Page 48 of Single Mom's Mafia Daddies

“What’s wrong?”

I gave her the quick and dirty version. “We have to leave. The house isn’t safe right now. I need you to get what you can’t live without for the next two days and meet me in the kitchen in half an hour.”

“We’re leaving?” Leo jumped off the bench and raced toward us. “How come? Are we going somewhere fun?”

Lila lifted him to her hip. His taller height and her petiteness gave them a strange silhouette, but the love between them shoneno matter what. She tapped the end of his nose. “We’re going to play soldiers again.”

“Can I be a knight instead?” Leo spun Lila’s hair around his hands, wrapping the long strands around his wrists, then letting them go to fall across her shoulders. “I want a sword.”

“You can be a knight. I don’t have a sword, but I can get you a shield. Then you can be like the knight in Matteo’s story.” She tapped the center of his forehead. “Be quick and smart.”

“Okay.” He wiggled to be put down and ran toward the stairs as soon as his feet touched the floor.

Matteo and Alessio walked into the foyer from opposite directions. They closed in behind Lila and looked at me.

Damn it to fucking hell. I’d gotten out of the military so people would stop looking at me like I had all the answers. No time to worry about that. “Twenty minutes until we’re out of here. I’m going after the car.” I couldn’t afford to trust anyone else to drive.

“Are you sure we should go out the front?” Lila asked.

I bit down the sharp retort I’d have lobbed at anyone under my command. “We can’t risk running into them in the tunnels. This is the fastest way out.”

“I’ll fight them off.” Leo brandished a broom he must have found in the closet. “It’ll be fun, won’t it, Matteo?”

“Some fights you win by walking away.” Lila held out her hand to Leo. “This is one of them.”

“Gotta be smart?” He tucked the broom under his arm. “I can be smart and fight too.”

“Yes, you can.” A pained look crossed her face. “And right now our fight is figuring out what we need to take with us.”

They scurried up the steps toward their rooms. I heaved a sigh and made my way through the kitchen to the garage. Bruce would have the men out by now, hopefully without the traitorousbastards. I counted on him to keep them safe because I couldn’t do everything alone.

Matteo joined me first, sliding into the backseat and hefting the tablet. “I’ll shut it down as soon as we’re through the gates.”

“Keep an eye on the car. I’ll be right back.” The glowing green numbers on my watch ticked down to the five-minute mark. I entered the kitchen at the same time Lila, Leo, and Alessio walked in from the other side. “This way.” I took the bags from Lila and slung them across my shoulder.

Her eyes widened when she spotted the open door previously hidden beside the table. “How many secret entrances are there?”

“Enough,” Alessio answered at the same time I said, “Too many.”

We’d argued over it several times. He won in the end, and I was left figuring out a strategy that kept him alive in these situations. I nodded my reassurance at Lila when Leo yanked on her hand and tried to drag her through the door. “It’s okay. Matteo’s in the car.”

They climbed into the backseat while Alessio and I threw all the luggage in the back and closed the hatch. He hopped into the passenger seat without complaint. It was one of my few unbreakable rules. He drove last night because I allowed it. Not today. Not when the threat of vehicular pursuit dogged us.

The cool leather wrapped around me when I slid into the driver’s seat and snapped my seatbelt into place. “Hey, Leo, watch this.” I pressed all the window buttons at the same time and another hidden door opened.

Leo laughed and clapped as I gunned the engine and peeled out across the yard. The gate opened at a tap from Matteo’s fingers on the tablet, and we were on the road. I gripped the wheel with both hands, my gaze shifting between the road ahead and the cars behind.

It took a mile for our tail to make his first mistake. Two for me to be absolutely certain I knew the man behind us. I recognized him from the cathedral, the short blond hair spiked straight up with blue on the tips giving him away.

“They’re tracking us.” I pitched my voice toward Alessio. “And they’re getting closer.”

25

LILA

The tense car ride along with the knowledge of the second positive pregnancy test I’d taken this morning churned together until I worried I’d puke in the back of Renzo’s SUV. The way he gripped the wheel warned me we were in danger…more danger.

I tasted the hot, bitter bile and barely swallowed it back down when Renzo took a sharp right. He drove up an incline toward a massive house sitting atop a hill. Green grass sprawled out in every direction, the fortified gates and walls offering protection I didn’t dare trust.