by AJ Wolf
He apparently doesn’t have anything else to say, because he just stands there, watching as I zip up my bag. “Just stay until we get test results. Don’t leave before you actually know.”
“I don’t want to be here, Donatello. I don’t want to spend time with you and get my hopes up just to be crushed all over again when the results come back saying that baby is yours.”
“Then where are you going? You going to run off to your pup now?”
I grab the bag, shoving past him and out into the hall. “I don’t know where I’m going, but even if it was to Jessie, it’s none of your business. You lost that right when your secretary showed up pregnant.”
He grabs my arm, pushing my back into the wall and I drop the bag, eyes narrowing on his face as he crowds me. “You’ll always be my business. You’re choosing to leave without giving me any chance. Just fucking stay.”
“Tell me something, Donatello.” His eyes brush along my face, waiting for me to continue. “How many times did you sleep with her before this? How many recurring meetings?” Meetings he told me not to worry about last summer when I first met her.
“I don’t know Vita Mia. I didn’t keep track, she was a means to an end, an easy body to use while I grieved over you. I didn’t touch her a single time after you came back last summer. She’s nothing, baby.”
“Yet you went right back to her the second I was out of the picture. Get out of my way, Donatello.” He moves, jaw flexing as I step away from him. He doesn’t even argue that I’m wrong and I feel the crack split through my numb heart. I hear him slap the wall, a picture falling to the floor, but I don’t look.
“Your pup has been keeping his own secrets.” He says it to my back, but I ignore him slipping into my sneakers. “Jessie Mariani works for the Famiglia.” I stop at the door, and he laughs. “Pretty boy isn’t as good as you seem to think he is.”
That can’t be true. Jessie doesn’t lie to me. He’s sweet and good. He wouldn’t lie about that. “Why are you saying this?” I turn to look at him, my hand on the door handle.
“I just think you should know that what you think you have with him is fake.” He’s purposefully being cruel, digging at my insecurities because I’m hurting him.
“Tell me the truth, Donatello.”
He walks to me, pushing the hair from my face when he gets close enough. “Don’t leave me, baby.”
The ice around my heart is melting now that I’ve lost some of my momentum. Each drop exposing a raw nerve, overly sensitive and aching. “You’re having a baby that’s not mine.” My voice cracks and he drops to his knees, wrapping his arms around my body. He looks up at me, silently pleading with me not to walk out the door. I let the bag in my hand fall to the floor, and hug his face to me, soaking up as much of him as I can.
My heart thinks we’re meant to be with this man, but it’s not possible. Over and over again we’ve been told and over and over we ignored every sign. Every warning. I lift his face to look at mine, pressing a kiss to his lips as I grab his hands and unwrap them from me. I pull back, his cheeks damp with my own tears. “I can forgive a lot of things, but not that.”
I grab the bag and walk out the door before he can stop me, pretending I didn’t just break his heart with my own hands.
The buzzer goes off for my building and I pick up my phone, pulling up the footage on the front security camera. Laney is standing at the door, a duffel bag in hand. I can’t see her face because of the angle of the camera, but I’d recognize her at any angle. I stare at her on my screen, not really sure if I want to let her in, heart pounding in my chest at the sight of her.
She told me I couldn’t love her then walked out the door. Now she’s standing at my door, expecting me to just let her in. She’s selfish, but she never pretended she wasn’t. I set the phone down, sitting in place a moment longer. Of course, I’m going to fucking let her in.
My ribs tweak when I stand. The muscles sore as I walk across the space, but it’s not nearly as bad as before. I hit the unlock code, moving to sit back down on the couch. My heart is picking up speed with every second that passes, knowing she’s going to be right here with me soon.
I hear her open the door but don’t look. My head staring straight at the TV screen. I see her drop her bag out of my periphery, feel her sit next to me, the coconut on her skin burning my nostrils. I want her to touch me so badly it makes me sick, angry for wanting something from someone who doesn’t want me.
She grabs my face when I don’t look her way, pulling it until I’m looking at her. I can tell she’s been crying, her eyes edged in red. I shouldn’t care what happened, why she’s sad, but I do. I want to hug her to me, cradle her against my chest and keep her there until the end of time. “Why are you here?”
She looks down at my question, dropping her hands from my face. I almost hate myself for losing her touch like that. “I don’t know.” She looks around the room, avoiding my face. “I didn’t know where else to go. Beverly has the babies. Ollie has the business and I can’t go to him with my relationship issues. I don’t have anyone else.”
I know she doesn’t. It’s one of the main reasons we bonded so well to begin with, neither one of us has someone who makes us the priority over all. I was her someone, but she was never mine despite how much I wanted her to be. “What happened?”
She falls back against the cushions, her arms going up to hide her face from me. “Donatello’s secretary is pregnant, and it’s his.” Her voice waivers as she says it and I know she’s trying to keep from crying. Trying to pretend it doesn’t hurt her as much as it does. She’s always pretending, but I’m the only one who ever sees through her false face.
Her broken secret doesn’t surprise me. I assumed Olivia Fontana was pregnant from the footage of her visiting the clinic so often, but when Malcom confirmed her doctor was located in the maternity wing, I knew I was right. I was just waiting for the shitshow to happen. Let Donatello ruin himself like I wanted. But now it’s happened after she’s already turned me away, and already chose him over me. What a great fucking choice.
Despite how much I want this to feel like a slap of karma, it doesn’t. It hurts to see her trying to hide her pain from me. Crying over a man who doesn’t deserve her tears. “What’re you going to do?”
Her arms drop to her sides, head turning to look at me. “I have no fucking idea.”
Tears silently track down her cheeks, and I watch as she wipes them away with the sleeve of her hoodie, trying to scrub them from her face and pretend they’re not there. My fingers itch to grab her, feel her wrap around me, but she already made it clear I wasn’t her choice. “You can stay here tonight. I can call something in for dinner.”
She nods at my words, knees coming up to her chest so she can hug herself. “Thank you.” Her chin is resting on her knees and she turns her face to look at me, a watery smile.
Even sad she’s beautiful. Her pouting lips and shining eyes should be painted and hung in a museum to be admired like the Mona Lisa. “Come here.”
I don’t even realize I’ve said it until she moves, immediately moving across the couch to straddle my waist and wrap herself around me. Her knee brushes my side and I hiss, making her go stiff in my arms. “I’m sorry, I’m not being careful.”
She moves like she’s going to shift off, but I don’t let her, tightening my arms on her back. “You’re fine, Laney Girl.”
“I missed you.”
It’s whispered from her lips, but it feels like a tornado in my chest. Delaney is perfectly cruel, saying the right words to wind me back around her and slash at my throat at the same time. “You wouldn’t have missed me if you hadn’t pushed me away.”
“I.. “ She drops her face to my neck, probably to avoid my gaze. “I had to. I don’t even think I should be here now.”
I take a deep breath, resisting the urge to comfort her like I want to. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
I feel her head shake against m
y skin, her fist clutching my shirt over my chest. “That’s not true.” She sits back so she can look at my face. “Where do you work Jessie? And don’t… “ She pauses, closing her eyes with a slow blink before continuing. “Just please tell me the truth.”
I swallow down the tightness in my chest, knowing this isn’t going to be the fairytale reuniting that I think I was secretly hoping it would be. “The Famiglia.”
She recoils at my answer like I hit her, jerking to get off of me. She hits my ribs in the process, but I grit my teeth and keep it to myself, knowing it was unintentional. “For how long?”
I can see she’s trying to piece together whatever information she already has, trying to figure out how long I haven’t been who she thinks I am. “Since I was fourteen.”
She starts to shake her head no, something she apparently does a lot when things aren’t going the way she wants them to. “No. You wouldn’t lie to me that long. YOU wouldn’t lie to me.”
I watch as she covers her face with her hands, brown eyes pooling once again.
“You are good.” She says it as tears fall off her chin, each drop taking a slice of my heart with it. “You’re sweet and kind and you don’t lie. You’re always honest with me. You’re the only person who ever has been.”
“Sometimes we have to hide things from people through no choice of our own, Laney. But that doesn’t mean I’m not who you think I am.”
She looks like she wants to break something, eyes searching the room for something to grab and unleash her frustrations on. “I’m so fucking tired of being lied to. I’m so fucking tired of secrets. Why do people insist on keeping me in the fucking dark about everything?”
I push off the couch, my intention to try and calm her but she jerks away from my touch.
“Donatello said everything we have is fake and I didn’t want to believe him. But how can I possibly trust anything anyone says anymore?”
She’s yelling and it’s not the volume of her voice that hurts, but her words. I’m still bitter about her shutting my love down. I’m still hurt from her rejection. My heart is sore and tired. I don’t mean to respond with my anger and hurt, but it happens. “You want to know who I am?” I don’t wait for a response. “I’m one of the best fucking Capos in The Famiglia. I hunt people down, find their secrets, and extort them for everything they have. I make people disappear with such accuracy it’s like they never existed. I kill people who don’t pay up then go home and sleep like a fucking baby. I’m not good. I live the same dark and deceptive life as you. I’m not sweet. I’m not kind.”
My voice has risen, and I can see by the look on her face it’s unexpected, because I never yell at her. I take a deep breath, forcing my words to come out more evenly.
“Nothing about what we have is fake, Delaney. I thought I loved you, but how can I possibly love someone so selfish she doesn’t care who breaks in the process of getting what she wants? How can I possibly love someone who repeatedly turns her back on the one person who would bend over backwards for her? How can I possibly love someone who can’t see the truth even when it’s five fucking inches from her face?” I can’t stop, stepping forward to grab her chin, her tears burning my fingertips. “The truth Laney Girl is I can’t. I can’t love you, and do you know why?”
She shakes her head, but I make her answer, waiting until the words quietly slip from her lips. “Why?”
I swallow, my eyes shifting between hers. “I can’t love you because you told me I couldn’t.” I can tell that wasn’t the answer she was expecting, the rise and fall of her chest quickening. “You own me. I am so wrapped up in you that I’ll break my own fucking heart just because you ask me to. You told me not to love you, so here I am, not loving you. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
I move to squeeze her face in my palms, sink my fingers into her hair. “You wanted me to stop loving you, so you could love Donatello. And now you’re here, crying over another thing he’s done. Like it’s not the millionth time you’ve cried for him, expecting me to take that pain away. And do you know what, Delaney?”
She blinks out more tears, her lip quivering as she speaks. “What?”
I lean forward, tilt her face so her lips are a breath from mine. My heart wants me to eat that space, remove it and press her lips to mine, but I don’t. “I can’t.”
I drop her face, turning away from her. I’m letting my pain rule my actions, not caring about the consequences. I’m always the one she can fall to but she’s never there for me. I’m never first, always second with her. I feel her face press against my back, her hands grasping onto the fabric of my shirt. Her cheeks are wet, making damp spots where they press.
“I didn’t want you to stop loving me because I wanted to love Donatello.” I don’t say anything, just stand there with my eyes closed, heart pounding so roughly I can feel it in my ribs. “You’re not safe with me.”
I spin in her arms forcing her to step back. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
She stares at me, like she’s lost in that head of hers. Seeing me but not actually seeing me.
“How am I not safe with you? I just told you I’m part of the fucking mafia. I just told you I wasn’t the basic fucking college boy you thought I was.”
“Donatello almost killed you two weeks ago Jessie. And you’re in the Famiglia. I didn’t know that then, but it doesn’t even matter because he can obviously do whatever the fuck he wants.” She pauses, her eyes widening like she’s just realized something, but I couldn’t possibly guess what. “Donatello wanted to kill you then and he still had me. He has nothing stopping him now that I’m not there for him. I just broke his heart and came running to you…”
She looks like she’s starting to panic. “Delaney calm down. Donatello isn’t going to fucking kill me.”
“He already almost did Jessie!” She’s spiraling, letting herself get lost in her panic and I’m not sure how to stop the downfall. “I need to leave. I shouldn’t have come here.”
She goes toward her bag and I grab her arm forcing her to look at me. “Will you stop? Donatello isn’t doing anything right now but getting drunk over you.” I don’t actually know that, but it’s not hard to guess. “He isn’t rushing here to kill me and he won’t. You’re being ridiculous and slightly insulting.”
It’s like she doesn’t even hear me, pulling from my hand to grab her bag anyway. “You were right Jessie.” She’s gripping the bag in her hands so tightly I can see the white of her knuckles. “I am selfish, but I won’t be this time.”
I step forward and she steps back, keeping out of reach. I’m starting to regret ever saying anything to her and not just fucking holding her like she wanted. “Laney Girl, where are you going to go? Stay here.”
“I can’t. I need to go. I’ll stay in a hotel or something.” She’s already at the door, still crying even though she’s the one doing this now. “I’m sorry, Jessie.”
She practically runs out the door and I just stand there completely fucking confused. It hurts watching her leave again and makes me angry that she has such little faith in me. I went into the fight knowing I was going to get my ass kicked, but it was to make a statement to Donatello. One he clearly received if he’s scared Laney so badly she thinks he’s out to murder me.
I’m fucking done with that Bastardo. I grab my phone and call Malcom. He starts talking but I issue my command over his hello.
“Meet me at the docks. I want all the files you have on Olivia Fontana.”
I hang up before he even responds, grabbing a hoodie off the back of the couch. If Laney is so worried about Donatello she won’t be with me, I’ll take him out of the picture completely.
“This is everything you have?” I ask Malcom, thumbing through the files. It’s full of images of both Donatello and Olivia and definitely enough to suit what I need it for.
“Yes. There’s a photo in there of her at the house even. Your guy dropped the camera off at the precinct and I printed it out.”
I nod, tucking the folder under my arm. “Perfect.” I spin, heading back toward my SUV.
“What do you need them for?”
I don’t answer him, just get in my ride and drive out of the lot. Capo Famiglia hates impromptu visits, but I want to get the ball rolling on this. I’m tired of playing the game at Donatello’s pace. Using the car phone, I dial the Boss.
“Pronto.”
“I have information you need to see. Immediately.”
He sighs into the phone, and I can imagine him running his palm over his mouth. “What the fuck about?”
“Donatello.” That’s all I say, not wanting to dig into details over the phone.
“Fine. Come to my house and I’ll tell Luca to let you in the gate.” He hangs up and I listen to the dead line until my phone automatically shuts off.
I’m jumping off the deep end with this decision and I can only hope Delaney doesn’t hate me for my role in whatever happens to Donatello over it. But there’s only so many times someone can fuck up before it bites them in the ass, and I’m fucking tired of getting bit over Donatello’s fuck ups.
Luca stops me at the gate and I slow, waiting for the black iron to open up. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I had other work to do.” It’s a partial lie. I’m not about to tell him I got my ass kicked and have been spending most of my time at home. Luca has a big fucking mouth and I don’t need my business spread across the poker table.
“You should come by and play one of these days. Mario’s been on a winning streak.” He smiles resting his arms on my open window frame and I return it. I would actually love to beat Mario, that gloating prick.
“Maybe, but I have a meeting to get to now, Luca.”
He nods, like he forgot why I was even there, and pulls away from the door with a wave. “Stop and talk to me before you leave. It’s boring out here.”
I don’t respond, but nod. I may or may not actually do that. I park in front of the house, my foot barely out the door when a giant ass dog gets up in my face. He’s staring at me like he’s daring me to set my foot on the gravel. I’m extremely familiar with dogs and how to handle them, but handling a strange dog is always somewhat complicated.