Knocked Up by the Beast: A Mafia Romance (Kingdoms Book 1)

by Aria R. Blue

  She loved a man who was wrong for her. Because of that, she cried herself to sleep every night.

  I don’t know if that makes her a weak person too.

  Some love can rip you apart.

  But the right love lifts you up.

  Like this girl in front of me, holding my hand as I bare the ugliest parts of my soul to her.

  “I had tutors,” I say, thinking about them for the first time in a long time. “My favorite was the math tutor. She was a brunette with pretty blue eyes.”

  Belle’s nails dig into my skin.

  But her voice is as smooth as butter as she says, “Sounds like a lovely woman.”

  “She was,” I say wistfully.

  Belle’s nails feel like talons now, about to slice right through my skin.

  “I liked math. Graphs, numbers, charts. I was a total nerd,” I say. The talons retreat. “That’s why I do what I do now. Analyzing trends in markets and predicting the future.”

  Belle sucks in a breath when I say that.

  “What?” I say.

  “Predicting the future,” she says under her breath, more to herself than to me. But then she shakes her head. “I just thought of somebody.”

  Before I can ask her who she’s thinking about, my watch beeps.

  “That bastard,” I say, looking down at the message.

  “Who is it?”

  My teeth clench. “Nico.”

  “The guy who called you earlier. Who is he again?”

  I bring my hand up to my left shoulder. Right where the bullet grazed my skin. “Nico is the man who’s responsible for this.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she breathes. “What does he want from you?”

  “It’s…a long story,” I sigh. “I know you have questions, baby. I’ll answer them all when we meet again.”

  “When we meet again? Why, where are you going?” she swallows.

  Her hand goes to her belly, and I look down at it, before looking back into her worried eyes.

  I pull her closer, and crush my lips down on hers. It doesn’t last as long as I want it to, but I get the message across.

  I love you.

  She keeps her eyes closed, and her breathing becomes ragged.

  “It gets hard to breathe every time you leave,” she says.

  And I know that this can’t be how we part.

  I shoot a quick message to my driver.

  15.

  I carry Belle to my bedroom, and make love to her.

  I kiss every inch of her face, and let our bodies burn in the way they know so well. It’s slow and passionate, somehow even more intense than what we did in the dark last night.

  Fifteen minutes isn’t enough, but I have a feeling even an eternity with Belle won’t be enough.

  She’ll always leave me wanting more.

  My stomach is in knots, but I force myself to say goodbye.

  “Baby, I have some things I need to get sorted. I always had a feeling that my past would catch up with me, and it has. The timing couldn’t be worse, but I need to deal with it. I’ll be gone for a few months.”

  “Take me with you,” she says automatically.

  “It’s not safe.” I shake my head, and fight the tears that threaten to surface. “Pack your bags, Belle. I’m taking you home.”

  26

  Belle

  He’s watching.

  As long as he’s watching over me, it’s all okay.

  My ratty backpack is slung over one shoulder.

  The white cottage is in front of me, and Leo is in the black SUV behind me. The windows are tinted, but I know that he’s watching.

  I also know that he won’t leave until he makes sure that I’m home safe.

  So I remain frozen, my two feet planted firmly to the ground. We already said our goodbyes, but I don’t want to walk away.

  I want to stay—with him.

  Even turning my back on him is killing me.

  There are so many words I left unsaid. So many things I’ve felt in my heart, but didn’t express out loud.

  I still haven’t told him that I love him.

  Or that I’m pregnant.

  It was on the tip of my tongue, but I held back.

  A part of me wanted to wait until I saw him again.

  I wanted to wait until I could say it with joy, instead of this bittersweet love that’s sluicing through my veins in this moment.

  The cottage door flies open.

  “Belle,” screams Julie. “You’re back.”

  She’s running down the grassy hill, a blur of blonde hair. I find myself grinning and opening my arms.

  She crashes into me, almost tackling me to the ground.

  There’s laughing and crying and hugging.

  I try to ignore the sound of the crunch of gravel beneath the SUV tires as it rolls away.

  “Is that him?” she asks, craning her neck to get a better view.

  “Yeah, that’s Leo,” I say, refusing to turn around and find him gone.

  “What happened?” she asks, scanning me from head to toe. I’m back in the clothes I wore when I left home all those weeks ago.

  My blue skirt and white blouse.

  Only one thing had changed. The diamond that hangs from my neck. Leo’s diamond.

  “I thought you’d be happier to see me return,” I mumble, linking arms with her as we walk up the hill together.

  “Of course I’m happy to see you,” she says, resting her head on my shoulder. “I just thought I wouldn’t see you until Christmas. And you didn’t mention that you’d be visiting early.”

  “I’m not just visiting. I’m staying,” I say through the growing lump in my throat.

  Julie’s head whips towards me. “Seriously?”

  I nod without enthusiasm.

  My sister senses that there’s more to the story, but she doesn’t ask. Which is fine by me, because I don’t trust myself to speak right now. Not without breaking down.

  There are so many emotions involved in this.

  So much has happened, and now, I don’t know when I’ll see Leo again.

  And it’s not just about us. There’s the baby too. A baby he doesn’t know anything about.

  I survey the cottage and the land around it.

  Not much has changed. The flower beds are empty, but the vegetables we planted late in the summer are thriving.

  I glance back at the cottage.

  Hazel’s armchair by the window is…missing. Julie opens the door.

  The armchair isn’t the only thing that’s missing.

  I blink rapidly.

  “Where…what happened to all our stuff?”

  Our home looks like its been ransacked.

  We never had much to begin with, but everything is gone now. The furniture, the small TV, even the wall clock.

  The only thing that has remained the same are Julie’s paintings—the curling vines and the small flower blooms.

  “They took it all away,” Julie says grimly.

  “Who took it all away?”

  “The creditors. They came late at night, and took everything they wanted. Papa owed a lot of people a lot of money, and there was nothing we could do to stop them.”

  My heart sinks to my stomach. “Did you call the police?”

  “The police watched it all happen. Kane was here. He looked like crusty chewed up bubblegum—bruises all over his face, a split lip, and the worst black eye I’ve ever seen. He was in the most rotten mood too.”

  “When was this?” I ask cautiously.

  “Last night.”

  Last night.

  When I told Leo about what happened in high school five years ago. When he went out to give Kane a piece of his mind.

  Last night.

  When Leo came back home shaking with rage, with blood on his shirt that wasn’t his own.

  “This is all my fault,” I whisper.

  “Now why the hell would you think that?” she asks.

  I turn to her.
<
br />   Julie doesn’t know about the indecent pictures of me that Kane circulated in high school. She doesn’t know about the shame and suffering I’ve kept hidden inside myself.

  I left many words unsaid with Leo, but it doesn’t have to be that way with my sister.

  So I talk.

  I open my mouth, and everything comes spilling out. All of the things I should’ve told Leo, but didn’t have the courage to, I tell Julie.

  My chest is heaving by the time I finish.

  I’m curled up on the floor, my head between my knees. My sister is rubbing my back, trying to comfort me.

  “You’re in love with him,” she says. “You’re really in love with him.”

  It makes me sob harder.

  I’ve felt it in my heart, I showed it with every kiss I returned, but does he know it? Does he really, really know it?

  Because I never said the words back to him.

  And I tell my sister the one thing I haven’t told anybody until now. “I’m having his baby.”

  Julie glances down at my stomach with wide eyes. I’m not showing yet, but she grins at it anyway. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You mean I’m going to be an aunt?” she squeals.

  “Yeah.”

  My sister’s joy is infectious.

  Despite everything that had happened today, I find myself smiling. Delight surfaces inside me like champagne bubbles.

  She gets up and does a little dance, wringing her arms and kicking her legs out.

  Only then do I notice things about Julie.

  Small things.

  Skinny arms. Sharp cheekbones.

  She has lost a significant amount of weight. She has always had a small frame, and it’s startling to see her even thinner than before.

  While I was away feasting every night at the estate, did my family not have enough to eat?

  She catches me staring, and stops mid-spin. “You’re staring at me. What?”

  “Nothing,” I say, pursing my lips.

  “Give it up, Belle.”

  I take a deep breath. We’re family. If your own family doesn’t tell it like it is, then who will?

  “You’ve lost weight,” I breathe.

  She crosses her arms defensively. “So?”

  “Is there not enough food?”

  We’ve never been well off, but there has always been food on the table. Hazel and I made sure of it.

  “It’s not that,” she says, looking away. “I’ve…lost my appetite. It’s probably just some temporary thing, so I’m not too concerned about it.”

  “Is there a reason why you lost your appetite?” I ask.

  “At first, I thought it was because I missed you. But I had a lot of time to contemplate, and…”

  “And?” I press.

  “And I realized it’s not you,” she breathes out. And then she shakes her head. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  I clasp her wrist. “Julie. Are you okay?”

  She blinks slowly. “No. But I feel stupid even talking about it.”

  “Your emotional health is important,” I say gently.

  I don’t want her to become like me—burying feelings when they get too inconvenient.

  Julie has always been the kind of girl who wore her heart on her sleeve. And I don’t want that to change now. I want to preserve that innocence.

  She wrings her arms out. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, Belle. Remember the brushes you gifted me on my birthday? I haven’t used them even once.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “No. I stopped painting the day you left. It’s been so quiet inside this house, and I had nothing to do but look inwards. And I realized something about myself. Something that has always been there.”

  She pauses. I try not to notice how small her wrist feels in my hand.

  And then she says, “I think I…have feelings for someone.”

  “Derek?”

  She yanks her hand away, and looks offended. “You knew?”

  “You followed him around like a puppy,” I shrug.

  “I did not,” she says, even as her cheeks burn.

  Derek is her ex-best friend.

  He was older than her by five years, but Julie always had a special place in her heart for him.

  They’ve never been anything other than good friends.

  Until the fight happened.

  It was around a year ago. She refuses to tell me what it was about. All I know is that he left town the next day, and Julie proclaimed that Derek was ‘dead to her’.

  “Did he try to contact you again?” I ask.

  She gnaws on her bottom lip, and walks to the bedroom. When she emerges, she’s holding a thick stack of envelopes.

  She slaps them into my hands.

  “What are these?” I ask, going through them.

  They’re all sealed, so I can’t open any. But all of them bear Julie’s name.

  “He sends one every month,” she says. “I’ve never written back, and I’ve never felt the need to open them either. But lately, I miss him. I miss my best friend.”

  I have no words.

  And I don’t think that’s what my sister needs right now.

  I stand up, and hug her.

  I need it as much as she does.

  We’re in the middle of chaos, but we find peace. Even if only for a moment, all that exists is our love.

  “Ow, something’s poking me in the chest,” she says, pulling away.

  Her eyes land on my necklace.

  The one with the Rose as a pendant.

  It’s Leo’s only tether to his mother, and he transferred it from his neck to mine right before we left the estate.

  “Is this the diamond that started everything?” she asks.

  I nod. “He calls it the ‘Rose’. It…belonged to someone he loved dearly.”

  “You haven’t told him about the baby, have you?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “He doesn’t know. What made you think that though?”

  “After everything you just told me, I don’t think a man like him would send you back home if he knew you were carrying his baby.”

  Maybe.

  Leo didn’t tell me the specifics about what he was about to do. All he said was that he needed to ‘tie up loose ends’ in Chicago.

  I really hope that wasn’t an euphemism for killing people.

  “Where are Papa and Hazel?” I ask.

  “Hazel’s at work. And he’s in the basement.”

  I’m already walking towards the door that leads to the basement.

  I open the door. Darkness cloaks the stairs that lead to Papa’s room. The basement is where he lives and works most days.

  “Aren’t you coming?” I turn around to face Julie.

  “You go ahead. I don’t want to see that man’s face right now.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. Okay then.

  I step into the inky darkness.

  I’m reminded of the mask Leo wore before we stepped out of the estate. It was plain black, and covered only the left side of his face.

  He looked like the Phantom from the musical ‘The Phantom of the Opera’.

  I didn’t like seeing an entire side of his face covered. It made him look like a different person.

  And it made me wonder, ‘Is there more to him that I don’t know yet?’

  27

  Belle

  “Why are you mad at Papa?” I ask, turning to Julie.

  Both of us are lying down on the hill. A blanket of stars hangs right over our heads.

  Neither of us have ever had much, but when we’re staring at the stars, it feels like the whole world belongs to us.

  The town spreads for miles, and beyond that is the forest. The one that hid Leo’s estate from us until now.

  I turn to Julie. She sighs, and covers her eyes with her arms. “I still can’t believe he would just leave you there.”

  “That was my choice, Julie. You know that.”

>   “Yeah, but- what if Leo wasn’t a good guy? My point is—you don’t just leave your daughter to fend for herself in the middle of nowhere.”

  I take a deep breath.

  A small part of me wondered about that too. Papa objected to it at first, but he was way too eager to leave the estate. To leave me behind.

  “Do you think that…maybe…” I fiddle with my necklace. Leo gave it to me as a promise. That he will come back for me.

  My sister finishes my thought for me. “Do I think that Papa really tried to steal that diamond?”

  Her eyes flit to the diamond pendant.

  I shake my head, not wanting to jump to conclusions. “He wouldn’t.”

  “He could,” Julie shrugs. “He’s desperate, Belle. He owes people money. He might have gotten desperate.”

  I don’t want to hear it.

  Papa is all we have. I don’t want to believe that he would steal from someone, and then leave me behind when he got caught.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” I say. Even as I say it, it doesn’t sound convincing to my own ears.

  “He’s been acting different,” mumbles Julie.

  “Different how?”

  “Didn’t you notice how he never called you when you were away? Not even to ask if you were doing okay?”

  I remain quiet.

  She has a point. Papa only called me once in the two months I was away.

  “That’s because he’s guilty, Belle. He knows that what he did was wrong. And now, that guilt is eating him up.”

  “It can’t be-“ I break off mid-sentence, the words dying on my lips.

  I can’t get myself to even think about it, much less say it.

  “It’s not just that,” she sighs. “He’s away a lot. I don’t know where he goes, but he has a frantic gleam in his eyes when he comes back.”

  “Okay?”

  “He’s just been acting very strange. He’s up to something, I know it.”

  We’re both quiet for a moment.

  “Do you really believe that he’s guilty?” I whisper, fingers toying with the diamond that started it all.

  She turns to face me. “Honestly? I don’t know what to think, Belle. It’s been a weird couple of weeks.”

  I rest my hands on my belly. I don’t want to bring the baby into a world of lies and betrayal.

  “Jules, can I ask you something?”