Bastard's Baby: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Romance (Barone Crime Family) (Includes bonus novel Smash!)

by B. B. Hamel

  I watched as she pulled her panties and shorts back on. I cleaned her juice off my fingers with my mouth, savoring her taste. Finally, she finished, her face flushed red.

  “You’re fucking delicious,” I said to her, moving closer.

  “You’re not so bad,” she said, smiling.

  I grinned. “That was just the beginning, girl.”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Just then, I heard the door to the room open. Kaley stiffened in my arms.

  “Vincent Mori?” a voice called out. “Kaley Kozlov?”

  “Back here,” I said.

  Kaley stepped back, afraid to be seen close to me. I smirked at her but said nothing.

  A young staffer came out of the foliage. “Sir, Mister Barone wants to see the two of you in his office.”

  “Okay. We’ll be there shortly.”

  The kid nodded and then turned and left. The door shut behind him.

  Kaley smacked my arm. “You said nobody would come in here.”

  I laughed. “Normally, nobody does.”

  “You lied!” She smacked me again.

  I grinned at her. “I love the fight you’ve got in you,” I said.

  “Quit lying to me, that’s all.”

  “Didn’t lie. He only came in because Barone sent him.” I sighed and began walking back toward the door. “You ready to meet the boss man?”

  She fell into step beside me. “I guess so.”

  “Don’t be nervous,” I said, grinning at her. “He’s a nice guy.”

  She said nothing, but I could tell she was shaken.

  I didn’t know what Arturo wanted, but I was interested in finding out.

  13

  Kaley

  I had never for a second thought I’d ever meet Arturo Barone.

  He was just so far out of my league. I knew who he was, of course. He was a living legend in the Chicago crime world. He had built his family’s organization from nothing, taking it from a small operation to the incredible thing it was today.

  All the men in the Russian mob talked about him. The young men bragged about what they would do if they ever saw him, how they’d beat him senseless or kill him or something like that.

  But the older men spoke of him with reverence. I was always surprised to hear my father and his friends speak of Arturo not as their hated enemy, but as a respected businessman. They admired him in a lot of ways, even though they were actively trying to undermine him.

  Arturo Barone had grown to epic proportions in my mind. I’d never thought I’d see him, let alone walk right into his inner sanctum.

  Which was why my stomach was a nervous wreck as I follow Vince through the hallways of Arturo’s house. It hadn’t really dawned on me what exactly was going on. It hadn’t really become real in my mind that I was in the middle of the Italian mob’s stronghold. Probably because it felt more like a luxury hotel than like a mafia compound.

  But I was about to go meet the most powerful man in the city.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Vince said to me.

  I nodded. “I’m not.”

  He laughed. “You really love to lie, don’t you?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Okay, I’m nervous.”

  “Good. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

  We moved through the hallways, and my body was still buzzing from what had happened just a few minutes ago. Everything was so mixed up in my mind in that moment. I had gone from Vince’s incredible mouth working my soaking pussy to suddenly afraid to meet the head of the Barone crime family, all within a few minutes.

  And now, of course, my relationship with Vince was much more complicated than I had wanted.

  I had never planned on doing anything like that with him. Sure, he was attractive, sexy actually, with all those tattoos and his dirty mouth. But he was a dangerous mobster, not the type of man I needed.

  I needed a father to my kid, not some asshole. He could give me some protection now, but I’d never intended for him to really be in my life in any meaningful way.

  So what did it mean that I was willing to let him touch me like that? He made me feel incredible.

  That was the scariest part.

  Finally, we ended up outside a big wooden door. Vince knocked twice.

  “Come,” a voice called from inside.

  Vince pushed open the door and we walked inside.

  Arturo’s study was a lot like the rest of the house: richly furnished, plenty of wood and gold, the sort of place a man of power like him could exist.

  There were three men in the room. Lucas Barone was leaning up against a wall and nodded as we entered. Another young man was standing next to him, his arms crossed, smiling kindly at me.

  And then there was Arturo himself. He was older, heavier, with thinning hair cut short. He didn’t look like the terrifying man I had imagined in my mind all these years at all. He looked more like a middle school football coach gone soft, though he wore an expensive-looking suit.

  “Kaley,” he said. “I’m Arturo Barone. This is my son, Lucas, and one of our captains, Gian.”

  “Hello,” I said, nervous.

  “Sit.” He nodded at the chairs in front of his desk. We sat down in front of him.

  “So, Kaley, how has your stay here been?”

  “Good,” I said. “It’s beautiful here.”

  Arturo smiled. “Good. I’m glad you think so. We treat our guests as well as possible.”

  “I really appreciate your hospitality.”

  He leaned back in his chair, eyeing me. “You know why you were called here, yes?”

  I nodded. “You’re trying to figure out what to do with me.”

  He smiled again. “Yes, yes, we are. Should I be honest with you, Kaley?”

  “Please.”

  “You’re a problem. You’re the daughter of Anatoli Kozlov, a notorious pain in my fucking ass, which means you should be the enemy.” He sighed and looked at Lucas. “Pour me a drink, son.”

  The room was silent as Lucas poured Arturo a whisky and placed it in front of him. Arturo took a sip and nodded almost to himself.

  “Now,” he said, continuing, “you have this baby that you say is Vincent’s child. I’ll ask you, though I doubt you’ll change your story. The child is truly Vincent’s?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Of course. Well, that’s complicated. We like Vincent; he’s a very good worker, ruthless and smart in his own way.”

  I glanced at Vince, but his face revealed nothing.

  “Your family threatened us with war, Kaley.”

  I blinked. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Are you worth going to war over?”

  “I don’t know,” I said softly.

  “No,” he said. “You are not worth going to war over. Say that back to me.”

  I felt a cold chill run over me. “I am not worth going to war over.”

  “Good. Understand that.”

  I was terrified. Were they about to throw me out? I didn’t know where I would go if they did, what I would do.

  I had nothing else. I had some money, but it wasn’t close to enough to get me far away. Maybe Vince would help me, but I doubted it, not while we didn’t have the paternity test back yet.

  I was screwed. I wasn’t worth going to war over; I knew that was true. I didn’t have any useful information for them, and I wouldn’t tell them even if I did.

  All I had was my son. He was half Russian mob and half Italian mob. I had hoped that Vince’s heart would sway him into helping Alexei, but I was beginning to realize how foolish and childish that was.

  These people didn’t know me. They had no reason to protect me, to help me. If anything, I was a huge liability to their organization.

  “I understand,” I said softly.

  Arturo finished off his drink and looked at me. The room was quiet and tense, and I could feel Vince’s agitation next to me. He wasn’t speaking up, but he clearly was angry about something.

  Ma
ybe he did give a shit after all. But he wasn’t going to help me if he knew what was good for him.

  “I need you to understand that,” Arturo said, “because I do not want you to think that you are the reason we are allowing you to stay here.”

  I blinked, surprised. “What?”

  “We are offering you our protection, Kaley. We are going to war with your organization, but it isn’t because of you. We are going to war because I’m sick of the fucking Russians trying to throw their meager weight around.”

  I stared at him, completely shocked. Hope and anguish raged in equal measures inside me. I was going to be protected, allowed to keep my son, but people were going to die.

  My family was going to be in danger because of me.

  “But,” Arturo said, raising his finger, “if the child isn’t Vincent’s, then we will kill you and throw the baby into a river. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Tell me now if you’re lying. We’ll let you go, but this is your last chance.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Good.” He leaned back in his chair and almost looked relieved. “Gian, go tell the others.”

  The young man nodded and then left the room.

  “Last thing, Kaley,” Arturo said. “We need you to be useful to us, and so I want you to think real hard about any information you can give me that will help our cause.”

  “I won’t betray my family.”

  He laughed. “The family that wants to steal your child away?”

  “I won’t betray them,” I said softly. “I don’t want them to get hurt.”

  “Of course not. But unfortunately, your actions have ensured that they will. So I implore you, give me information, make this war easier on everyone.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know anything, but I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

  “We’ll see.” Arturo looked at Vince. “Take her back to her rooms.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We stood. I followed Vince out of the study and could feel Arturo’s eyes on me the whole time.

  Once out of there, we walked quickly away. We got a few halls over before Vince stopped and turned toward me.

  “I hope you understand what happened in there,” he said.

  “I get it.”

  He pressed me up against a door, pinning my body against it. “Are you sure? Men are going to die.”

  “I didn’t ask them to go to war.”

  “No, but your actions forced them to.”

  I couldn’t look at him. “Alexei is your child, Vince.”

  “Yes, maybe. I’m not afraid of war, Kaley. I’ll kill your family if I have to. But if you can help us avoid that, think very long and hard about it.”

  Anger rose up inside me. “I don’t know anything, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did,” I snapped. “You’re not going to find it so easy to kill my family.”

  “Maybe,” Vince said, smiling. “But we’ll definitely give it our best.”

  I pushed him away, pissed beyond words. Why would he say that to me? I didn’t want anyone to die, didn’t want my family hurt. I didn’t want the Italians to get hurt, either. All I wanted was my baby, nothing more.

  Maybe I had made a huge mistake coming to Vince. Maybe I should have just run away, tried to make it on my own. I knew my family would hunt me down though, and I had basically no resources to help me. Vince was my only real hope.

  But it was coming with so much more pain. I hated that I was going to be the direct cause of death and destruction. I hated that my family was willing to go to war over me, because I knew they didn’t care about me.

  I was just a pawn in all this, an easy excuse. Arturo wasn’t going to war over me; he was going to war because he was sick of my family taking his territory.

  The bastards all wanted to pin it on me. They were all bastards, especially Vince.

  He grinned at me, a delicious grin.

  A dirty bastard’s smile.

  “Come on, princess,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “You can use me as an excuse,” I said softly, “but the truth is, you all just want to kill each other. I’m a convenient reason. But I won’t let you drag me down with you.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Come on.”

  We continued walking, heading back toward my rooms.

  How quickly things changed. Not long ago, I was thinking about wanting Vince in my life. He had made my body feel so incredible.

  Now, though, he was just another bastard I had to deal with. All of these men wanted to kill each other, and they wanted to use me as an excuse.

  But I wouldn’t break. I had Alexei to think about.

  Vince dropped me off at my rooms and walked away, a dark and stormy look in his eyes.

  14

  Vince

  So it was going to be war.

  I hadn’t really expected it to come to this. When I first saw her standing outside the gate, I thought it might lead to some bickering, some annoying skirmishes, but not all-out war.

  How fucking wrong I was.

  The day after Kaley met with Arturo, I was out in the streets preparing for the coming fight. I still had her taste in my mouth and her anger in my mind, both of which drove me absolutely crazy.

  I understood her anger. I understood why she would hate us for blaming her for this war. Truthfully, I knew it wasn’t her fault, and Arturo had even gone out of his way to make sure she understood that.

  But she still resented being used as an excuse to kill each other.

  Kaley was going to have to understand the men she was involved with. If she wanted me to be a father to her kid, which I wasn’t sure I really wanted, then she was going to have to accept that I was a fucking violent man.

  I was a mafioso. I was a mobster. I was a killer and a thief. I lived my life according to my own principles, and no man had control of me, what I did, or when I did it.

  I was a free man and always would be.

  I climbed out of the car, Rafa right next to me. I stretched and looked up at the Chinatown buildings.

  “Finding Bao today?” Rafa asked.

  “Why else would we come to this shithole?”

  He laughed. “Good point.”

  “Come on.”

  Bao ran a series of drycleaners throughout the city, but they were really just a front for money laundering. His store in Chinatown was his cleanest and best place, though it was still rundown and a piece of shit by the standards of the area.

  I pushed in through the front door. A woman was sitting on a stool, watching a small television.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “I’m looking for Bao.”

  She looked at me. “He not here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Don’t know. You got clothes?”

  I clenched my jaw. “Get me Bao.” I lifted open my jacket and showed her my gun. “Now.”

  She stared at me, wide-eyed. “He not here.”

  “Get him on the phone.”

  “I can’t. Bao not here.”

  I stepped closer to her. “Listen, lady. I know you speak English just fine. Get Bao on the phone or I’m going to shoot you in the fucking kneecap. Got it?”

  She stared at me. “Fine. Hold on.” I glanced at Rafa, and he grinned at me as the woman grabbed a phone and dialed a number.

  She said something in Chinese into the receiver and waited. More Chinese back and forth before she finally looked at me. “Bao coming,” she said.

  We waited for another minute, she spoke more Chinese, and finally she handed me the phone.

  “Bao?” I asked.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Vincent. You know, your fucking business partner.”

  “Ah, Vincent.” He sounded a little nervous. “How are you?”

  “I’m pissed off. I’m very angry that I had to threaten one of your employees just to get you on the phone, Bao.”

  “Ah, well, I’m sorry
about that, too.”

  “Tell me about the shipment.”

  “We’re having trouble. It’s costing us more than we expected to bribe the dock workers.”

  “How much more?”

  “One hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Fuck,” I said. “What the fuck, Bao? You said we were all paid up.”

  “We were, Vince. We were. But the workers want more now. They’re squeezing all our shipments.”

  “Fuck.” I looked up at the dingy ceiling and did some quick math. “I can front that. But listen to me, Bao. If you dodge my calls one more time, I will hunt you down and I will kill you. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, of course, Vincent. I will be at your beck and call.”

  “One more thing, Bao. This has to happen fast.”

  “If you can get that money, we can move very quickly.”

  “Fine. I’ll call you soon and arrange a drop. In the meantime, be fucking accessible.”

  “Of course. Of course. I apologize again.”

  “Fine.” I handed the phone back to the woman. She gazed at me with a bored expression as she hung it up.

  “Sorry to bother you,” I said.

  “It comes with the job,” she said. “Bao is an asshole.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, he is.”

  I followed Rafa back out into the street. We leaned up against the car, looking around.

  “So?” he asked.

  “We need another hundred grand.”

  “Fuck.”

  “We can take it from the steak shop.”

  “Steak is all tapped out, boss,” he said.

  “Pets?”

  “Done too.”

  “How fucking thin are we right now?”

  “We’re locked up in this deal, boss.”

  “Fuck,” I said. “Arturo wants to use these guns in the war, too. I’d planned on fucking flipping them.”

  “Maybe we can ask him to front this?”

  “I’ll float that to Lucas. You find us some money somewhere else just in case.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  We climbed back into the car and headed back toward the compound.

  “Never did trust that Bao guy,” Rafa said.

  “Shut up, Rafa.”