by Nina Park
Behind them, Frank was screaming, but Alina was too focused on the fight to understand his words. She knew the tone – loud, commanding, determined – but neither of them was in anything like a place to listen.
And then hard, firm hands closed around her stomach, yanking her backward. She screamed, still fighting, until she heard Vincent's voice in her ear.
"It's over," he was shouting. "We're here. It's over. We're here."
At the same time, she saw Nick kick the hypodermic away from Dez and yank her up to her feet, pulling a zip tie from thin air and wrapping it around her wrists. By then, orderlies were appearing in the doorway – but Frank had easily regained the air of control he always maintained as soon as the screaming stopped.
"It's fine," he said, his voice perfectly level despite the sweat on his face. "Everyone was just a little excited to see everyone else."
The power of her father had never been more apparent than in the way the men glanced at one another, shrugged, and walked away. Alina had no doubt that each of them would receive a generous bonus in their next check, and would never remember the situation to anyone who asked them about it.
Her father glanced at Nick and shook his head slowly. "About goddamn time, Nicholas."
The capo ducked his head, something Alina hadn't been sure she would ever see. "Sorry, boss."
"Get a car," Frank said. "I'm ready to be done here. And deal with her." He looked down his nose at Dez in a way that made Alina shiver. She'd seen it before but never had it directed at her. She hoped no one would ever make her feel that small.
Epilogue
"I can't believe you were playing us for that long, Daddy," Alina said.
Frank's rehab had continued after he left the hospital; as an outpatient, he'd continued to regain weight, and his color had continued to return. His strength was mostly back, and he regularly lifted bags of flour up over his head to demonstrate his willingness and excitement to hold his little grandbaby over his head in the next few months.
At the head of the table, cutting up slices of veal on his plate, Frank shrugged. "The woman was clearly after something. Revenge was the obvious motive, but I needed to make sure it wasn't something else. That's what I get for assuming that everyone is scheming, I suppose. Could have had her dealt with ages ago and saved us all a lot of trouble – and me, a fancy scar."
The scar of the bullet wound on his left side was indeed substantial and impressive. It would have been smaller, but two infections back to back had left them needing to clean out the wound time and again, and even once the plastics people came in, there was only so much to be done. It looks much better than it could have been, Alina figured. When he left the throat of his button-down shirt open, you could just see the edges of the scarring. It reminded her of what he'd been through, but that was his burden to carry, and staring at him wouldn't make it easier.
They didn't talk about it much; they'd each been through their own hell during that time. Dez had fed him endless stories – the destruction of the Costas, Alina's own death. It had hampered Frank’s recovery; he had so little to fight for. He'd had no idea about the will; he'd certainly never approved its alteration. But even though he'd known more about Dez than the rest of them had, he hadn't been able to find out anything true. Dez had even paid off the hospital staff to tell him the stories she needed him to hear.
The little rehab center had been owned by her parents, so she hadn't even needed to work very hard to make sure that Frank only got the stories she'd wanted him to hear. She'd hired the shooter as well; she'd controlled the entire scenario.
As best as they could figure, she'd wanted to ruin his life. All the grand plans that Nick and Vincent had brainstormed on their way to the center from the model home, where she and Vincent had hidden, had been too smart for the woman who just wanted to see someone suffer after her sister was murdered.
Part of Alina could understand it. She would do anything for the baby she was carrying, even though it wasn't born yet. Anything at all. She'd never had a sister, but she could imagine the bond, and how distraught the woman must have been to lose someone who meant so much to her. But trying to shatter a family just to get her own revenge... it was too much.
Dez was gone now. Her father wouldn't share the specifics, simply that she'd been removed from the picture, and that he'd ensured that no one would worry about her being gone, or find out what she'd been doing. It was as if the entire incident had never occurred. Magic.
"But now let's talk about something important," Frank said, taking another bite of veal. "Let's talk about you two." He pointed with his fork, taking in both Alina and Vincent. "I've told you repeatedly; I will not have a Costa child born out of wedlock. I will accept it."
Alina resisted the urge to sigh or stamp her feet. As tempting as it would be, it wasn't going to get her anywhere. "Daddy, we've talked about this. A lot. I refuse to get married when I'm all big and fat like this."
Vincent leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I like you all big like this," he said, deliberately not adding the fat. He'd been very clear repeatedly that being pregnant and swollen wasn't the same as being fat.
"Thank you," she said, as if they hadn't all three had this conversation a dozen times already. "But I'm not getting married like this. I'm just not. I'm sorry that it upsets you, Daddy."
But instead of fighting her, for once, her father nodded. "I understand, Linnie, I do. I have spoken with Father Lorenzo, and together, he and I have come to a solution."
Alina cocked her head to the side just a little. What in the world did the family priest have to do with all of this? Surely he couldn't convince her father that it was the twenty-first century and that women got pregnant and have babies without being married all the time? Not if it hadn't been accomplished yet.
"Oh?" She tried to keep her voice neutral and calm. Beside her, Vincent reached under the table and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.
"Yes," her father said, and then nodded at Vincent.
As Alina glanced over at Vincent, trying to understand what was happening, she felt his hand shift in hers, and suddenly a cool circle of metal was pressed against her palm. She gasped and would have pulled her hand away in surprise if he hadn't had a good grip on her. He laughed, just a little, pressing the back of her hand to his lips – then siding his chair back and dropping to one knee. She found herself looking for the camera, wondering who her father was paying to document this moment.
"We never made it official," Vincent said, and she laughed; he wasn't the type for fancy words, and she wouldn't quite have appreciated the gesture the same way if he looked like he was about to launch into a flowery speech. "And I want to know, Alina, since you're having my baby, will you take the rest of me?"
Alina couldn't help but glance at her father. Not because she needed permission – God knew she'd long since grown past that – but because she needed to know just how much of this he'd arranged. To say that she and Vincent hadn't ever made this official was an understatement. She'd slowly moved him into her condo once they'd been safely back in the city, and they made love nearly every night, but they'd never talked about taking this step. It had, in so many ways, seemed superfluous. Just unnecessary. Whatever had developed between them during those months on the run was real, and she didn't care what they called it – she just wanted to keep doing it.
"Of course I will," she said because it was the obvious answer.
He grinned, and she let him turn her hand over, stiffening her fingers just a little as he slipped the pretty diamond ring onto her finger. She recognized it; it had been her mother's. That, more than anything else, made her realize how close she was to crying.
"But I'm still not getting married with this," she added, pointing at her swollen baby bump as Vincent got back up into her seat.
Her father waved his hand again. "I told you, Father Lorenzo will take care of it. You two will be married here, tonight, in my study and before the eyes of God. After the baby is born
and you feel well enough, you will buy a dress and have the wedding where everyone comes, and you say the vows formally. But Father Lorenzo says this will be more than enough to protect the baby, as well as the both of you."
"Daddy," Alina said, still working not to roll her eyes. "It's pretty clear that we were having sex before we got married. Do we really need to—"
"I do not want to hear another word, Linnie. As far as I am concerned, you are the Virgin Mary and Vincent is your Joseph. Not another sound. Understand?"
She couldn't help giggling into her hand a little, and really, she couldn't bring herself to mind the plan with Father Lorenzo. If it got her father off her back and let her have her wedding her way when she was ready for it, then that would be enough. As long as—
She glanced at Vincent. "Is all of this alright with you?"
He nodded. "I suggested it to your father, actually. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you first. I just thought he might take it better this way."
Might be more likely to listen to a guy, more like, but she could live with it. It was a hell of a lot better than the nothing she'd had before this all.
They finished eating, and then Alina excused herself – heading upstairs to put on something a bit nicer than the jersey skirt and T-shirt she'd worn to dinner. She hadn't spent much on maternity clothes – since she'd mostly been spending time around the condo or going to prenatal yoga classes – but she had one suit she'd bought for more formal events. It was a pretty light blue, and it would do for this. She touched up her makeup and put her hair up in a twist, then looked at herself in the mirror.
"Okay," she said, trying to quell the butterflies in her stomach. "Let's go get married."
***
It hardly even felt like a ceremony. Nick and her father were there to serve as witnesses, rings were exchanged, they went for the basic "I do", vow, and then Vincent got to kiss the bride. She liked that part the best.
Although they'd already eaten, Daddy produced a cake from somewhere, and Vincent made like he would smash some in her face; sharp threats convinced him that would be a poor decision, and then he was roundly harassed for giving in so easily. But all through it, she was laughing.
It took forever for them to let her and Vincent out of the room. They could have gone upstairs to the guest room, her father suggested it repeatedly, but Alina shook her head. She hadn't had sex in this house, not once, and she sure as hell wasn't going to start now. And there was no point in having a wedding night – two of them, apparently – if she wasn't going to make love to her brand-new husband.
It seemed to take hours to drive through the city traffic to get to her condo. Vincent had tried to talk her into buying the model home where they'd spent those last few days, but she couldn't bring herself to live in that skeletal neighborhood, no matter how great a deal they could have gotten. She wanted something better for herself – and for her baby. For their baby.
So, they would keep her condo for now. Later, if they needed something bigger, they'd get it. Daddy had finally listened to her explanations of why she didn't want to run the family. Instead, he was helping her get a venture capital firm off the ground. She knew how hard it was to get a start as a woman business owner; she'd seen several of her tech-minded friends in school trying to work kickstarters and other crowdfunding sources to get enough startup capital – since traditional firms wanted nothing to do with them. It was something she could do with her money that would be useful and fulfilling.
Vincent was going to keep working for her father for now, though Daddy had promised to keep him safe for her. Safe was a relative term for any Costa man, she knew, but it was better than the alternative.
At the condo, Vincent parked the car in the sunken garage, then turned to her. Alina expected him to lean over and give her a light kiss, but instead, he pulled her as close as he could, given the shifter and her fat belly, and stole her mouth with a hard kiss. His hand cupped her cheek and drew her to just the right angle, and his tongue plundered her mouth like he was seeking treasure. Their sex hadn't cooled off, but it had been a very long time since he'd kissed her like this. Like she was something new, not a woman whose body he'd learned to play like a fiddle.
"Upstairs," she said, stealing a breath. "Now."
"You're lucky we don't fit in the front seat anymore," he said, pushing the driver's side door open.
"Oh, you're not going to just push me up against the side of the car and have me right here where anyone could walk by?"
That afternoon had been incredible. Both times. He'd had to cover her mouth; her screams had echoed so badly as she came, first on his fingers and then on his cock.
"Not now," he said. That growl was still in his voice. "Right now, I'm going to have my wife in my bed. Tomorrow, I'll get adventurous. But right now – right now I just want that."
The words gave her a sweet sort of pause. She'd never really thought of being his wife before. The mother of his kid, sure, the woman he was with, fine, and she'd thought of him as her husband a handful of times tonight. But the way he said "wife" went straight past her brain and tickled her clit. Oh, this is going to be fun.
They made it to the elevator door, letting it ding shut behind them and pressing the button for the penthouse before he had her up against the wall. He shoved her legs wide with his thighs and lifted his skirt with one hand, pushing her panties aside easily. She was wet and open for him, she always was, and he was adept at finding ways to fuck her quick and hard where anyone could find them. He knew how much she got off on it, and he used it to his advantage every chance he got.
He stroked her inner lips, long and luxurious, before slamming two fingers into her and making her whimper. Another day, she was pretty sure he would just push his cock into her, even if it was for just a few strokes between floors, but her big belly made that harder these days. He would have needed to turn her around and taken her from behind, and that was harder to cover up when little old ladies stepped into the elevator, heading to their own homes with bags of groceries.
No interruptions tonight though; just Alina grinding on his hand and alternately praying that she came before they got to their floor, and trying desperately to hold off the rush of sensations. She was sure that she wanted to come on his cock just as badly as he wanted her to come there.
The elevator door dinged again for the penthouse, and he stepped away – but only far enough to get a grip on her knees. With a little cry of surprise from her, he swung her up into his arms.
"What are you doing?"
Vincent laughed. "This is the closest we have to a threshold. You're getting carried over it. Any objections?" He took a step forward. "Too late."
She laughed and snuggled into him, incredibly turned on by how easily he carried her, even with the extra weight of her belly to contend with. "So where are you going to fuck me first?"
His expression was more serious than she expected. "Bedroom. I want my wife in my bed. I thought I said that."
"You did," she said, stroking his cheek lightly. "I just wanted to make sure you had all the options you could want."
"Oh. You said the first time. See, I plan to wear you out tonight, fuck you until you're begging me to stop, and then I'll take your ass until you're aching. We're fucking all night long. Are we clear?"
She gave a happy little shiver. "Yes, please."
He nodded and carried her effortlessly into the bedroom, tossing her down onto the bed with a little woomph of the mattress.
He didn't follow her down immediately; he stood over her and watched her, clearly admiring her. His cock was outlined, hard and thick, against the thigh of his khakis, and she wanted to reach out and trace her fingers down his length. With the kind of fire he had in his eyes right now though – no, he would slap her hand away and then turn her over and spank her until she was sobbing. Another night. Another night she would enjoy that. Tonight, she just wanted him.
He undid his belt and opened his pants himself, taking a long, slow stroke
of his cock while she watched. Then he took his time unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it free and tossing it to the side. His cock was free and hard; she licked her lips, watching him. He stepped out of his khakis and his socks, but his boxer briefs stayed in place. And then he sat back in one of the chairs in the room.
"Strip for me," he said, taking his cock firmly in hand and moving slowly through his fist.
Alina moved onto her knees and took her time. Her light blue dress was a sheath that she'd had tailored to her growing belly, and unzipping it in the back was something of a trick, but she managed it. She let the shoulders fall loose as she stood slowly, holding the bodice in place. Once she was on her feet, it took just a little shift to let it fall all the way to the ground.