Kane: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Mob Daddies Book 2)

by Alexa Hart

  Chapter 23

  Summer

  The bus station is the same as I remember it, but I am amazed how in just a few months, everything has changed. Last time I was here, it was Maddie who was red-eyed and crying after her awful experience with her mom, and now I sit waiting for my bus to board and take me home to Madison, eyes red-rimmed from crying about Kane and how foolishly I’d believed we cared about each other. They call my bus number and I board my bus, taking a seat toward the back. Rudy wants me to stay and take over the bakery for him, but I know if I stick around Maddie will keep coming around and I won’t be able to hide the pregnancy. And I have decided to keep the baby. Maybe for Kane I was nothing but a naïve, easy lay, but he was more to me. If I stay here in Chicago, I’ll have to tell him and I have a feeling he’ll do what he did with Julie, he’ll ask me to marry him. Only I know he won’t mean it. He made that clear our last night together. As much as I want to stay at the bakery, I know I have to go back to Madison. Becca has called me every day since I moved out of Kane’s house, and she promises to be back from London for the first ultrasound. I’ve really made a huge mess of everything.

  As I wait for the rest of the bus to board, I send a quick text off to Becca. She zips one back, assuring me that her mom will be waiting for me when I arrive and promises to have multiple pints of ice cream ready for me. After all, she jokes in her text, I’m eating for two now.

  I sit alone in the back of the bus and while a few people look at me as they board, I am grateful that nobody sits next to me. I’ll be proud of myself if I don’t cry the whole bus ride, and no amount of my mom’s cheer-up cookies will help. I still feel like such an idiot. I really believed Kane loved me, and the worst part is, a part of me still does.

  The bus engine revs and the bus starts to back up when it comes to a sudden and lurching stop. The doors open with a hiss of compressed air and I hear the familiar yap, yapping of Monster. I peer down the aisle and the dog comes bounding at me, jumping up into my lap.

  “Monster,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

  The bus driver comes down the aisle and eyes me in an unfriendly way. “No pets on the bus, lady. Unless she’s a service dog, you two need to get off.”

  I stand up. I’m worried that Maddie found out I was leaving and skipped school to say goodbye and I can’t leave her like this. I nod and take Monster in my arms. “Sorry,” I say. “Just give me five minutes.”

  The bus driver nods and I hurry off the bus and look around for Maddie. The bus station is packed with people, so I don’t see him at first. But then I feel the familiar tingle on the back of my neck. The undeniable heat of his stare. I turn around again and that’s when I see him.

  He walks over. His face looks frustrated? Angry? I can’t tell and honestly, I am trying very hard not to care. I remind myself, and the familiar thrill in my veins, that he doesn’t care, and I don’t care either.

  “What do you want?” I ask. My voice trembles.

  Kane looks at me. “I need to clear up a few things.”

  “Such as?”

  He frowns. “Well, such as that I am an idiot who lied to you. I wasn’t sleeping with Trixie. There hasn’t been anyone else in my bed...or in my heart ...since you threw that cookie tin at me, and I don’t want anyone else.”

  At this shocking double whammy of a confession, I don’t know what to say. “But…you said you were sleeping with her. Why would you lie?” Even as I ask, I think I know, and it breaks my heart.

  He looks in my eyes. “With the contract up, I needed you to be safe. And you aren’t safe with me. Not to mention you are too good for me. That’s just fucking common sense.”

  “Kane,” I say.

  He holds up his hand. “But the last few days have been a new hell. I thought being near your body was torture, but being away from you... So I am a selfish asshole, and for once, I’m glad. Because only an idiot rips up a winning lottery ticket. And there are other reasons….” he glances at my stomach. I know then that he knows.

  “No. I don’t want you to marry me to be honorable.” I say.

  He gets down on one knee and holds up the wedding ring I left at his house a few days before. “How about being married because I love you so much it makes me fucking crazy and I can’t spend one more day not with you. The baby can just be a bonus.”

  The dog yaps in my arms. “What about Monster? We keep him too, right?”

  He frowns. “Are we negotiating terms?”

  I nod. “We should have Harry draw up a new contract,” I say. “Lots of physical contact required.”

  Kane stands and slips the ring on my finger. “Binding until death do us part?” He asks.

  “Something like that,” I say.

  And I reach up and kiss my beautiful, dangerous husband.

  THE END

  Also by Alexa Hart

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  I despise Marcello Morano.

  He’s nothing but a filthy rich, mafia bad boy… (or so I’ve heard)

  So why can’t I get him off my mind?...

  He’s mind-numbingly gorgeous, with off-the-charts sex appeal.

  I feel something for Marcello that I’ve never felt before.

  What is this…lust? No, it can’t be. I wouldn’t lust after a criminal… would I?

  His lifestyle may be putting his precious daughter (my favorite student) in danger and I can’t just stand by and watch.

  I couldn’t live with myself if anything ever happened to Gia.

  But when I come face to face with Marcello Morano, my whole world gets flipped upside down.

  Now, suddenly none of the rumors about his mafia involvement matter anymore.

  It doesn’t matter that his dark past scares the hell out of me and his current reality may scare me even more.

  It doesn’t even matter that I could be risking everything to be with him.

  All that matters now is him. Just him and the secret I’m carrying as a memento from a passionate night in his arms.

  But is Marcello’s dangerous lifestyle more than I can handle?

  From contemporary romance author Alexa Hart – a standalone romance complete with a protective, bad boy, single dad that will make you HOT! And of course, a Happily Ever After ending!

  Chapter 1

  Marcello

  If I’m being honest with myself, I loved her from the second I first saw her. But she never knew she was being seen. How twisted is that? How twisted am I? I needed her and she had never even seen my face. If I had the chance… God, the things I would do to her, but I have to keep my distance. I can’t get her out of my head. I see nothing else… just… her…

  Abby

  I hated that goddamn clock. I was thoroughly convinced that the ancient round beast purposely moved slower than normal during the last fifteen minutes of the school day just to fuck with me. It was 3:11, and it had been 3:11 for at least seventy-five years. I loved my job and adored my students (most of them). There was just something about those last few minutes of being trapped in a room where the door was required to be shut “at all times, the only exceptions being recess and end of the day line-up", with twenty-five sets of restless eyes darting from you to the clock and back again, that had an unnerving, torture-tactic quality to it.

  I stared listlessly at the gold name plate sitting silently on my desktop. Miss Abigail Greene. So formal. Why couldn’t it just say Abby Greene? Why couldn’t my students just call me Abby? Most of their bank accounts had more money in them than mine ever would. If anything, I should be formally addressing them as little Sirs and Madams.

  A familiar voice jarred me out of my musings. I could hear Felicity Howard – my closest friend and Winston Elementary Private School’s sole kindergarten teacher – calling out across the hall in her classroom gently but firmly, “Tyler, when I said to stop playing with Jordan’s shoe, I did not me
an to start playing with your own.” She sounded a mixture of exhausted and amused, and I smiled a little picturing the scene.

  Sometimes the maturity level difference between her students and my ever-so-much-older first grade students seemed vast. As I gratefully thought this, James O’Connor fell out of his desk and landed flat on his face in a failed attempt to retrieve a dropped crayon.

  Maybe the difference wasn’t so fucking vast.

  “James, are you alright?” I was on my feet and helping him up while his classmates snickered shamelessly. He met my gaze with a cheerful “I’m fine, Miss Greene!” and a dripping, bloody nose. I cringed inwardly. I didn’t mind blood or James’ clumsiness, but Mrs. O’Connor was a straight up steel-cold bitch when she thought anyone had in some way failed her child (and thereby failed her). You didn’t fail people like Mrs. O’Connor. You didn’t fail any of the wealthy parents of Winston Elementary’s elite student body. It was an unwritten job requirement with well understood consequences.

  James, easy-going and unaffected as ever, had Kleenex up each nostril and a sweet smile on his face by the time the 3:14 closing announcements crackled across the intercom. There was not a day in my memory that the ancient school secretary, Mrs. Bonaparte (Felicity called her simply “The Hag”), had ever missed the opportunity to let her shrill voice be the last thing the students heard before their anticipated release.

  “Students of Winston Elementary, let me remind you that this weekend holds Trick-or-Treat night for most of you. Safety should be of utmost importance when you are out and about the neighborhoods. Always walk with a friend. Wear bright colors. Have your parents check your candy before you eat any of it. Always remember that you are representing Winston Elementary and should be on your very best behavior. Have a good weekend.”

  I rolled my eyes, wondering what the statistics were for small children who actually waited until their parents examined each and every piece of their loot before indulging in their nightly steal. Those numbers had to be staggeringly low; but maybe not quite as low as the percentage of parents who gave a shit to check the candy in the first place. Bonaparte was probably reading straight off a piece of paper that had been printed out in the fucking seventies.

  “Tyler! Shoes on!” Felicity’s voice echoed through the hallway with much less good humor than it had a mere three minutes before. I giggled, as did some of my students, and then proceeded to form the neat line of children for the end-of-day parent pick-up procedure.

  The split second the bell rang, the kids were moving rapidly out the door and instantly became the multiple hall monitors’ responsibility. It was a swift lifting of weight off all of the teachers’ shoulders and had a magical, if somewhat militant, quality to it.

  “Bye, Miss Greene!” In twenty plus little voices as backpacks and giddy, uniform clad children whisked out the door with the inexplicable, never-ending exuberance of innocent youth. I tried to give them all one good look over as they exited, and today especially focused on James. His bloody nose plugs had been discarded and his face looked as cheerful and fresh as ever.

  Thank God, I thought, returning his vigorous hug and mentally replaying the footage of the last time I had upset Mrs. O’Connor. I had no desire to ever repeat that encounter. Her own husband had seemed scared of her at our “meeting”, which was more or less an extended speech about her expectations for any teacher involved in the care of her “dear James” - and how I had not met them. That had been over James swallowing and very briefly almost choking on a piece of bubblegum that he was not allowed to have in the classroom to begin with.

  I had developed quite a good eye for spotting moving jaws amongst my kids since that incident. Bubblegum might as well have been cocaine in my opinion, because it would most definitely be treated as such were I to “fail” again and let such contraband infiltrate my classroom. I had earned an official warning for it from Principal Sanders, and we were only allowed three warnings per school year before being fired became a very viable option.

  I still had seven months to go.

  Felicity and I referred to it as “The Bitch O’Connor Warning” in private. Felicity had been James’ teacher the previous year and had many colorful, descriptive phrases devoted entirely to Mrs. O’Connor. I couldn’t help but agree that the woman deserved every last one.

  I felt a particularly tight squeeze around my middle and knew instantly little Gia Morano was the culprit. Her head full of dark curls pressed into my stomach with genuine seven-year-old affection, and she turned her beautiful little face up to mine with a wide, happy grin and shining chocolate-brown eyes. “I’m going as a panther this year, Miss Greene. My daddy said it might be hard to find a panther costume that didn’t look just like a regular ol’ black cat, but we fooound one and it’s the best costume everrr! Just like a real-life panther! Bye!”

  She skipped out the door, and I felt a wave of tenderness flood my heart. Gia was one of the most precious little girls I had taught to date. Although my teaching career had only spanned exactly three years and counting, I had a gut feeling that you didn’t get a “Gia” in your classroom very often. She was delicate and endearing, intelligent beyond her tiny years, and my absolute favorite student. I would deny it to the staff as though my life depended on it (or more accurately, my career). However, I couldn’t even attempt to pretend it wasn’t true within my own private thoughts and emotions.

  I sat at my desk and closed my eyes. But her father.

  No one knew much about Mr. Morano. Felicity had been Gia’s teacher last year and had not met him even once. The girl’s elderly nanny had always dropped her off – complete with a personal driver and a jet-black Rolls Royce – and always picked her up. If Gia fell ill and needed to go home, the nanny came. If she had a dentist or doctor appointment midday, the nanny came. Even at parent teacher conferences, Gia’s father had not shown his face. Gia’s nanny appeared for him, to fulfill his duty by proxy. Oddly enough, Felicity had told me that at the meeting, the nanny had audio recorded the entire conversation – “with Miss Howard’s express consent”. Felicity had been given the distinct feeling that refusing was not an option, and had conceded without any protest.

  The general impression given by such a request was that Mr. Morano cared very much about his daughter’s educational progression. The complete lack of his presence at the school or any of its functions suggested the opposite.

  I wasn’t bothered by any of that so much as I was by the disturbing rumors surrounding Mr. Morano’s occupation. No one seemed to have any hard evidence to back up their claims, but it swirled around the staff in heated whispers that he was, in fact, involved somehow with the mafia. The rumors went deeper than that though. I had been made aware on more than one occasion that the deceased Mrs. Morano herself had fallen victim to a mafia related altercation. I knew the great liberties with which gossip was generally gifted, especially in this wealthy and slightly vicious community. That aside, Mrs. Morano was very much dead. If her husband’s involvement with crime had been the catalyst to that death, then wasn’t it fair to say Mr. Morano was somewhat to blame? The thought of this man’s activities endangering his wife to the point of her untimely passing haunted me ruthlessly every day when Gia came bubbling through the classroom door. She was so innocent, so friendly, and so perfect.

  How could this man sleep at night? What kind of man would put his own family in such a perilous position?

  This is why he doesn’t show his face here. He knows he is hated.

  I felt unabashedly that he very much deserved to be.

  “Coffee time?” Felicity’s head popped in my door. Her hair seemed to be escaping its clip on one side, and her expression was slightly more frazzled than ordinary; but she was still smiling.

  “It’s definitely coffee time,” I agreed, returning the smile.

  “Coffee time” was not exactly what it appeared to be amongst the two of us. Coffee most certainly was involved, but so were a few swift pours of Bailey’s Irish Crème
, which Felicity kept locked up in her lower-left desk drawer. It was a tradition we had started in college and somehow managed to carry into the present day, although the indulgent aspect of the treat had been downscaled to appropriate, “job-holding-adult" deviancy levels. After a particularly trying day, “coffee time” was the reward for simply still being alive.

  “Fuck yes, it is,” Felicity confirmed, gently plopping down two mugs of steaming brew on my desk and pulling up a chair. She glided into it seamlessly, showing the exact ratio of grace that I felt must balance out my general awkwardness.

  We were opposites in so many ways. Felicity had ebony hair, exotic hazel eyes, and gave the impression of having walked to wherever she was straight from her throne as an Egyptian queen. She had been turning heads since I met her freshman year. I, however, was blonde – yellow blonde – with stereotypical blue eyes and felt about as sexy as Rainbow Brite.

  “Bad day, Fel?” I asked, grinning slightly at the memory of Tyler and his shoes.

  “Ugh. Just a day, you know? Sometimes I really wonder how I ended up surrounded by a bajillion five-year-olds five days a week.” Felicity took a giant swig from her cup.

  “Well,” I paused for dramatic effect, “I do seem to remember someone saying something about ‘Teaching kindergarten has to be the easiest career ever. They’re small, still cute, and you literally only have to be as smart as a first grader for the rest of your life.’” I looked at her, raising my eyebrows and trying not to laugh.

  “Fair enough, Greene,” Felicity granted, rolling her eyes haughtily. “All I know is, I’m never having any.”

  She had been telling me this since sometime mid-sophomore year. That was when she had experienced what she called her “sexual awakening” and had broken away from the very restrictive guidelines of the religion her parents had raised her in since birth. Felicity had started her journey into discovering every aspect of her sexual self then, and she continued the task to this very day. In layman’s terms, she slept with whomever she wanted whenever she wanted, with no intention of ever being in a committed, monogamous relationship.