by Reilly, Cora
He leaned down, bringing his face close to the other man’s. “I should cut your throat for insulting my sister. Apologize.”
The man glanced at his friends. One was nursing his broken nose, the other obviously unsure if he should interfere, considering our Dad was their fathers’ boss.
“Apologize!” Samuel snarled.
“I’m sorry,” the guy blurted.
I tightened my hold on Sam’s shoulder. He jerked back, took my hand, and dragged me outside, not into the garden but into the driveway where we were alone. He released me, turning his back to me. He sucked in a deep breath. I pressed my palms up to his shoulder blades then rested my forehead against his back. “Don’t let their words get to you. I don’t care about them and neither should you.”
“How can you not care about them? You are a mafia princess. I should cut their tongues out for daring to whisper his name in one sentence with yours.”
His name.
Remo Falcone. The father of my unborn child.
And worse, the man who filled my nights not with nightmares but with longing.
The next morning, Dad, Samuel, and Dante wanted to talk to me.
When I walked into Dad’s office, I knew from their expressions that it wouldn’t be an easy conversation and definitely not one I’d like. Dad sat behind his desk, Sam perched on its edge, and Dante stood with his hands in his slacks beside the window. I made a beeline for the sofa and sank down. My brain felt sluggish from lack of sleep. I’d spent all night trying to come to terms with the fact that I was carrying a baby, Remo’s baby.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Three sets of eyes darted to my belly, and my hand automatically—protectively—pressed to the spot.
“If you keep this child,” Dante began.
“I will keep the child.”
Dad looked away and then at the picture frame on his desk. A photo of our family taken shortly before I’d been kidnapped.
“You will have to keep it hidden,” Dad said.
I blinked at them. “What?”
“Once you start showing, we’ll have to keep you out of the public eye, Serafina,” Dante said, his voice resolute. “I doubt Remo Falcone has the slightest interest in his offspring, but he might use it against us. The Outfit needs to be strong. This child might cause tension within the Outfit, and we can’t have that at the current time.”
“Or we could arrange a quick marriage with someone who agrees to a fake marriage and pretend it’s his child,” Dad suggested gently.
I stared between them. Samuel looked at the floor, his brows snapped together.
“I’m not going to marry anyone, and I’m not going to lie about the baby’s father. People wouldn’t believe it anyway.”
Now I was the woman pregnant with Remo’s bastard child. Soon my protruding belly would carry the guilt and shame of the Outfit.
“Eventually people will realize I have a child. Once it grows older, it’ll be difficult to keep it hidden. And what if he’s a boy? Won’t he be part of the Outfit?”
They exchanged a look.
“You haven’t even given birth yet. It’s still early,” Dante said tersely. I searched their faces, and as I did it was difficult to hold on to my indignation and anger. My kidnapping had left its marks. They were still shaken up. Maybe over time things would get better. I’d give them the time they needed to accept the situation. I owed it to them. I owed them more than I owed Remo.
This baby and I belonged in the Outfit. This was my family, my home.
Still, part of me wondered if I was lying to myself, if it wasn’t better to return to Las Vegas.
But Remo had sent me away. I’d served my purpose. How much did I really know about him? And how could I be sure if everything he’d done hadn’t been part of a show, his masterful manipulation. It had worked, hadn’t it? And how could I even be sure what I was feeling was real? Could feelings like that be born in captivity?
My pregnancy became the pink elephant in the room, an ever growing presence that everyone tried to ignore, and I did my best to make it easy for them. I wore loose-fitting clothes, glad for the cold winter days that allowed for thick sweaters and even thicker coats. I think my family often managed to forget I was even pregnant.
Only when I was alone in my room did I allow myself to admire my bump. It wasn’t big yet. I had even managed to take part in Dante and Val’s Christmas party because in my seventeenth week, if my calculations were accurate, an A-line dress still hid everything it should. If people suspected something, they kept it to themselves. It was a possible shame the Outfit didn’t want to voice aloud.
It was early January when Samuel and Mom accompanied me to my first doctor’s appointment. So far I hadn’t asked for one, but Mom had surprised me a few days ago by asking if we should check on the baby. It was her silent apology, her attempt to accept what was so very difficult for all of them to accept.
The doctor had been working with the Outfit for years. She treated most of the pregnant Outfit women and would keep the secret I carried.
Fear filled me as I stretched out on the examination couch. I wasn’t even sure what exactly scared me. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know I was pregnant. It was unmistakable at this point.
The doctor was on one side of me with the ultrasound while Samuel and Mom stood on the other. I swallowed when I pushed up my sweater, revealing the bump for the first time in front of others.
Samuel’s face became still, and Mom swallowed before she managed an encouraging smile and squeezed my hand.
“This will be cold for a moment,” the doctor warned me.
I nodded distractedly, my eyes fixed on the ultrasound.
The doctor started frowning, moving the ultrasound around on my belly. The thud-thud of a heartbeat filled the room and my own heart sped up, swelling with love and wonder. But the thud-thud was off, as if it was off-beat, two out-of-sync rhythms.
Mom’s eyes widened, but I wasn’t sure why, and fear filled me. I stared at her, then the doctor, then Samuel, but he looked as confused as I felt.
“Oh God,” Mom whispered.
“What? What’s going on?”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears. “Twins.”
The doctor nodded, and my eyes jerked toward Samuel.
“Like us,” I said in wonder.
He managed a small smile, but his eyes held worry.
The knowledge that I carried twins changed things for Mom. It was as if she could finally see the babies as mine, not as something alien.
Samuel seemed to be coming around as well. He painted the nursery and set up the furniture for me. And Sofia? She was ecstatic about the prospect of being an aunt. But Dad ... Dad had a harder time. He didn’t mention the pregnancy and never looked anywhere below my chin. I understood him, couldn’t possibly be angry because his eyes reflected his conflict.
I often managed to feel like I belonged once more, managed to pretend I wasn’t forced to hide in our home so no one found out I was pregnant. What I didn’t manage was to stop thinking about the man who was the reason for everything.
Every night I lay awake in bed. Every time I stroked my bump I saw him before my eyes. And every time I was torn between anger and longing. Sometimes I wondered if I should find a way to let him know, but then I thought of my family, of their slow healing process, of what my kidnapping had done to them, and I couldn’t do it. What did you owe the man who kidnapped you? Who tried to destroy the people you cared about? The man who took your heart, only to push you away?
Nothing.
I owed Remo Falcone nothing.
These were my children, and they’d grow up as part of my family, as part of the Outfit. I’d hide the truth from them as long as I could. They would not find out who their father was until they had to. If I wanted them to have a chance in the Outfit, they couldn’t be Falcones. They couldn’t be associated with Remo at all.
In mid-May I gave birth to the most beautiful creations I could im
agine and knew with absolute certainty that everything I’d wished for them would never become reality.
CHAPTER 24
SERAFINA
I loved my family with all my heart. And they loved me. But the moment I held my children in my arms, I knew I could not stay with them forever, knew it with soul-crushing certainty.
Nevio and Greta were Remo. Dark eyes, thick black hair.
For everyone in the Outfit they’d always be Falcones, always the result of something horrid, born out of something shameful, something dark. But for me they were the most beautiful creation I could imagine. They were utter perfection. Twins like Samuel and me. They would lift each other up, make each other stronger like Samuel and I had done when we were younger and still did. It would be us against the world. It couldn’t be any other way.
Samuel stayed with me in the hospital after the birth while Mom went home for a few hours of sleep after twenty hours at my side during labor. Samuel’s eyes were kind and loving as they looked down at me, but these tender emotions vanished as soon as he turned toward my children sleeping in their cradle. He wasn’t doing it on purpose, but my children reminded him of something he and everyone else were desperate to forget.
And how could he not be reminded when my twins looked like Falcones?
My heart ached fiercely when I looked at them, throbbing with a longing I’d tried to bury with the memories of Remo, but Remo wasn’t a man that could be forgotten.
Not easily, not quickly, not ever.
Two days after giving birth, Mom and Samuel carried my twins into the house because I still had trouble lifting anything heavier than a glass of water. The family had come together for the occasion, but I knew it wasn’t to celebrate. Dad and Dante probably needed to discuss how to keep my children a secret. The Underbosses knew. They had to for the sake of the Outfit. Danilo did, but I hadn’t talked to him since the day Sofia had been promised to him.
Samuel held my arm while his other carried the baby carrier. Walking the stairs was more than a little uncomfortable, and I was glad when I finally arrived inside our house.
Valentina came toward me and hugged me gently. She and Dante were still trying for child number three, but so far it wasn’t working. She peered down at my babies with a soft smile. “They are beautiful, Serafina.”
“They are,” I agreed.
Sam and Dad exchanged a look, and it felt like a stab in the heart because when they looked at my children they saw the black hair and dark eyes and nothing more. They saw Falcones. They saw shame and guilt. Would they ever allow my babies to be more than the greatest failure in the history of the Outfit?
Sofia rushed down the staircase followed by Anna. Leonas showed less enthusiasm than the girls as he sauntered down the steps, rolling his eyes.
Sofia stopped beside me and Samuel, looking down at Greta sleeping soundly in the carrier. I’d noticed that Samuel had insisted on carrying Greta, not Nevio, but I tried not to put too much meaning into it. Sofia hadn’t been allowed in the hospital because we didn’t want to draw too much attention to us, and her eyes were wide in surprise.
“Wow,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen hair that black.”
She’d never seen Remo.
Anna nodded as she lightly brushed a finger over Nevio’s head. His eyes peeled open and as always when they did, my breath lodged in my throat. Dark eyes. Remo’s eyes. Even at two days old, my boy was his father.
Dad averted his eyes, brows pulling tight, and looked at Dante with an expression that tore me cleanly in half.
Valentina squeezed my shoulder and leaned in. “It takes time, Serafina. Give them time. One day they will see your babies as what they are: only yours.”
I nodded, but deep down I knew Greta and Nevio would never only be mine because they were also Remo’s, and nothing could change that. And I didn’t want it to.
The next day, I was cradling Greta in my arm while Nevio rested on the sofa beside me, deep asleep when Dante came in. He strode toward us, his eyes flickering over my children. His expression didn’t give anything away, and I wondered if it was because he didn’t resent my twins like everyone else or if he was too good at hiding his true feelings.
He sank down in the armchair across from me, opening his jacket so it didn’t wrinkle. He gave me a tense smile. “How are you?”
I stroked Greta’s cheek before I looked up again. “Good.”
He nodded. “I know things aren’t easy for you, Serafina. It was never meant to be like this. I’ve wanted to talk to you for a while ...” He trailed off, his expression tightening. “But I’m not in the habit of justifying my actions, nor apologizing.”
I frowned. “You are Capo.”
“I am, but that doesn’t make me infallible.” He paused. “I think you should know that when Remo kidnapped you, your father would have handed over his territory to save you. I didn’t allow it. And Samuel attacked the mansion without my permission because I wouldn’t have allowed it. I’m not a man who answers to another’s demands. I refuse to be blackmailed. I have to think of the Outfit.”
“I know and I understand, Uncle.” Then I paused. “But in the end you gave Scuderi to Remo.”
Something dark and furious flashed in Dante’s eyes. “I did. Because I’m not only Capo. I’m a father. I’m your uncle. This is my family, and I owe it protection. I owed you protection and I failed.” He lowered his gaze to my children. “You’ll have to live with the consequences of my decisions.”
I shook my head. “Those decisions gave me my children, and that’s not something I could ever regret.”
Dante got up and touched my shoulder. Then he traced his index finger over Greta’s head before he turned. Like Samuel and Dad, he had a harder time looking at Nevio than at my daughter. I peered down at my son and took his little hand in mine, and not for the first time I wondered what Remo would see when he saw them.
A high pitched wail sounded.
Samuel and I jerked up at the same time from where we’d fallen asleep on the sofa in the nursery. We didn’t bother going into our beds most of the time because Nevio and Greta woke every two hours. He and Mom took turns helping me, and during the day Sofia changed diapers and helped feed them as well. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept more than two hours in the last six months.
Samuel rubbed his face. I knew he didn’t sleep much on the nights he wasn’t helping either. The Outfit was planning something. He had only hinted to it, but it could only be an attack on the Camorra. It scared me, terrified me because I wasn’t only scared for Samuel and Dad but also for the man I couldn’t forget.
I stood and so did Samuel. He reached for Greta like usual and I took Nevio. This was our routine, one I didn’t question anymore. I was glad for Samuel’s support, even if he couldn’t bear being near my son.
Thirty minutes later, Samuel and I sat shoulder to shoulder, Greta sound asleep in his arm and Nevio wide awake in mine. He snatched at my hair and yanked. I loosened his hold, wincing, and pushed the strand out of reach. Nevio let out a happy yowl, eyes zooming in on Samuel.
I followed his gaze. My brother sighed and put his head back. “Don’t give me that look, Fina.”
“What look?”
“Like I’m breaking your heart.”
“Why do you have such a hard time looking at Nevio but have no trouble holding Greta?”
“Because with her I can overlook the similarities, but with Nevio ...” Samuel shook his head, lowering his gaze to my boy who was happily chewing on his own fingers. “With him all I can see is Remo fucking Falcone.”
“Shh,” I shushed him. I stroked Nevio’s head but he was oblivious to what was being said. One day he would understand, though. One day he would realize what the looks he got meant.
“You’ll never be free of him because of them, Fina. Maybe without those kids people would have eventually forgotten what happened and moved on, but they are living breathing reminders. Once people find out they are Falcone’s kids,
and trust me everyone will know they are his, things will get really ugly.”
I rocked Nevio and his eyes began drooping. “If anyone tries to hurt my children by making them feel less than, they’ll have to go through me.”
Samuel smiled sadly. “I’ll be at your side. I’ll always protect you.”
Me. Not my kids. Never them.
Falcone. Falcone.
One look.
Falcone.
The same cruel eyes.
Pitch black.
Falcones through and through.
Shame. Sin. Dishonor. Bastards.
Why did she ruin herself by having his children? Why didn’t she get rid of them?
Falcones.
So far the words were only whispered in the Outfit, but soon they would be screamed because every day my children looked more like Remo, like Falcones. In a week my twins would be seven months old, and I hadn’t even left the house with them yet. The only fresh air they got was when I was in the garden with them. The midwife and doctors had made home visits. Despite these precautions word about them was spreading among our circles. Maybe the maids let something slip. Maybe it was one of the bodyguards or maybe one of the Underbosses trusted his gossipy wife too much.
I’d attended two events with Samuel, and the whispers had followed me everywhere. The pity and curiosity. The incomprehension and even anger that I had chosen these children and not disposed of them, as if that would erase the kidnapping.
When we arrived home after one of these social gatherings, the birthday party of Dad’s second-in-command, I lost it right in the middle of the lobby.
“I can’t stand it,” I said harshly. “Can’t stand how everyone whispers their names as if they are something sinful. I don’t want them to grow up ashamed of who they are.”
Mom who’d stayed with the kids because she didn’t feel well enough to attend an event appeared on the landing, looking concerned at my outburst.
Dad sighed, his expression reflecting pain. “Everyone knows what happened. Everyone knows what they are and that won’t ever change.”