Her Mafioso King (The Vitucci Mafiosos Book 4)

by Terri Anne Browning

  As I entered the house, Scarlett was just coming down the stairs. “I thought you were working,” she commented as she reached the bottom.

  I paused, noting how drained she looked. “And I thought you were at the doctor. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay,” she assured me. “I just got back not long ago. Ciro is showering, and then he will be all yours for the day.”

  “You should be resting, Scarlett,” I admonished, worried about her. “I don’t know what’s going on and I wish you would tell me, but even I can see you need to be off your feet.”

  She rolled her eyes at me, her hair falling over her shoulder as she shook her head, a small smile playing at her lips. Every passing year, she and Victoria looked more and more like our mother, becoming even more beautiful than before. “I’m fine, I swear to you. Ciro wouldn’t let me out of bed if I weren’t.”

  I caught her hand, giving it a tender squeeze even as I returned her smile. “We both know he can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. Come on, Scarlett, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Her lips twisted, but she let out a soft sigh. “It’s nothing so serious, so don’t think I’m dying. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  “Scarlett,” I growled.

  “Fine, fine. It’s my gallbladder.” My brows lifted in confusion, and she laughed. “Apparently I developed some gallstones during my pregnancy with Ciana. I could have gone years without knowing I had gallbladder disease, but this pregnancy has irritated it.”

  “What does that mean for you? For the babies?”

  She lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. “Nothing for now. I just need to follow a strict diet so I don’t have any painful attacks—which are fucking worse than labor pain, by the way—and once the twins are born, they will take out my gallbladder. Nothing dramatic.”

  I didn’t believe it was that simple. Ciro was already a basket case over her pregnancy. “Will there be any complications, having to wait for so long?”

  “An ultrasound showed that there are quite a few stones in my gallbladder. Waiting is risky because one of the stones could cause issues, but waiting is better for the babies.” She patted me on the arm. “Relax, Cristiano. This stuff happens all the time. It’s nothing compared to how sick Tor is at times.” Her mouth snapped shut, as if she hadn’t meant to tell me that. I stiffened as she pressed her lips together, her eyes going over my shoulder, avoiding meeting my gaze.

  “What does that mean? Has Victoria’s diabetes gotten worse?”

  “Fucking pregnancy brain!” She groaned.

  “Scarlett,” I snapped, unable to let her leave it at that. “Tell me. Now.”

  She gritted her teeth then blew out a long, frustrated breath. “Fine. But if you say anything to her about this, I will kill you.”

  “Start talking.”

  “Her kidneys are bad, Cristiano. This pregnancy came at a really bad time for both of us. She needs a transplant sooner than we thought she would. She’s on the donor list, but you know that one of my kidneys would be better than anyone else’s. Her body is less likely to reject it if it comes from me because we have identical DNA.”

  I didn’t realize any of this was going on with my sisters while I was in Chicago. Pop getting sick, forcing me home, was making me realize just how distant I’d gotten from the twins over the last five years. I felt like I didn’t know anything that was really going on in their lives now. Victoria hadn’t told me anything about how bad her kidneys were getting. I thought we still had years to go before she would even have to think about a transplant. Finding out it was so soon was a punch in the gut. Now I had to worry about both my sisters as well as Pop’s health. “How long will she have to wait?”

  “She’s not even close to the top of the donor list. There are hundreds of people in worse shape than she is. For mine? I have to recover from the gallbladder surgery after having the twins first. At this point, I don’t have a time frame for that except for the birth of these babies.” She touched her stomach lovingly. “Less than a year, if I have anything to say about it, though. I can’t sit back and let her get worse without doing something.”

  “Me either,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand over my scruffy jaw.

  “Don’t tell her about my gallbladder disease, Cristiano. I don’t want her to stress herself worrying about me. She won’t let me help her if she knows that I’m having health issues. That’s why I haven’t said anything to anyone yet. I wanted to get through everything first.” She grimaced at me. “But I know you. You wouldn’t have left me alone about it, or you would have gone snooping around for the answers. Just keep all of this to yourself.”

  “I’m not promising I won’t tell Anya,” I promised. “But I won’t let Victoria know anything.”

  She kissed my cheek and stepped back. “Relax a little, Cristiano. We aren’t going to leave you hanging around here on your own any time soon.”

  “You better not, Scarlett. You fucking better not.” Needing to get away from her to absorb everything she’d just told me, I started up the stairs she’d just come down.

  “If you’re looking for Anya, she left for the club about an hour ago.” I paused before taking the next step, turning to look down at her. “She took Ryan with her. He threw a mini-tantrum when she told him she needed to go to work, and it didn’t take much for her to agree to let him go with her.” She hesitated. “Was that okay? I know those two are close, and I love that he’s getting better with her help. So I didn’t think you would care if she took him out.”

  “It’s more than fine. Whatever she wants to do with him, I’m okay with. She’s going to be a big part of his life now.” Just thinking of how far Ryan had come in so short a time thanks to Anya made me smile. “As soon as she gets done making me pay for my stupidity, I’m going to make her his stepmother.”

  My sister made a noise in the back of her throat, giving me a glare. “She’s not just going to give you a free pass on what you did to her, Cristiano. I only saw Anya a few times after you went to Chicago and before she went back to St. Petersburg, but I could tell that what you did cut her deep. In all honesty, I was surprised she took to Ryan as easily as she did. I’m not sure I could have been so accepting of any child if it were me, with Ciro in your shoes. But Anya is so damn strong, and she doesn’t hold the sins of the father against the son.”

  “What did happen to her when I left?” I couldn’t help but ask, hoping for some insight into how much I had to make up for to get her back.

  “I can’t answer that because I don’t know. If you really want answers, I suggest asking Jenny. She and Anya have remained close, and Allegra mentioned those two confide everything in each other.” She started to leave but quickly turned back with a smile. “I’m really glad Anya and Ryan have bonded. Ryan has started coming out of his shell. He smiles so much more now than he did when he first arrived. The nightmares have gotten better too. I hadn’t heard him scream in a few nights until last night.”

  “He’s getting there,” I agreed. “But it will take a lot longer for him to put what his mother did to him in the past. I hope the therapist is right. That he won’t even remember anything about that bitch when he’s older.”

  “I hope so too,” she whispered vehemently.

  Chapter 14

  Anya

  Pushing my chair back from the desk, I stretched the kinks out of my shoulders and neck. Across the office, sitting under the little blanket fort I made him when we’d first arrived that morning, Ryan was surrounded by his favorite books and several coloring books.

  Back at the compound earlier, he showed me just how much like his father he really was by surprising me with his first tantrum. It wasn’t a big one, not like I’d seen Theo or Sofia throw on my brother and sister-in-law. Just tears and the demand to be brought along while he clung to my hand, his big brown eyes pleading with me.

  The little stink already had me wrapped tightly around his finger, more so than even my nephew an
d niece, and he knew that and used it against me. Two minutes into the tantrum and I was giving in. I grabbed a backpack out of his room, stuffed it with his favorite things, and headed out the door with him.

  Scarlett had tried to put up an argument…for about thirty seconds. Ryan shouldn’t be under my feet at work. He would get in the way. Cristiano might not like it. I didn’t give a single fuck about any of those reasons. If Ryan wanted to go with me, if he was calmer with me, then he was coming with me.

  Trying to hide a smile at my tenacity, she had one of the guards outside fetch Ryan’s booster seat from her own vehicle, and we were on our way. The blankets had been in my security closet, stacked up there from years past when I would just sleep in my office if I was too busy or too tired to go home to sleep in my own bed.

  Once he was sorted, I made him promise to stay there and try not to distract me because I had so much work to do. His adorably handsome little face had been so serious when he vowed to not bother me and thanked me for letting him come.

  Every so often, I would glance over at him and find him silently reading. Then he would find me watching him and smile brightly before waving and turning his attention back to his book. Each time, I was hit with a wave of love and a vision of what things might have been like if—

  No. Every time those thoughts entered my mind, I quickly quashed them. I wasn’t going to go down that road. I refused to allow myself to think about the what-if scenarios of what the past few years could have been like if things had turned out differently five years ago. I’d tortured myself too much in the past years by doing that, by letting the memories and the infinite possibilities of a different outcome rot my brain and soul to the point that some days I couldn’t even function from the pain of it.

  That was all over. In the past where it needed to remain. I was stronger now. Not necessarily happier, but no longer wanting to slit my wrists at the end of each day. And meeting Ryan, getting to see him every day for the last few weeks, was helping more than hurting.

  Pushing to my feet, I left my desk and crossed to kneel down beside Ryan. “What are you coloring, l’venok?”

  His head didn’t lift from his task. “I drew a picture for you, so you can put on your desk. Then you will remember to come read to me. Now I’m coloring it.”

  I glanced over his shoulder at the masterpiece he was concentrating so hard on. In true small child fashion, the characters on his page were stick figures. One, who I assumed was Ryan, was lying on a bed. The covers were already colored to match his at home. My stick figure, a smiling-faced woman with long black hair, sat on the side of his bed, a rectangle in my hand that I could assume was a book. It was colored the same base color as the current book we were reading each night, with a yellow star in the middle. Across the room by an unevenly drawn door, stood a man stick figure.

  “Is that Papa?” I asked, examining him closer. The way the eyes were drawn, it almost appeared like he was looking straight at my stick figure.

  “Yup.” Ryan kept coloring, focusing on not going out of the lines too much.

  “What’s Papa doing?”

  “Watching you read to me,” he answered without hesitation. “Like he always does. He always stands at the door and watches you. But he doesn’t have to. I know you won’t hurt me. He doesn’t need to worry anymore.”

  Smiling sadly down at him, I stroked my fingers over his hair and kissed the top of his head. “No, l’venok. I would never hurt you.”

  I watched him color for a few more minutes before making myself get up. “Stay here, Ryan. I have a few things to do downstairs.”

  “Okay,” came his singsong answer.

  “Don’t mess with anything. Promise me.”

  He lifted his head for the first time from his picture. “I promise.”

  Smiling, I blew him a kiss and went downstairs.

  The contractor had finished earlier that morning and already had the same crew back at my apartment to begin the new changes to my home. A week ago, I was excited about that, getting to go back to the apartment I called my own. But now, I wasn’t looking forward to it at all. I didn’t know what the reason was, but the thought of sleeping in that bedroom again, even with the changes I was implementing, made my heart ache.

  With the contractors gone from the club, the staff was now putting everything in place. Those who weren’t moving furniture were cleaning and decorating to my specifications.

  After doing a sweep-through, making sure everyone was on the same page and the place was looking good, I headed back up to my office, not wanting to leave Ryan alone for too long.

  He was right where I left him, still coloring away. Checking the time, I grabbed my purse. “You hungry?” I asked as I walked over to check on his progress.

  His head snapped up. “Can we have hamburgers?”

  I pretended to consider the request. Touching my hand to my chin, I eyed him. “Maybe if you promise to eat some green veggies, we can have burgers. What do you think? Is that a fair trade?”

  “I like green beans,” he offered up the knowledge immediately. “Can I have French fries too?”

  “I’ve realized you have this crazy need for French fries at almost every meal, l’venok.”

  “French fries go well with everything,” a deep voice commented from the direction of the door.

  My grin dimmed as I turned my head to look at Cristiano. The instant our gazes locked, images of the night before flashed through my mind, and I could practically see the same pictures entering his own head. My body began to heat, my breath came out in a soft pant, but I didn’t allow him to see any other reaction he could produce in my body by something as minor as his entering a damn room.

  “Your son is trying to convince me of that, it seems.” I glanced down at Ryan, needing an excuse to look anywhere else. “We were just going for an early dinner. Would you like to join us?” Then I paused, realizing this was actually his son and not mine as well. I swallowed the knot that filled my throat and corrected myself. “If you don’t mind. We’ve been having a good time today, and I wasn’t quite ready to take him home yet.”

  Cristiano heard the small catch in my voice and was across the room before I could even finish what I was saying. His hand snaked out, going around my waist and pulling me roughly into him. I gasped, glancing down at Ryan to make sure he didn’t get upset with the PDA his father was giving me right then. But the little boy was only smiling and watching us with amusement shining in his brown eyes.

  “If you want to spend time with Ryan, you don’t have to ask for my permission. Ever. You want to take him to work with you, no problem. You want to read to him every night, move in with us. We both want you close, Anya.” His lips touched my cheek, his breath caressing my ear. “Always.”

  A hand to his chest pushed him back a few inches, giving me a small space to catch my breath. “I’m not moving in with you,” I informed him point-blank. “Spending time with Ryan has nothing to do with me and you.”

  “I like it when we’re all together,” Ryan spoke up, pulling both our attention to him. “It feels good. Like we’re a family.” He put his hand in mine and looked up at me with pleading honey-brown eyes that I was helpless to say no to. And the little stink knew it. “I’m hungry, Anya. Can we go eat now? Can Papa come? Please?”

  Signing exasperatedly, I gave in. “Yes, to both. If Papa wants to come, and if Papa doesn’t mind eating hamburgers with us.”

  “Papa doesn’t mind,” Cristiano answered in a deep yet husky voice at my ear nanoseconds before his lips touched my temple.

  I moved away from him, not allowing myself to savor the wonder of how perfect it felt to be like this with him and his son. I couldn’t allow myself to fall down that hole again. I couldn’t let myself react to the emotions that were already choking me with their growing intensity. Ryan brought me peace, gave me a taste of what could have been. But Cristiano brought home the reality of just how much this wasn’t my life. I wasn’t Ryan’s mother. His father
wasn’t my husband or even my boyfriend.

  I loved both of these two Vitucci men, but I wasn’t the leading woman in their story.

  I couldn’t be, not without losing a part of myself all over again.

  Chapter 15

  Cristiano

  I waited as patiently as I could outside Ryan’s room, listening to Anya read to him. I knew he was asleep by now. He never lasted longer than a few minutes lately. Not with how busy his days had become with going to work with Anya and spending the evenings with her. By the time bedtime came around, he was already drooping with fatigue.

  He was sleeping, and she was trying to avoid me, especially after the night before. I knew she would, could see her withdrawing even before we got to dinner earlier, reinforcing her walls and shutting me out all over again. Her focus was solely on Ryan throughout the meal, and then afterward, we came back to the compound and she assisted him with his bath before tucking him in and settling in to read. Never once talking to me unless I spoke to her, and replying with clipped, monosyllabic answers.

  It was amusing but also frustrating. Amusing because I knew she was trying so hard to block me from her mind, as well as her heart. Frustrating because all I wanted was her, but she refused to give me so much as a crumb.

  Fuck that. I wasn’t going to wait around, let her push back the progress I’d already made. She was mine, and it was time she realized that.

  Finally, I heard her moving around inside the bedroom. Moments later, she appeared in the doorway. Her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second before flitting away. She closed the door, moving quickly away and past me.

  I let her get a foot away before moving. Grabbing her around the waist, I lifted her easily over my shoulder and pushed open my bedroom door with my foot. Inside, I kicked it closed and flipped the lock before crossing to the bed and tossing her on top of the covers.