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

by Aria R. Blue

  “Everything always is,” he says, blinking rapidly.

  His black eyelashes are thick, framing his eyes like kohl. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such pretty eyes on a man before.

  A lost child.

  He’s just a lost child with a broken heart.

  “You want her to get back with you?”

  He clears his throat. “That’s up to her to decide. Leo is wrong when he thinks that I’m going to keep her locked up. I just want to see her. Just once. I want to see my own wife’s face. Is that too much to ask for, Belle?”

  I want to sympathize with him. Almost.

  But I don’t know what he’s done to make her walk away.

  It must have been something truly terrible, considering how Luna wore a similar expression on her own face when she talked about love.

  She still loves him.

  She still hates him.

  “Before I met her, I was a man who had it all, Belle. I had everything. But I felt like a beggar the day I met her. I didn’t realize until then that a single person can make your life so much richer. I didn’t know what I was missing in my own life until I met her.”

  “What went wrong?” I ask.

  “He betrayed me,” Nico says, his jaw hardening. “You fiancé betrayed me. Men like him, they dig their own grave sometimes. I really wish it didn’t have to be this way, Belle.”

  “What went wrong?” I ask again, my voice shaky now.

  “Leo ruined it all for me. He took away the one person I cherished the most in my life. I’m going to do the same to him.” He gets up, and points his gun at me. “I’m so sorry, Belle.”

  41

  Leo

  I feel like an idiot.

  All of my men are behind me, fully-armed and prepared for war.

  We’re standing in front of a four-story limestone house in Wicker Park. Maxim Reznikov’s house.

  It’s illuminated from within. Through the open curtains, I can make out two men.

  Maxim Rezikov. And my Dad.

  We came here ready to attack, and I find that my Dad is having dinner with our biggest enemy.

  “There’s something you need to know, Leo,” grunts a man from behind me. I turn and find that it was Rocco who just spoke. The Blackwood family’s underboss.

  The man who never speaks is speaking.

  My father is inside our enemy’s house.

  Belle is back in Chicago for me.

  It feels like the whole world is tilting on its axis, and I don’t know what to make of it.

  “What?” I snap. “What do I need to know, Rocco?”

  “I need you to calm down first,” he says.

  When I sent the location to the family, all of them came without asking any questions.

  But on every single one of their faces, I see pity.

  For me.

  They know something I don’t.

  “What. Is. It.” I speak through gritted teeth.

  The front door opens. “Leo, get inside. We need to talk.”

  I turn and find my father there, standing right in front of Maxim Reznikov. He’s standing with his back to the man who’s been backstabbing us for the past few months.

  Maxim is a dangerous man. Especially to us.

  So why then is my Dad inside his house like they’re two old friends?

  I don’t move a muscle. “What’s going on, Dad?”

  “Leo, it’s better if we do this inside. I don’t have much time left.”

  “Inside that house?”

  “I heard Belle finally came to Chicago?”

  “How do you know that?”

  Maxim speaks up from behind him. “My men told me. I told him.” He grabs a jacket from inside and shrugs it on. “I should leave you two alone.”

  He climbs down the short flight of stairs. Every muscle in my body tenses as he passes by me.

  My men get back inside their cars as well. It seems like all of them are following unspoken commands.

  Commands that are originating from the most powerful man standing here tonight—my Dad.

  “There’s nobody in here,” he says, clearing his throat. “Come inside, son. I’ll explain everything.”

  My legs finally move—down the stone walkway and up the stairs that lead into our enemy’s house.

  I have a million questions. I stare expectantly at my Dad, waiting for the answers.

  “I know. I know you have questions,” he says. “Take a seat first.”

  I remain standing, still on guard.

  “Nobody else is here. We’re alone,” he sighs.

  “What are we doing inside the Reznikov’s home, Dad?”

  “If you’re not going to sit, I will.” He takes a seat on the same spot where I found him talking with Maxim Reznikov moments ago.

  Everything feels wrong.

  I contemplate leaving and taking my Dad with me, but he speaks up, “Remember when you thought of me as a selfish bastard?”

  “It wasn’t that long ago,” I say, taking a seat opposite him and resting my elbows on my knees.

  “You were right to call me that, Leo,” he says. “That’s what I am. I do things for myself and think of the consequences after the damage has been done.”

  I shake my head, still not comprehending what he’s trying to say. “What did you do? Were you making a deal with the Russians without consulting with me about it?”

  My father is the boss.

  He doesn’t have to consult with me for anything, but we’ve been working together for the last few months.

  We’ve become a team in all of his operations.

  Dad runs his hand through his thick grey hair. “Something like that, yes. But the deal wasn’t made tonight. Maxim and I…we had agreed to it five months ago.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me this, son. What is it that all crime families have in common?”

  “What is this, some kind of test?” Patience is starting to drip out of me.

  “Just humor me for a minute.”

  I lean back on the couch, and drop my head back.

  Anger is starting to bubble through my veins. I count to ten, trying to prevent myself from lashing out.

  All day, I’ve been on edge.

  Ever since I put the bullet in the boy’s skull, I’ve been feeling sick.

  It never gets easier.

  You never get used to it.

  Trying to make myself get used to it would be equivalent to shutting off my humanity. And that’s a line I don’t want to cross.

  When you’re in a gang, people get hurt. It’s just how it is. It’s either them or someone you care about.

  What it really comes down to is—can I justify taking a man’s life by saying that I saved my woman and our unborn babies by doing so?

  “What do all crime families have in common?” I repeat. “They destroy things. They destroy lives.”

  “Apart from that,” Dad says. I notice that his hands are trembling.

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so…vulnerable.

  “Why don’t you just tell me?” I say.

  My soul is tired.

  But I have a feeling I’m going to need to hold on to my strength for whatever is about to come next.

  “Family,” he says.

  “They put family above everything else,” I say, nodding. It doesn’t erase what I did, but it eases the hurt.

  “Right,” Father says. “Family above everything else. That’s why the Reznikov’s agreed to help me when I approached them five months ago. It’s the one thing all of us can relate to: the importance of family.”

  “Help you with what?”

  He takes a deep breath, and the words rush out of him. “We’re not at war with the Reznikov’s. All of it was staged, Leo. The Russians have only been pretending to be at war with us.”

  I remain immobile.

  Even the air in my lungs remains suspended.

  “Why.”

  “Because I’m a selfish bastard,” he says,
looking me in the eyes without flinching. He matches my simmering rage with endless compassion. “Because I’m dying.”

  My chest contracts. “What?”

  “I wanted to reconcile with you. I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. And I didn’t want to die with a head full of regrets.”

  “What’s wrong, Dad?” My breathing becomes choppy and painful.

  “I’m not well, Leo. A tumor over here,” he says, patting the back of his neck. “They told me I had a few months left.”

  I blink. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t want to see that look on your face,” he says, curling his lips. “I didn’t want to see pity in your eyes when you looked at me. This is not how I wanted you to remember me.”

  “Why wait until now to tell me?”

  “It’s getting worse.” He smiles sadly. “I have a feeling that today might be my last-“

  I shake my head. “Don’t say that.”

  “Words aren’t going to change what’s about to come,” he says, standing up. It takes him longer than usual.

  These little signs that I didn’t notice until now—they seem so obvious. Every movement he makes towards me, I see them in a new light.

  The pallor of his skin.

  The way he falters slightly as he walks.

  There were other signs as well. The medication he called multi-vitamins, how everyone in the gang seemed to be in on a secret.

  He sits down beside me. “I didn’t want you to hate me, Leo. I couldn’t live with that. So I had to be selfish. I had to do the selfish thing and call you here the only way I knew how.”

  “It was you who asked Nico to shoot that night?”

  “No, that was all him. That boy is messed up in his own way. He’s not involved in any of this.”

  “Just the Reznikov’s, then,” I say.

  “Just the Reznikov’s,” he repeats.

  “You felt like you had to fake a war just to get me to talk to you,” I say.

  The shame of it hits me full force.

  If I hadn’t been so stubborn and stuck in my ways, I wouldn’t have put my sick father in this position.

  “It has been eight years since I exchanged a word with you. It’s my own doing, I know-“

  My heart lodges in my throat. “It’s not.”

  “I just wanted your forgiveness. For everything I wasn’t. For everything I didn’t do. For not being there for you when you needed a father the most,” he says.

  I close my eyes.

  During these past few months, I’ve gotten closer to my father than ever before. We ate together, went places together, had conversations that were long overdue.

  “You just wanted to spend time with me,” I choke out.

  When I open them, I see that his eyes are glassy. “Can you forgive me one last time?”

  All of this.

  The burnings, the fights, the meetings.

  All of it was fake.

  Staged.

  He swallows. “I hired actors. To pretend to be business-owners who had their cafés and stores burned down.”

  The bored face of the elderly bakery-owner flashes through my mind.

  No wonder she went from emotionless to torn in two seconds when she saw that I was watching. She was a paid actor.

  “It was to convince you that you were needed in Chicago. Because if it weren’t for the war, why else would you have stayed?”

  He’s not trying to make me feel guilty.

  He’s just stating the truth.

  I get down on my knees, and clasp my father’s hands. “These last few months together? I wouldn’t trade them for anything else. Do you think you can ever forgive me, Dad?”

  My pride has been a poison, keeping me away from people who needed me. People who I needed.

  His hands start to shake underneath mine. “I love you, Leo.”

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  “Call your sister.”

  “Does she know?” I look into his eyes, and I know the answer is no.

  “Ask her to meet us at the hospital,” he says.

  “The hospital?”

  I don’t get a reply.

  His eyes close, and they don’t re-open.

  With my heart hammering in my ribcage, I keep my eyes on my father as I call the ambulance.

  Everything after that happens way too fast.

  I sit next to him as we’re transported to the nearest hospital.

  Never before have I felt so helpless. All I want is to go back in time and reverse some of my decisions. I wish I had done some things differently.

  But that has never been an option for anybody.

  All I get to do now is hold my father’s hand as his unconscious, but breathing body is laid out on a stretcher.

  “Your full name please,” asks a nurse.

  “Leo Blackwood.”

  “What is your relationship to this person?”

  “I’m his son,” I croak out.

  I don’t even get time to be alone with my own thoughts.

  I know these people are just trying to help, but I just want to yell at them all to shut up for a few minutes.

  Memories hit me, each more bittersweet than the last.

  Like the time he taught me how to control my anger.

  * * *

  “If you don’t control your emotions, Leo, they’ll end up controlling you. Is that what you want?”

  I shook my head, and glanced at my bloody hands. I was barely thirteen.

  “Good boy,” he said. “The next time you find yourself triggered by something, I want you to count to ten before you say or do something. Unless your life is in danger. In that case, I want you to beat that motherfucker up. Use that anger as a weapon of destruction.”

  “What?” I had asked, confused at his advice. “Do you want me to fight or not?”

  “There’s no glory in fighting just for the hell of it. Fight like your life depends on it only when it does.”

  * * *

  And just like that, by teaching me how to control my anger, he turned my life around.

  For all our faults, we had our meaningful moments too.

  Hot summer afternoons when we got ice cream milkshakes together. Early autumn weekends when he cleared his entire schedule just so he could take me to the beach.

  It’s easy to eclipse the good times with the hurt he caused.

  But as I hold his hand right now, I’m flooded with a sense of relief. That we got to know and love each other one last time.

  Ivy.

  I should call her.

  I pull my phone out, and see that I have a text message from Nico.

  You left me no choice, comrade.

  I dial his number.

  “What did you do?”

  “I have them both. They’re a-alive,” he says, stuttering over his words. “You know what you have to do.”

  I curse. “Nico, you could not have picked a worse time for this.”

  “I’m giving you six hours,” he slurs.

  “Are you fucking drunk right now?”

  “I said I’m giving you six hours,” he says loudly.

  “Or what?”

  “I’ll blow this place up with dynamite. It’ll be really funny. I don’t think you’ll find it funny though.”

  I hang up, and hold my father’s hand tighter.

  My every instinct is screaming at me to go get Belle. I never should have left her at the apartment.

  I thought she’d be safe with Ivy.

  The only reason the security must have given Nico access is because he’s on my list of approved visitors. From years ago.

  He knew that.

  He also knew that Ivy would open the door for him.

  I knew he was close to snapping, but I didn’t think he would actually do it. But then again, we’re talking about a man who burned a house down because I wasn’t giving him enough of my attention.

  My mind is screaming at me to go to Belle, but my heart tells me
to stay put.

  There’s surely a better way to approach this than with blind panic.

  I ask myself, what would Dad do if he were in my shoes?

  And it comes to me.

  It’s time to call an old friend. If anybody can help me now, it’s her.

  I dial her number and bring the phone to my ear. “Luna, I need a favor.”

  42

  Belle

  “How long are you going to keep us in here?” I ask, throwing my hands up.

  “He’s going to come for you,” Nico says. “I’m surprised he’s not here by now.”

  “Yeah,” I whisper. I thought Leo would’ve come for me as soon as he found out.

  “Do you want anything to eat? Drink?”

  I grind my teeth together. “Fruit.”

  He nods, and turns to Ivy. “What about you, cara?”

  She glares at him, her eyes a silent storm of fury. She’s been curled up in a ball and hasn’t said a word since we got here.

  Nico is clearly someone she trusts.

  And he let her down.

  He raises his eyebrows. “Alright then. I’ll get you two some snacks.”

  A few seconds later, I take the first bite of my apple and watch as Ivy aims hers at Nico’s head. He catches it before it makes contact with his skull.

  “I’m trying to be cool, Ivy,” he says. “You’re tempting me to tie you up.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” she hisses, breaking her silence. And then she goes back to facing the wall.

  Nico brought us to his house three hours ago.

  He’s keeping us hostage, but he’s treating us like guests.

  If anyone were to see the three of us from outside, they’d think we were three friends just kicking it. Except a dozen mafia men are lining the perimeter of the room.

  “I just did what I had to do, okay,” he says. He keeps saying that. I wonder if he’s trying to convince himself.

  He was drinking when we were in Leo’s apartment, but he seems to be relatively sober now. He keeps sipping on water, and I get the impression that he’s nervous about something.

  A small dark-haired man enters the room. “Sir, we have a visitor.”

  Nico brings his hands behind his neck.

  “Is it her?” he whispers.