugs and cigarettes.

Remember that you quit. Remember for Carlotta.

Carlotta has horrible taste in men, probably because her father is a psychotic drunk who fucked her best friend, but who am I to judge? If Loukas is a monster, I’m satan’s right hand.

“What does he say about her?” Latrice asks, scampering out into the living room.

Cassia’s face brightens once she sees Latrice, now wearing a pink wig and a black wrap dress that leaves nothing to the imagination.

She fills it out so perfectly with ample curves spilling over.

I adjust my crotch and move behind the couch so none of them can see how hard I get when she walks into the room.

“You look so good. And he’s got a blind fetish,” Cassia reports in a hushed voice, “I’m serious. He’s creepy.”

“Tisha and Loukas will sort him,” I reassure her, “They’re equally murderous.”

Cassia groans, “Are you still hung up on Tisha?”

I shrug and move one of my gold rings up and down my index finger as I say, “I fingered her and she didn’t even fall in love with me.”

“Isn’t he entitled, Latrice?” Cassia scoffs, “And don’t talk about fingering her. If Lou heard you, he’d castrate you.”

“He tried once . That stupid incident in the kitchen where the girl screamed rape.”

Latrice gets visibly uncomfortable and buries her face in a glass of wine.

Cass never knows when to shut her mouth.

Yiayia was right to sell her to Ofek. We’re close half the time, but the rest of the time I want to slaughter my annoying younger sister.

We’re roughly the same age. Different mothers. But Cass’s didn’t abandon her.

“You tried to rape her,” Cassia accuses, “You were laughing. ”

“She told me she had a fetish, I was obeying orders!”

Cassia snaps, “If someone ordered you to jump off a bridge, would you do it, idiota ?”

Cassia’s been sprinkling more Italian into her dialect because she spent one week vacationing there at Van Doukas’ invitation.

He creeps everyone out except Cass. Stavros suspects she’s working for him now, but Cass would never tell if she had another source of income.

After her failed marriage to Ofek, she never trusted any of us properly.

“Listen,” I explain, “I didn’t rape her. I’ve never raped anyone. I get laid plenty on my own. I’m literally the most attractive person in a ten mile radius.”

“Yet Tisha rejected you...” Cass mutters.

“I’ll fucking kill you, Cass.”

Sandros perks up like a pit bull and steps up to me.

“Careful what you say to her. She’s my woman. I’ll protect her.”

See what I mean? Puppy. I don’t warn a man when he touches my woman. I start by punching him in the face and then I work from there.

“Back off, you stupid moose,” I tell him, “we’re siblings. This is how we express love.”

Cass skips the drugs and passes the baggie to Sandros who follows. I take two bumps and Latrice declines one.

Carlotta arrives with her walking stick and her boyfriend, Evan. He’s seven-feet-tall and built like an Olympic swimmer with black hair, a large Persian nose and shoulder length hair. He says “namaste” a lot and dresses like a cult leader.

“I’m here with my beautiful sightless love,” He says, walking up to me and hugging me before kissing me on the lips. I push him off.

“Watch it,” I snarl, wiping the wetness from his lips off mine aggressively.

Where does she find these simians?

“ Namaste, family of Carlotta. My beautiful prophetess ensures that there are plenty of psychedelics and other experience enhancing drugs for our night’s festivities. Pray tell, where may I find a bump.”

His American-Italian hybrid accent makes me shudder. I give him drugs to shut him up for a few seconds. He takes a tab of LSD and smokes an entire spliff before doing three bumps of my coke stash.

This rich asshole is yet another dick in a long line of Carlotta’s boyfriends. We all miss that attendant of hers.

Poor Carlotta couldn’t handle him and abandoned him on the Ethiopian coast after the hospital transferred Yiayia back to Greece.

If Lou finds out how much of a cunt Evan is, he will kill this man. Even with the distraction of Tisha and the twin fetuses. I can’t believe that tiny little thing can fit twins inside her.

Tisha . I hate that everyone knows how wrong that went for me.

I had a crush on her, while my creep older brother was sliding into her bed at night.

Embarrassing. But I’ve moved on. I don’t stay stuck on women for long.

Except Latrice. Months of waiting. Months of planning. Months of finding the right moment.

My new obsession is the only thing I can think about. She’s not like my normal obsessions. It’s not only lust. There’s something else that I’ve never experienced before. Similar to what I feel for my family but… different.

It’s something unique to her. Latrice. Black. Curvy. Gorgeous. I’m high enough to stare at her without caring if she notices me. I’m high enough to imagine her riding me. Kissing me. Fellating me.

She flips hair from the pink wig over her shoulder. I have plans for her tonight… sexual plans. I could never marry her, obviously. Yiayia would never approve. But I can fuck her. I can take her. I look forward to it.

Carlotta hangs on Evan’s arm, skipping both drugs and cigarettes and taking a shot of tequila instead.

“Let’s party! I’m losing my best friend to motherhood in a few months and I need to let loose. Gal, caffeine pills for later?”

“Ready and waiting. Latrice? Ready to rave?”

“You people are crazy. I might come home early.”

“Nonsense. We’ll keep you dancing all night until you find a guy to go home with.”

And I need her to move a shit ton of cocaine. I can’t have Latrice out of it.

Latrice laughs and lightens up a little, “Are you going to be my wingman, Gal Pagonis?”

“Yes. And you’ll be mine. Find me a girl to go home with.”

“What happens if neither of us find someone?” Latrice says.

I scoff, “Babe, I’ll go home with a girl tonight. The night’s not over until I’ve fucked someone hard.”

Latrice pushes me off her. She hates when I talk like this and she usually yells. Tonight, she’s quieter than normal. And has more of an attitude. When I tell her she has an attitude she calls it a micro-aggression but I don’t know what that is.

“Everything okay?”

“My latest post. Someone posted about it on a gossip blog and theorized we knew each other.”

I put my arm around her and pull her against me. She leans into me but pretends to be disgusted by the sensation of my firm, perfect body resting against hers.

“Well, we know each other, so they aren’t wrong.”

“I’d ruin your brand too,” she says as we walk along the cobblestone streets toward the club. A stray dog barks at Cass, who insults the dog’s mother and grandmother in one broad curse.

“You wouldn’t ruin my brand,” I say, “You are... unique.”

“Everyone who follows you and who you interact with is stick thin, blond and covered in muscle. Let’s be real, Gal. We should keep our friendship secret. Be on the lookout for any phones.”

“I don’t care, Latrice,” I groan, “I just want to dance... do drugs and find a girl to fuck. If we fuck other people tonight, we don’t have to worry about gossip. So can you relax?”

“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“If I fuck up my social media money, I’ll just do what my brothers do... kill people.”

“What would I do?” Latrice snaps, “Work as you’re damned maid?”

“I would keep you busy, babe.”

Latrice scoffs and folds her arms before chastising me again, “You’d never. You’re too soft-hearted.”

“Literally no one thinks that about me.”

She’s the type of girl who sees a lion chew on a living gazelle and calls it ‘cute’. She’d have to be to find me soft-hearted.

“They don’t know you like I do,” Latrice says.

Hm. Maybe all the sun has damaged her. I put my hand to her forehead to check for a fever and she swats my hand away.

No fever, I guess. It’s a good moment. Latrice, beautiful, standing so close to me, and nothing horrible happening for once in my life.

I want to tell her. Now. But I don’t. I have a plan, and I can’t screw it up.